Youth pastor pleads guilty in wife's death, gets life sentence

<p>A Savannah youth pastor who confessed to killing his wife and burying her body in a muddy, shallow grave, has been sentenced to life in prison.</p><p>Eric Brian Golden pleaded guilty Tuesday to murdering DeeDee Marie Golden.</p><p>Superior Court Chief Judge Perry Brannen Jr. imposed the only sentence available under the law. The plea agreement with the Chatham County District Attorney's Office dropped a concealment of death charge.</p><p>Police say the couple, high school sweethearts married at age 18, had been having problems when Golden attacked his wife in a rage at their Berwick Plantation home on the night of Nov. 17, 2005.</p><p>A year earlier, Golden had been arrested after offering an undercover detective $20 for oral sex at a Savannah motel. Police later found pornographic photos on his home computer.</p><p>"They had their good times and their bad times, like any other marriage. But he had this perversion with sex," said the victim's father, Robert McKie. "It wasn't good, and DeeDee was just trying to follow the way of the Bible."</p><p>DeeDee Marie Golden, 35, demanded that her husband attend counseling, and she talked about divorce.</p><p>Eric Brian Golden, 36, feared he would lose his job as youth minister at the Southside Assembly of God, a Pentecostal church that requires its ministers to remain married.</p><p>The former U.S. Army sergeant, who stood a foot taller than his wife, attacked and killed her, court records showed. Police said Golden then drove his wife's body onto Fort Stewart property, walked half a mile off the highway into the woods and buried her in a 3-foot-deep hole amid wild boar carcasses.</p><p>Three days later, Golden confessed to his brother-in-law. He then drove himself to the Chatham County jail and handed a confession letter to deputies on his way in.</p><p>Golden hung his head during Tuesday's hearing, and he offered no words to his family or to members of his wife's family, who filled the courtroom.</p><p>___</p><p>HASH(0x1cdc0d0)</p>