A Houston man was sentenced this week to 45 years in prison for murdering a teenage prostitute in 2022.
Henry David Cossette was convicted of murder during a two-day bench trial and sentenced by a judge late Wednesday for strangling Sara Ann Goodwin, of Spring, on Feb. 6, 2022.
Cossette picked up Goodwin on Houston’s infamous Bissonnet Track and took her to his Alief-area apartment. Cossette, who is 6 feet tall and weighs 180 pounds, attacked the 100-pound woman, who was 5 feet 5 inches tall. He ended up on top of her and strangled her.
Cossette then went to a grocery store and bought black trash bags. When he returned home, he dismembered Goodwin’s body in the bathtub and put separate parts in different black garbage bags to dispose of them. He then dumped the bags in a rural area off Beltway 8, about 13 miles from his home.
Cossette set a charcoal fire in his third-floor apartment to try to kill himself. The smoke led neighbors to call 911and first responders with the Houston Fire Department and the Houston Police Department arrived to put out the smoldering fire and investigate.
He told the emergency responders that he was trying to kill himself because he had murdered a woman. He also told them where he dumped the trash bags, and Goodwin’s remains were recovered.
“This young woman, who had her whole life ahead of her, was brutally murdered for no reason by a man who then tried to cover it all up,” Ogg said. “And then he selfishly put everyone in his apartment complex at risk by starting a fire that could have killed others instead of taking responsibility for his acts.”