Three days after announcing a fundraiser to raise her bail money, a professional tennis umpire accused of bludgeoning her 80-year-old husband to death with a coffee mug walked out of jail after posting bail on Sunday.
Lois Goodman's family and friends raised the $40,000 needed to bail her out of jail.
Goodman, 70, faces a murder charge in the death of her husband, Alan Goodman, whose bloodied body was found in their Woodland Hills home in April.
A website and a Facebook page were set up to raise funds. Friends of Goodman in the tennis community offered to put up their homes as collateral, said a second Goodman attorney Alison Triessl.
Goodman was in custody for 13 days, her attorney said.
Prosecutors accuse Goodman of stabbing her husband 10 times, using a mug as an improvised knife.
Goodman’s attorneys claim the police botched the investigation and argued that Goodman was not physically capable of committing the murder.
The case began when Goodman called 911 on April 17 and told authorities that she found a trail of blood leading to the body of her husband. Authorities discovered Alan Goodman’s body in a blood soaked bed and a broken and bloodied coffee mug in the Woodland Hills home, police said.
Officers ruled the death suspicious, because they initially couldn’t determine if foul play was involved, according to an LAPD press release.
But after launching a full homicide investigation and working closely with the L.A. County Coroner’s Office, detectives determined on Aug. 2 that Alan Goodman was killed and they named his wife as the prime suspect, the LAPD said.
A warrant was issued for Lois Goodman’s arrest on Aug. 14. She was arrested seven days later in New York where she was officiating tennis matches at the U.S. Open, police said.
Goodman, who has pleaded not guilty to a murder charge, is scheduled to appear in court on Oct. 3.
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