Let’s remember when right-wing wacko David Lewis Rice murdered Charles Goldmark, and his family, on this day in 1985 (December 24)
By: Chris Burlingame
Tags: Murder, Seattle, Crime, Charles Goldmark, On This Day

Seattle Met magazine called it “one of the most heinous crimes in Seattle history.” It is quite ghastly and horrifying.

In the great article about the case, James Ross Gardner writes:

For more than 30 years, anniversaries have come and gone, essentially unobserved, at least publicly, and the reasons why are bewildering, but not nearly as bewildering as the events that led David Lewis Rice to the Goldmarks’ Madrona home at 7pm, Christmas Eve, 1985. What we know about what happened inside the house during the next several minutes comes from limited forensics and Rice himself. What’s certain is that about half an hour later, guests arrived at the appointed time and knocked on the family’s wreath-adorned door, anticipating what had become a holiday tradition at the Goldmark house, a Swedish Christmas Eve dinner with friends and a gift exchange. The guests rang the doorbell. No answer. And the lights were inexplicably turned off. Concerned, they summoned Jeff Haley, a close family friend and neighbor, who had a key to the home. When Haley entered, a sound he’d heard from outside grew louder: a groan issuing from the second floor. He climbed the stairs and stepped into the master bedroom and beheld a bloodbath. Haley discovered Charles prone on the beige carpet, his hands bound behind him with handcuffs, blood spilling from his head. Annie was also bound with cuffs; she bled from her head and chest. Feet away, the boys, Derek and Colin, also lie bleeding. Annie was pronounced dead at the scene. Colin died four days later. Before Charles passed he hung on, unconscious, for 16 days at Harborview; Derek for an agonizing 37 days. Rice later told police detectives that he arrived at the Goldmarks’ on Christmas Eve posing as a delivery man. Then, brandishing a toy gun, he ushered the family into the master bedroom, subdued them with chloroform, cuffed the parents, and began bludgeoning all four Goldmarks with a clothing iron. With a kitchen knife he stabbed at the cracks he’d made in their skulls, and stabbed Annie in the chest, to finish the job.

At HistoryLink, David Wilma summarizes the case thusly:

On December 24, 1985, right-wing extremist David Lewis Rice brutally murders civil rights attorney Charles Goldmark, his wife, Annie Goldmark, and his two sons, Colin, 10, and Derek, 12, in their Madrona home. Rice believes (mistakenly) that Goldmark is Jewish and a Communist. Rice confesses and will be sentenced to death. His conviction will be overturned in 1997 and he will be sentenced to life imprisonment. Charles Goldmark was a Seattle civil rights attorney. David Rice, a former steel worker from Colorado, joined an extremist group in Washington called the Duck Club. Although the Duck Club was almost defunct, the Seattle chapter still functioned. The group convinced Rice that Charles Goldmark was Jewish and a Communist. (Charles Goldmark’s parents, John and Sally Goldmark, had won a highly publicized libel case in 1964, which they brought after being accused of being Communists.) Rice went to the Goldmark home and handcuffed Charles, his wife Annie, 12-year-old Derek, and 10-year-old Colin. He attacked all four with a knife, killing Annie and Colin. Charles died at the hospital and Derek lingered for 37 days before succumbing. Rice was quickly apprehended after using Goldmark’s credit card and leaving written confessions in public places. He was convicted of aggravated murder at trial, but the conviction was overturned because his defense by attorney Bill Lanning was found to be ineffective. Lanning had allowed the police unlimited access to his client and did not introduce evidence of Rice’s psychotic state. In May 1998, Rice agreed to plead guilty in exchange for avoiding the death penalty. Rice was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.

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