It seems to me many people in Loisville are in wait and see mode. Well I am not. Every day I wonder if someone like Clarence Darrow would ride in to set in motion the finding of innocent in this case. The police and the prosecution obviously did not do their research looking over all that I have read on this case. Otherwise, Joshua Gouker would be awaiting trial and unlike his son, the possiblity of his past criminal history, coupled with the murder itself making him the thirty-eighth person on Kentucky "Club Death Row".
The mistake of the people who charged the boy comes from the way they believed the crooked man and his minions as the Word of the Lord, oblivious to the fact that the victim's mother left the situation and filed a restraining order, the real killer fled the area with his son once he thought the cops were getting too close to implicating him (Gouker) for the killing of Trey Zwicker, and the gullibility of the police in believing in his story about his son.
Let us face the truth. I think Gouker planned the murder of Trey Zwicker to get back at Amanda Campbell and Joshua Young at the same time. He had this planned somehow. The only question is when the murderous plot was planned, who conspired and who benefited.
Let us consider the hitching up with Ms. Campbell was a fake sense of forgiveness. However, Gouker wanted to deceive Amanda into a false sense of that he was sorry he was angry at her for those two terminated pregnancies. Remember she had Trey with another man, This also is why Trey was marked for death by Josh Gouker. Gouker was one fengeful man.
One other fact overlooked is Josh Young himself. He was Gouker's biggest mistake in his life. Gouker was only sixteen when the boy was born to him with Ms. Young, who obviously was underage herself. Peering into this one event in 1996, Gouker's world snowballed into delinquint misbehavior with girls and young women, along with some other petty stuff. Then the booze and the drugs hit. This triple wammy finally lands Gouker in jail in 2001 or 2002 for a violent assult and meyhem that started outside a local bar in Louisville. Then He is thrown in prison for most of that decade.
One questions how long the assorted violent actions in the early 2000's affected Gouker's psychological makeup. I also wonder what the original sentence was and how he did with the guards and other inmates when he was locked up. These records would be a valuable gold mine that can be used against Gouker and the prosecution at Young's trial this fall.
Gouker's contact with family while behind bars must also been accessed. How many times did he see his son during all that time he was locked up? What was his current relationship with Amanda, Ms. Young and his mother? What about any other woman he may have seen, family or girlfriends. Did he keep any personal coorespondence with all of the above?
Was the prison time continueous from 2002 until 2010? One would wonder how, where and when Gouker would thirst for freedom. If his gang leadership continued during or after his release on parole is also to be asked.
Because he was the father is not a good-enough excuse to grant anyone custody of a child or teenager when a father (or mother) has a violent criminal past. This is even more problematic if that criminal past includes violence against relatives and intimate partners. This did not trouble Gouker in the slightest. He had deception on his side.
Gouker created this faux forgiveness with Amanda Campbell shortly before he was granted parole in late September of 2010. Once he was out, he hardly waited for the ink to dry on his parole papers when he hooked up with Campbell, her son and daughter, and his cousin and her lover, who lived down the street in the urban neighborhood, just southeast of the Louisville Airport, He had the facade in place to petition the family court in Jefferson County to get his son out of foster care.
Josh Young was not having a good year in 2010. His mom killed herself back in April. He and her then boyfriend found her body. Back into the system he was in and out of since he was an infant! Though the latest placement was promising. He got along wonderfully with the fosters and was earning good marks in High School at Fern Creek, located in the fringes of Jefferson County. Then came the news that scoundel dad of his, Josh Gouker, was out of prison on parole, had Amanda and her kids and now wanted him. One would think what he thought of this placement and if he wanted to be with his dad, even though he was oblivious to his plot to frame him.
In March of 2011, the court blindly gave Josh over to the psycho, Josh Gouker, without thinking they were setting up the stage for Gouker's plot. Gouker did not want his son to be uncomfortable. Though the missing of days of school after the placement was sign number one that Gouker was desparate to delinquintize his son. The women, the drugs and the booze was not enough. Then his murderous desires against the woman and her family kicked in. The night he planned it, May 10, 2011 would be such a night.
Everything was good that night, except that Gouker was like a firecracker about to go off. It all started when Trey Zwicker was caught by Gouker trying to sneak out of the house to hang out with his delinquint friends. Gouker allowed him to exit the house and he and Amanda followed him or chased him. The couple caught up with Trey ouside of Liberty High School, an alternative school for troubled youth where Trey that evening had been out in a wooded area and encountered a huge snapping turtle with Young and neighborhood kids. The parking lot near this small area of woods and creekland was abandoned at that time of night. So it was just the adults and the boy. They comfronted Trey. One thing led to another. Angry words and then blows from both Gouker and the boy. Gouker's brute strength and blows to the head and other parts of his body was too much for the boy to take. Gouker pummeled the boy to death and dumped his body near the creekbed. One wonders if he beat the boy to death with his bare hands and/or a blunt obect which he took with him. Trey died in that wooded area, where the dying boy was dumped after the attack that started in the parking lot.
Gouker then drags Amanda away, obviously in shock at seeing her only son beaten to death by the man she loved. He takes her to his cousin Cassie's house. He had been plotting revenge for some time. Cassie loved Gouker enough to lie for him. (One wonders if she had romantic overtures with Gouker in her biography.) She and John helped Gouker dispose of their clothing and maybe a murder weapon. Gouker and Amanda then change clothes after washing themselves. They stay there with Cassie that night after that smoke run to the Circle K. Only in the morning after Josh Young left for school did Gouker and Campbell arrive back home that morning to get the little girl off to school oblivious of the happings that night. Then they waited for the news to break of the discovery of Gouker's handiwork.
Then after the bodies were found they would put on an act about the unidentified body being Trey's. This would set in motion obvious suspecion that would soon go away as the clues matching Gouker started to come in place. The survailence tapes at the gas station showed that Gouker and Campbell were wearing the same clothes both times. Gouker's violent record was explained away. The relative ease that Gouker got his son Josh Young was just a stroke of good luck. Then Gouker's anger issues and two pets killed to warn the people to stay quiet.
Then it all snapped with Amanda and the daughter leaving the house. There was the protection order, the fleeing off on that roadtrip, the capture in Alabama and then the lie that jailed his son on a crime that boy did not do. What kind of fool cannot believe a psychopath did this in order to deliver himself an easy parole hearing? He would be free while his son serves his time. I hope it all backfires. I hope the prosecutor and the cops are made fools. And another thing I hope for, that Josh Young is set free and his father arrested for first-degree murder, obstruction of justice, perjury and kidnapping. We hope all that comes true this year. If not, we are living in a backwards country.
