Sasha Krause and Mark Gooch.Photo: San Juan County Sheriff’s Office; Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office/AP/Shutterstock
An Air Force airman has been found guilty in the 2020abduction and murder of a Mennonite Sunday school teacher, whose body was found in a wooded area of Arizona, hundreds of miles away from her home in New Mexico.
Krause was reported missing on Jan. 18 from the Mennonite Community in Farmington, N.M. She mysteriouslyvanished after running an errandat the Farmington Mennonite Church where she was preparing to teach Sunday school, according toAZFamily.com.
No one saw her being abducted or killed.
She had suffered blunt head trauma and was shot in the back of the head. She was found with her wrists bound with duct tape, the court heard, AZFamily reports.
During the time Krause was missing, detectives with the Coconino County Sheriff’s Office used cell phone records and surveillance video to learn Gooch had traveled from Luke Air Force Base, where he lives, to Farmington. He was arrested in April 2020.
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There was no evidence that Krause knew her killer. During the trial, prosecutors said investigators had discovered texts between Gooch and his brother that indicated resentment towards the Mennonite community, which Gooch had grown up in but later rejected, according to AZFamily.
Before her death, Krause taught school for six years at a Mennonite community in Grandview, Texas, before moving to Farmington, where she worked in a publishing ministry.
In addition to murder, Gooch was convicted of a misdemeanor charge of theft.
Gooch now faces life in prison. Sentencing is scheduled for Nov. 24.
source: people.com
