Tim Good: The Unsolved Mystery

37-year-old Timothy Good was a dairy farmer who originally owned and operated a 350~Acre dairy farm in Collinsville, Pennsylvania.

 

One of Timothy's laborers on the farm was a 13-year-old named Gene Kennedy, who grew up in a broken home & Tim became his unofficial guardian. According to Gene, when he first started living with Tim, instead of making it feel like he was just giving him a job and a place to stay, Tim was also teaching him about farm life too. In addition to shelter and a job, Tim would give Gene 50 dollars a week.

 

In 1987 Tim hired Dan Freeman who went by the name "Ben". Within months, Dan and his wife would move into the main house with Tim and Gene.

Gene says "Before you knew it he was just there... Tim hadn't even hinted that he liked Ben. I think in the beginning he didn't."

 

Dan Freeman (Ben) supposed himself a preacher. The segment refers to him as a "self-styled preacher" Tim good who was estranged from his family, turned to Dan for moral guidance.

 

Tim Goods' neighbor, Rose Foreman, remembers the relationship between Tim and Dan saying: "Ben (Dan Freeman) would have a different twist with the way he talked to Tim. Implying that he knew more than what most people did, and that's why Tim looked up to him as being a wise man"

 

Gene Kennedy says "I think it started with Tim thinking he found someone he could trust. Someone that was pretty well educated, more or less stick with him instead of everybody else turning him away. I think that's what Tim wanted and needed."

 

Gene added that soon enough Dan began acting as if he owned the farm. "Once Dan came to the farm, Tim stopped dairy farming. There were no cows, there was no dry stock. Everything was empty."

 

There was one example where Dan attacked Gene because he tried to enter the house. Tim intervened reminding Dan that it was Gene's house as well.

 

A year after Dan came, Tim Good would sell his farm which gave him a little over a million, and settles into a smaller farm in West Virginia. Gene decided that he wanted to stay in Pennsylvania, so it was Dan Freeman and his family who would move with Tim on his new farm. Dan's family consisted of his wife and younger daughter (neither are talked about at all in the segment, however, from the reenactment, the daughter looks to be about 6 or 7) Once in West Virginia, Dan Freeman had begun calling himself "Dave". According to the neighbors, it appeared that Dan owned the farm, and Tim was the employee.

 

George Anderson (Tim Good's Neighbor in West Virginia): "Tim was always out doing work, and Dave (Dan Freeman) would be in the house. It seemed more like Dave was the boss instead of Tim, Even though he was the one that owned it..." Soon, Tim's neighbors stopped seeing him altogether.

 

In Dan Freeman's journals, he detailed a strange role reversal where he and his family were living lavishly upstairs, while Tim stay locked in the basement of his own home. Dan had taken advantage of Tim's religious beliefs and manipulated him into staying in the small dilapidated basement room, while Dan and his family enjoy Tim's 3 large screen TVs, a hot tub, and a wet bar.

 

This is a statement from an officer from the segment: "The diaries were very detailed. He indicated in the diaries what chores Timothy was to perform that day, even implying what Timothy Good was to eat that day if he was allowed to eat that day. Every aspect of Timothy Good's life was controlled by Dave Freeman. Every single day Tim did something that irritated Freeman or disgusted Freeman. Timothy Good couldn't do anything correctly, and everything that he did was a mistake or it wasn't 'God's way' to do it"

 

George Anderson: "When I first met Tim, Tim used to come to my house all the time, we would see each other every day... He was gonna get his farmed cleaned up and do a lot of work to it, but Tim just started to stay away from it."

 

George Anderson would not see Tim Good or Dan Freeman for over a year and assumed they moved away. Then in October of 1994, a taxi drove up the road heading to Tim Good's farm. George says his grandkids spotted the taxi and alerted him that "Dave and Liza" were back. George tells them that he wanted to head up there to talk to Dave because it's been a year since he's seen, Tim.

 

A fallen tree had blocked the road heading to the farm, leaving George to walk the rest of the way on foot. When George reached the farm, Dave notified him that he noticed the farm had been broken into, someone smashed the glass to the back door. According to Dave, he peeked into the back of the house through the glass which was the farthest he went. George then asks where Tim was, to which Dave replies that he has no idea.

