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Man Found Guilty of Killing Eddy Curry's Ex and Baby

By Erin Meyer | February 12, 2013 7:18pm | Updated on February 12, 2013 8:20pm
 Eddy Curry, a Harvey native and professional basketball player.
Eddy Curry, a Harvey native and professional basketball player.
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COOK COUNTY CRIMINAL COURTHOUSE — A Chicago attorney accused of slaying former Chicago Bull Eddy Curry's ex-girlfriend and baby in 2009 didn't flinch when a jury found him guilty of two counts of first-degree murder Tuesday night.

The jury listened this week and last to prosecutors from the Cook County State's Attorney's Office argue that Frederick Goings, portrayed as a "greedy lawyer" and abusive lover, murdered 10-month-old Ava Henry-Curry, daughter of the basketball star, and her mother, Nova Henry, on Jan. 24, 2009, the alleged killer's birthday.

"Justice was served for Nova, Ava and Nova's surviving son, Noah," said Yolan Henry, Nova's mother, who discovered the bodies of her daughter and granddaughter in a pool of their own blood after the murders. "Justice was served for all the people who may never find justice."

Goings will serve life in prison, according to Cook County Assistance State's Attorney's Jim McKay, the prosecution's lead attorney.

"Finally it's over," McKay of the case, which had been pending for four years.

Goings allegedly left Curry and Nova Henry's other child Noah unharmed, and the boy later told his grandmother that Goings was the killer, according to Yolan Henry's testimony. 

Attorneys representing Goings did not comment following the guilty verdict. However, throughout the course of the trial, they argued that the evidence against Goings was circumstantial.

Prosecutors argued that Goings, now 40, had "dollar signs in his eyes" in 2006 when he met Henry, who wanted to take the millionaire Curry, a Harvey native with whom she had two children, to court in a paternity case.

Goings agreed to take the case, and the two also got involved in what would be a volatile "on-again, off-again" romantic relationship, prosecutors said. But on Goings' birthday, Jan. 24, 2009, he went to Henry's townhome where he allegedly discovered Henry and a new lawyer she had hired were contesting $24,000 Goings had billed her.

Goings shot Henry and Ava multiple times and left them to die in a "pool of their own blood" before driving his black SUV to Michigan City, Ind., prosecutors said, where he rented a room at the Comfort Inn, prosecutors said. Police followed him, they said, and watched from a distance as he walked into the woods and then the hotel pool "without his bathing suit" to wash himself before police arrested him and charged him with the murders.

"We are very thankful to the jury for working very hard and considering all of the evidence ... and for giving justice to the family and friends of Nova Henry and Ava Curry," McKay said.