Sex, Murder, and Adoption: The Wild Trial of the Polo King
It’s a bizarre story, even by Florida standards. After four years, two trials, an adoption, and multiple jury scandals, polo mogul John Goodman was found guilty of manslaughter.
Lannis Waters/AP
If there was one thing that polo magnate John Goodman got right on the night of Feb. 12, 2010, it could be heard in the 911 call that he placed one hour after speeding through a stop sign in his $200,000 Bentley, slamming another car into a canal, and leaving its driver to drown while he fled the scene.
“I’m in big trouble, huh?” Goodman asked the dispatcher, rhetorically, having finally knocked on a stranger’s door to ask for a telephone, which he then used first to call his girlfriend to report that he had “f***ed up” and been in an “end of the world accident.” The 911 call came second.
For Scott Wilson, 23, the end of the world came in a “vegetation and garbage-strewn canal at one o’clock in the morning, choking on filthy water and silt,” assistant state attorney Sherri Collins told jurors at a Palm Beach courthouse, where this afternoon, Goodman was found guilty of DUI manslaughter and vehicular homicide after four hours of deliberations.
