Youth pastor pleads guilty to murdering wife

Wednesday, October 18th 2006, 12:41 pm

By: News On 6

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) _ A youth minister who confessed to killing his wife and burying her body in the woods amid wild boar carcasses, pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to life in prison.

Eric Brian Golden, 36, entered the plea Tuesday in the death of DeeDee Marie Golden, who had been his high school sweetheart.

Superior Court Chief Judge Perry Brannen Jr. imposed the only sentence available under the law. The plea agreement with the Chatham County District Attorney's Office dropped a concealment of death charge.

Police said Golden attacked his wife in a rage at their Berwick Plantation home the night of November 17, 2005. A year earlier, Golden had been arrested after offering an undercover detective $20 for oral sex at a Savannah motel. Police later found pornographic photos on his home computer.

``They had their good times and their bad times, like any other marriage. But he had this perversion with sex,'' said the victim's father, Robert McKie. ``It wasn't good, and DeeDee was just trying to follow the way of the Bible.''

Golden, a former Army sergeant, confessed to his brother-in-law three days later, then drove to the Chatham County jail and handed a confession letter to deputies.

He was a youth minister at the Southside Assembly of God, a Pentecostal church.