A man who was already serving time in jail found himself in an unbelievable predicament when he discovered his cellmate had previously raped his sister.
In 2017, Shane Goldsby was arrested for his involvement in a police chase that culminated in him crashing the vehicle into another officer’s car, KHQ reported. In the four years since then, the 26-year-old had been moved to several different correctional facilities before he ended up in the Airway Heights Correctional Center in Washington state.
Once there, he ended up sharing a cell with 70-year-old Robert Munger who was in the midst of serving a sentence for multiple sex crimes.
“I was in shock,” Goldsby told the local NBC affiliate about the moment he realized who his new roommate would be. “I was like, ‘what the f—?’… This stuff doesn’t happen. You’re talking the same institution, the same unit, the same pod in the same cell as this dude. That’s like hitting the jackpot in the casino seven times.”
“However, Goldsby claims Lady Luck was not on his side because he never wanted to kill Munger. In fact, he believes he was put in an impossible position by being assigned to the same cell as Goldsby,” the report noted.
“When I showed up in that unit, I walked out of that pod, went to an office and said ‘Hey, I need a new cellie.’ And the correctional officer’s in that office was like, ‘What? No. We didn’t call you,’” he recalled of his attempts to avoid conflict.
“Then I went back to my cell. We got something in there called a button. You hit it if something’s going on. So, I hit that button too and nobody came on that mic at all. So, in my head, I’m not in my head at this point and time. I’m completely feeling like this is what they wanted to happen.”
Goldsby said he had previously had problems with correctional officers at his other facilities which caused him to be transferred multiple times. Then “out of the blue,” he was transferred to Airway Heights Correctional Center with no explanation.
“I was questioning things on what was going on, ‘Why is all this going on?’ But like I said, I gave my life to God in 2019. I quit gangbanging. I was doing good,” he said.
But all that willpower and good behavior were tested around Munger. In addition to raping Goldsby’s sister, who is still a minor, he was serving a 43-year prison sentence for child sex crimes and had a bad habit of bragging about his criminal acts.
In June 2020, Goldsby “hit Munger in the face and head area about 14 times, (stomped) on his head at least four times and (kicked) a couple more times before walking away and being taken into custody by Airway Heights Corrections Guards,” said court documents.
Despite feeling like he had no choice, Goldsby apologized to Munger’s family after the sentencing last week.
“I cannot imagine what it would be like to lose a loved one in this kind of way,” he said in a statement through his lawyer. “To his wife and his whole family I apologize. I am so sorry and I hope you are able to heal from what I caused.”
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