 

The same officer quoted above says that he believes Dan Freeman returned house to remove his diaries and was caught off guard by the neighbors who came by asking for Tim Goods'' whereabouts. He also believes the diaries were left there because there wouldn't be a way for him to acquire them without the neighbors taking note of it.

 

Later that day, George Anderson and his nephew gave Dan Freeman and his family a ride to DC. He dropped them off at a service station along the highway and they have not been seen since.

 

Two weeks later in November of 1994, the police were tipped off about the decomposing remains of Tim Good. A man looking to rob it tumbled upon the remains of Good in the basement. Spooked by what he walked into, the man ran out and phoned the police from a payphone telling them they needed to interrogate the address. Once the police came and discovered the body and diaries, they came across grocery receipts implying that Dan and his family lived in the house for almost 7 months after Tim Good's death. Freeman had also stuffed all the vents to the smell from seeping into the home. He and his family left once they ran out of money. The bank account where Tim Good kept the million that he obtained from selling his farm in Pennsylvania now had less than $2.00 in it.

 

Dan's diary clarifies that Tim started interviewing him about money, which the officer thinks is what led Dan to do away with Tim. It was becoming apparent that Dan no longer had control over Tim the way he once had. A postmortem on Good revealed that he was strangled.

 

UD: After this episode aired, a caller who recognized Dan Freeman as 'William David Cooper" an auto mechanic, led the authorities to his location in Sterling, Virginia. Dan Freeman was officially charged with Timothy Good's murder on February 15th, 1996. Then arrested on May 18th, 1996. Detectives think that his real name is 'Winston George Jelks'. Freeman pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was convicted for 10 years and has since been released.

 

Police also believe that Freeman has been killed in the past, two of the victims being his children from a previous marriage.

 

Question # 1: How in the world did Freeman get away with the murder, or at the very least, a thorough inquiry if he is a suspect of killing his own two children? I tried finding information on Dan Freeman, and I find nothing. I did a search for "Winston George Jelks" and came across an obituary for a man who could be him; other than that there isn't any information under his name about crimes. The segment never mentions his age, but this obituary says this George Jelks died at 60 & has extended family on the east coast which includes West Virginia (The second farm location) in the segment the neighbor refers to the Freeman's as "Dan and Liza". I'm not sure if this was her actual name, or if he was informed to refer to her as Liza for her safety. The Wife of George Jelk in the obituary has a different name.

 

Question #2: why the F*** did he plead guilty to manslaughter? Why was he not given first-degree murder? The autopsy shows strangulation, and the diaries along with grocery receipts prove that they lived in that house 7 months after his strangulation. Wouldn't this go way past circumstantial evidence, and be proof of first degree; especially since there wasn't anyone else in the house besides Tim Good and the Freeman's??? If he wrote about Tim questioning him, Then we can conclude that as Tim was becoming more skeptical of Dan, Dan had no choice but to kill him? At this point, Dan had bled Tim dry.

 

Question #3: Why is the wife never mentioned? I don't think for a second she did not know about this. Why isn't she also be charged for aiding and abetting?? If she was being abused by him and feared for her life, I wouldn't be surprised, however, there is zero proof of that. ~~ Now that I think about it, maybe she's never mentioned or shown because she was fearful for her life and the life of her child. The segment aired the day before he was charged, so there is a chance that she was being protected against him. If he was doubted of murdering his kids from another marriage, then it's reasonable that he held her against her will and threatened to not only harm her but their child if she attempted to leave.

 

Question#4: How lonely and how deep was the estrangement Tim had with his family for him to take in a stranger & become manipulated so heavily by religion; that he almost became a slave in his own house? It reminds me of the Jones towns murders a bit & makes my heartbreak for Tim Good every time I think about it. The segment never mentions any family, and all Tim had was his neighbors. The way he took in Gene was so selfless and beautiful. I can't help but feel that if he had family in his life, he would have avoided tragedy.