By Linda Cicoira — Her three children were in danger last August when her sister’s boyfriend pushed his way into her home, wreaking havoc that included breaking her newborn’s bed, which caused the baby to “hit the floor and roll,” a county woman testified in Accomack General District Court Monday.
The accusations were made by Heather Corbin, who said she lived on Ole Road, in Melfa, when the incidents occurred, but has since moved because she couldn’t afford to pay for all the damages caused by Dustin Earl Godwin, 31, of Allen Lane in Onancock.
Substitute Judge Robert MacDonald found probable cause to certify a felony count of burglary and a misdemeanor charge of destruction of property to a grand jury. The latter charge was reduced from a felony because values of the property were not established, the judge explained.
Corbin said she opened her door because someone knocked and she heard her sister, Jessica, talking outside. She had already put her children to bed and did not know others were with her sister when she answered the door on Aug. 2, 2018, she said.
Godwin hit her in the shoulder with the door as he made his way inside, he fought with her, and then he fought with a friend who had stopped by to check on the family, Corbin continued. Her sister, and two people she could not identify, also came into her house.
“In the beginning, I told him to get out,” Corbin said. “He was screaming at me. My kids were not safe the way he came in the house. I asked everyone to leave. There were so many people in the house and then the lights got turned off.”
Corbin said her daughter “had a cigarette flicked on her.” She did not say who did that.
Corbin said when Godwin was leaving her home he smashed the screen of her TV, broke windows, tried to break other windows, yanked her air conditioner from her window, and broke the windshield of her husband’s vehicle. During the “struggles,” she said, a rocker, “pictures off my wall,” and a child’s car seat were damaged.
“I never owed him any money,” she told the defense lawyer, who had asked about a $150 debt to Godwin. “I just came home from having a baby.” She said her husband, Jarrell Corbin, was incarcerated when the incident occurred.
Godwin did not testify and will have a chance to tell his side of the story at trial.
A county deputy testified that he saw damages to her property and that she had told him they occurred when Godwin and her friend, Charles Chandler Drummond, fought. Corbin said Drummond and Jenna Parks, Drummond’s girlfriend, had been helping her by taking her to the store, visiting, and checking on her.
