The man who killed a San Francisco preschooler, in what the city’s medical examiner described as the worst case of child abuse he had ever seen, has won parole despite assurances given at the time of his sentencing that he would spend the rest of his life behind bars.
Patrick Goodman murdered his girlfriend’s three-year-old son, Elijah Sanderson, on December 6, 2000 at their Ingleside home. The autopsy report detailed injuries ranging from a broken neck and broken ribs to a severed bowel and a severed renal artery. 50 separate external injuries were also noted.
Convicted of murder and child abuse in 2002 he was sentenced at San Francisco Superior Court to a term of 25 years to life in prison. His release was approved by the state Board of Parole Hearings on December 14 2023.
A newly-released transcript of that hearing shows the decision was made over the objections of a representative of San Francisco District Attorney’s office who asked for parole to be denied for at least three more years.
“His murder robbed a baby child of a fourth birthday,” said assistant district attorney Victoria Murray-Baldocchi. “Learning how to shave, his first kiss, of going to college, of making cards for his mother on Mother’s Day, celebrating his siblings’ birthdays.”
“I suggest he is still in denial as to how brutal his murder was of this tiny little innocent human.”
Her plea fell on deaf ears as Presiding Commissioner Michele Minor and Deputy Commissioner Dan Blake granted Goodman parole at the end of the two-and-a-half hour hearing.
“We find that that Mr Goodman does not currently pose an unreasonable risk to public safety and is therefore suitable for parole,” said Minor.
During the hearing Goodman admitted that he killed the boy in a rage because he had let the family dog into the house. He also admitted lying in court when he accused Elijah’s mother of murdering her own child (“I was just trying to get the attention off of me”).
Unless Governor Gavin Newsom intervenes, Miller will leave state prison when the Board’s ‘decision review unit’ completes a mandatory check for legal or factual errors in its determination. The Governor may modify or reverse parole decisions in murder cases.
Elijah Sanderson lived and died in a house on Plymouth Avenue in San Francisco’s Ingleside district. His mother Cheryl and four of her other children, one of whom was an infant daughter she had with Goodman, stayed at the home. Goodman himself began living under the same roof in July 2000.
Cheryl Sanderson said that Elijah had been ill the night before he died but that he seemed better.
The trial court heard that Sanderson left the house at 8:02am to drive her three children to their schools. She then picked up food stamps, which she signed for at 9:13am, before arriving back at home at 9:30am to the sight of police and other emergency vehicles outside.
Her son had been pronounced dead at 9:05am.
The court was told that Goodman first called Elijah’s grandmother who told him to call 911. He did not call 911 but the grandmother evidently did as the court heard paramedics called him and gave him instructions on how to perform CPR until help arrived at the scene.
The 26-page autopsy report painstakingly detailed the horrifying damage to the victim’s body – damage which the Chief Medical Examiner at the time, Dr Boyd Stephens, opined “were caused by the child being held by his right wrist and swung violently against a wall or other solid object.”
The 50 separately-enumerated external wounds noted by the report resulted in catastrophic internal bleeding and rupture across the spleen, pancreas, bowel, kidneys and diaphragm. His liver was pulverized. They also caused muscular-skeletal injuries including a broken neck and broken ribs.
Stephens was of the view that Elijah’s murder represented the worst case of child abuse he had ever seen, according to a report in the San Francisco Chronicle.
Goodman’s case at trial was that Sanderson must have killed Elijah, unbeknownst to him, in a short window of time after she put the three children in the car when she went back inside the house. The children in the car would later say their mom acted normally when she got back into the vehicle.
After Goodman’s arrest Elijah’s mother wrote letters to him in prison where she said that Elijah was fine when she left the house. “How did he get that way when he didn’t have a mark on him when I left?” she asked him in a letter – one of several inquiries she made of him. He never responded to these questions.
At the culmination of his trial in July 2002, and his receiving a 25-years-to-life sentence, prosecutor Bob Gordon said in an interview that Goodman would spend the rest of his life in prison.
