Body identified as missing Okemah woman

Sunday, December 28th 2003, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

HOLDENVILLE, Okla. (AP) -- The body of a pregnant woman found with her stomach cut open and a fetus removed from her womb has been identified as a missing Okemah resident, officials confirmed Saturday.

A hunter discovered Carolyn Simpson, 21, in a field near Lamar in Hughes County Friday morning.

Simpson, who was six months pregnant, had a small-caliber bullet wound to the head, said Tommy Graham, an Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation regional inspector.

She was last seen Monday night at a Creek Nation casino where she worked in Okemah.

Effie Goodson remained in custody at the Hughes County jail Saturday as a material witness in connection with Simpson's disappearance.

Goodson, 37, brought a dead fetus that had reached six months' gestation to a Holdenville hospital early Tuesday and said she was the mother.

After she was was tranferred to a Tulsa hospital, medical personnel determined she couldn't have given birth to the fetus.

Graham would not say whether Goodson would now be held on a murder complaint.

"I'm sure that she'll probably be charged next week," he said. "It'll be up to the district attorney what to do, if anything."

Officials don't know yet if the fetus Goodson brought to the hospital was Simpson's, Graham said.

Test results on the fetus won't be available until later, he said.