BY MIKE FUHRMAN
The N.C. Parole Commission is again considering releasing the man who fatally stabbed Mooresville resident Kim Goodman at her home on July 11, 1983.
Brett A. Abrams, 55, was sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of second-degree murder in May of 1984. Although he was 14 years old at the time he committed the heinous crime, he was prosecuted and sentenced as an adult.
The Parole Commission notified Goodman’s family on April 15 that Abrams’ most recent bid for parole, which had been pending since May of 2022, had been denied.
However, commissioners began a new review of Abrams’ case last month. There is no timetable for a decision.
Peggy Goodman-Riley, Kim’s mother, said waiting 23 months for the Parole Commission’s April ruling was “challenging” for her family.
“We now wait for the Commission’s decision on the current review … and we continue our objective of fighting any possibility of parole for Abrams,” she said.
A South Iredell High School graduate, Kim was engaged to be married and hoped to be a dance teacher after finishing college.
Abrams, who stabbed Kim 17 times while she was sunbathing in her backyard in the Brookview community, has been up for parole numerous times since 1993.
In their ongoing opposition to his parole, Goodman-Riley and other family members have argued that Abrams will be a danger to the community if he is released.
Over the years, more than 100,000 people have signed petitions opposing his parole. Scores of Iredell County residents have also written letters to the Parole Commission urging them to keep Abrams locked up.
Abrams is currently serving his sentence at Orange Correctional Center in Hillsborough, a minimum-security prison. He has been granted work release.
I feel like if he was granted work release, that says a lot because he will be working out in society. Prison does change a person if they thrive and want it.
Even though he was wrong for murdering that young lady and my heart goes out to her family, I kind of think he deserves a second chance being that he was only 14 when it happened. He has been locked up for 41 years. That’s a long time for any crime.
I agree whole heartedly.
Not when her “sentence ” was a lifetime.
What about Kim, the girl he killed? Does she get the rest of her life back to live the way she wants? Second chances many times end more people’s lives. He should spend the rest of his life in prison since he took a life. Eye for an eye.
As a life long Mooresville resident and familiar with the details of the heinous attack on Kim Goodman, the seventeen body stabbings, I disagree that Brett Abrams has changed. Prison can change some people but not those with deep dark psychological problems. At the age of 14 years, this young man was not only responsible for the deliberate killing of Kim Goodman but for peeking into windows at her home. He was also a suspect in the deliberate trapping of his younger brother inside a recreational travel camper and setting it on fire, killing his younger brother. Brett Abrams has displayed psychopathic and sociopathic personalities. There are no medications to treat these disorders. If released from prison, he will destroy another life. Locked down in prison with supervision on work release is his best case scenario and the safest option for society. Taxpayer money is well spent in keeping Brett Abrams under 24-hour supervision.
I agree I remember it well. My son knew his little brother. The teachers at school all said Brett was mean to little brother. He was only one who could’ve burned that little boy to death in that trailer in the back yard. This killer cannot be rehabbed.
He also killed the Abrams’ biological son by locking him in an RV and setting it on fire before he murdered Kim.
As a teacher, I personally witnessed this student’s rage and hatred for women and Black people. I don’t think that he should be allowed to have an opportunity to do anything like this again. It was rumored that he locked his young brother in a camper where he burned to death!
Are you aware he was also suspected of killing his little brother in a camper fire? There’s more to Kim’s murder than just being stabbed to death too. He took away her chance at living a full life. He doesn’t deserve freedom.
He lost his worth as a human being when he took this young woman’s life. No parole ever; he won’t fit into society at this point and time. My prayers to Kim’s family.
I have not researched this tragic and violent criminal and deceased victim and family case. The sentence was life in prison. Unless there is some new evidence that supports his release after 41 years in prison or the prison system rehabilitation system has perfected the transformation of teen murderer to a sane law-abiding and loving human and citizen, then this now adult has to live with consequences of his actions and guilty verdict.