Goodman had previously pleaded guilty in January 1998 to ‘hit and run’ resulting in injury to a man and was sentenced to two years in prison.
At a parole hearing on December 14 2023 Goodman was asked what caused him to commit the murder. “I was just under a lot of stress,” he replied. He explained that his rage was provoked by nothing more than the child letting the family dog into the house without permission.
He also admitted lying in court when he accused Elijah’s mother of murdering her own child (“I was just trying to get the attention off of me”).
Goodman told commissioners that he hit Elijah “with an open palm” and then “before I realized it, yeah, I was hitting him with a fist” – an explanation at odds with the opinion of the medical examiner who testified that “the injuries were caused by the child being held by his right wrist and swung violently against a wall or other solid objects.”
“I hope that one day I will be able to show Elijah’s family, society, and everyone who got caught in the ripple effect of my actions, that I’m no longer the monster that I used to be,” he said.
Although passing reference was made at the hearing to correspondence received from family members, no family member of Elijah was present. A representative of the San Francisco District Attorney’s office reminded parole commissioners of the victim and cast doubt on Goodman’s professed rehabilitation.
“His murder robbed a baby child of a fourth birthday,” said assistant district attorney Victoria Murray-Baldocchi. “Learning how to shave, his first kiss, of going to college, of making cards for his mother on Mother’s Day, celebrating his siblings’ birthdays.”
“[Goodman’s] murderous brutal response is so disproportionate: a three-year-old messing up and letting the dog in the room resulting in the severing of an aorta…pulverizing a liver? This was not just a beating, a hand slap or a spank, as he initially talked about. This was so cruel. I cannot imagine the last conscious moments of Elijah’s life: fear, pain…complete fear.”
“I suggest he is still in denial as to how brutal his murder was of this tiny little innocent human.”
The contention that there were “gaps” in Goodman’s self-awareness – detailed in a psychologist’s report – was described by Murray-Baldocchi as “the understatement of the year.”
“I was very surprised of the finding of ‘low risk’ which seems to be based on the fact that the inmate has maintained himself, if you will, in a controlled environment in state prison. But, in fact, when he was on probation and parole before the murder that got him in prison…he was not doing well and was in constant violation out in the community. So he’s had poor performance on probation and parole. He has been diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder – as we know this is a pervasive diagnosis.”
Murray-Baldocchi said it was appropriate for parole to be denied for at least a period of more than three years.
After deliberating for 15 minutes, Commissioner Michele Minor announced that Goodman would be freed.
“We find that that Mr Goodman does not currently pose an unreasonable risk to public safety and is therefore suitable for parole.”
Minor pointed to Goodman’s trouble-free time in prison, the classes he had taken and his having taken “full responsibility” for his conduct. She also noted that a doctor had rated him as at “low risk” of violence if he were to be released and that his current age, 49, and the various ailments from which he suffers, made it less likely, as she saw it, that he would reoffend.
“I think you did talk about that…you know, a different way, that you absolutely have understanding of what parenting is and that you can do parenting in a different way and discipline isn’t always about hitting, discipline is about correcting and coaching like we had talked about before,” she said.
The board had previously heard that Goodman plans to return to San Francisco.
At Goodman’s first ‘parole suitability hearing’ on May 13 2022 he was denied parole and forbidden to reapply for three years. Only one year later, though, an ‘administrative review’ brought forward his next parole hearing date to December 14 2023 at which he was granted parole.
Goodman remains imprisoned at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton awaiting a mandatory review of his parole decision by the Board’s ‘decision review unit’ – which checks all grants of parole for legal and factual accuracy – that must be completed by April 12 2024.
After that check, unless Governor Newsom exercises the authority he enjoys in cases of murder to modify or reverse parole decisions, he will be freed.
In 2022 Governor Newsom reversed decisions by the Board of Parole Hearings to parole murderers on 21 occasions. That year the Board held 4,445 hearings statewide, granting parole in 1,259 cases.
To be notified when new stories are published, please enter your email address below or follow us on X.