‘Dateline’: Missing Mom Sarah Goode Found Dead In Woods, Killed By Dante Taylor


Dateline NBC will profile the tragic story of Sarah Goode, a Long Island medical technician who vanished after a party and was found dead a week later in the woods. Her killer was an ex-military man named Dante Taylor. The handsome brown-eyed man, who could easily be mistaken for a kind-hearted Marine, was a rapist and killer with a violent personality. On Dateline‘s episode about the case titled “Finding Sarah,” Sarah Goode’s sisters will recount the day their nightmare began and the investigation and search that followed. Today, Dante Taylor is serving time in a New York correctional facility, according to prison records.

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On Dateline: Missing Medical Tech Sarah Goode Is Found Stabbed To Death

The death of Sarah Goode made headlines in June 2014 after she was found dead in Medford, New York, on Long Island. The 21-year-old mother vanished after a party. With news of her missing, family members passed out fliers and began searching for her.

Her family, friends, and residents of the community searched all over for the missing mother. Sarah Goode’s car was eventually found abandoned, not far from her home. Inside of the vehicle, detectives found clumps of hair and blood.

With that grisly scene, detectives knew that it wouldn’t turn out well. Days later, Sarah Goode’s partially decomposed body was spotted in the heavily wooded area.

A Party Leads To Wicked Deeds

What law enforcement investigators needed to do next was to retrace her steps in the days before her murder. They learned that Sarah Goode had attended a party, where she met a man named Dante Taylor, an ex-Marine who had just arrived home from the military. According to people at the party, she met up with Dante Taylor and exchanged communication with him by cell phone. After that, she was never seen alive again.

Prosecutors alleged that Sarah Goode made a deadly mistake that night by meeting up with Dante Taylor. Taylor ended up raping Sarah and beating her so brutally that she was left with metal inside of her skull and 40 stab wounds to the head, chest, and legs. Newsday reported Assistant District Attorney Janet Albertson’s words during her opening statements.

“Clearly, he wanted something from her that she did not want to give up. The evidence will indicate this young lady made a very, very, very foolish decision. It was not only foolish, it was fatal.”

The young mother, who had a 4-year-old daughter, would never see her little girl again. Defense attorneys alleged in court that Sarah Goode had consensual sex with Dante Taylor. However, prosecutors believed that she rejected his sexual advances, leading him to murder her.

According to Newsday, Sarah Goode may have even known him before the party. The article indicates that they had grown up in the same neighborhood. People who knew Dante Taylor say that he could be scary, and that at times he couldn’t control his violent temper. As a youngster, he was known to have bullied at least one person but stopped once he learned that boy’s father had died.

The police gathered enough evidence to charge Dante with the murder. At trial, the judge threw the book at Dante Taylor, who often smiled and looked unconcerned, to life in prison. In an interview with CBS New York, Sarah Goode’s mother says she has no idea how she will explain things to her dead daughter’s surviving child when she is older.

Just before sentencing, it poured down raining outside of the courtroom. But once the life sentence was passed down, the skies suddenly cleared, according to Sarah Goode’s family.

Don’t miss this week’s Dateline NBC. It airs at 9/8 p.m. Central. The murder of Melissa Britt Lewis, a former attorney, was aired on the documentary show last week.

[Featured Image by Tony Dejak/AP Images]

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