Newly released records say the accused man shot his father and stepfather after a chaotic confrontation at home.
NEW ALBANY, Ind. — The first court hearing for Easton Goode, the 23-year-old charged in the fatal shootings of his father and stepfather in Greenville, centered on his condition as defense lawyers sought a mental health evaluation while newly released records described the violence that led to two deaths.
By the time Goode appeared before a judge, investigators had already assembled a witness account that turned an early-morning family crisis into a murder case. Prosecutors are pursuing two murder counts and two criminal recklessness counts in the deaths of Kelly Goode, 55, and Bradley Butler, 53. The immediate stakes are both legal and factual: whether the state can prove the killings as charged, and how the defense frames Goode’s physical and mental condition as the case advances.
At Friday’s hearing, defense attorney Evan Bardach asked for a mental health evaluation and a medical referral, saying Goode showed apparent injuries and should be fully assessed before the case moved deeper into the system. Local reporting said Bardach told the judge, “I am not a doctor,” before adding that a complete evaluation was needed. Separate reporting from WDRB, republished elsewhere, said Bardach also told the court that “given the circumstances,” such a review was appropriate. The hearing did not resolve the charges, but it shifted public attention from the house on Georgetown-Greenville Road to the questions that will shape pretrial litigation.
The affidavit behind the charges traces the case back to about 4:45 a.m. at the home where Goode’s mother lived with Butler. She told investigators she found her son vomiting on the floor of a bedroom. Butler helped move him onto a bed. Soon after, according to the filing, Goode came downstairs and turned verbally aggressive. He and Butler fought, then briefly calmed down, hugging and apologizing. The pause did not last. After time in a hallway bathroom, Goode came out partly undressed and covered in feces, the affidavit says, and another fight broke out. Butler restrained him in a bear hug and held him in the bedroom until he stopped resisting.
That sequence became central because it explains why Kelly Goode was called to the house at all. The mother told police she phoned her ex-husband and asked him to come help take their son away so he could sober up elsewhere. Kelly Goode brought a friend and roommate. Investigators wrote that Easton Goode then emerged from the bedroom, told the others to be quiet and stood in the hallway with one hand near his side. His mother realized he was armed. She told police she believed Butler’s .40-caliber Taurus pistol had been secured in a small safe. Instead, the affidavit says, Easton Goode shot Kelly Goode first and then shot Butler. Both men died at the scene.
Police records and local news reports filled in the official response after the shots. The Floyd County Sheriff’s Office said deputies were called at about 5:45 a.m. to the 6700 block of Georgetown-Greenville Road. Officers arrived believing the suspect was still armed inside the home. The affidavit says commands to surrender brought no response. Officers later saw him running naked through the house at 6:35 a.m. At 6:42 a.m., police breached the rear door, used a flash-bang and took him into custody. Investigators wrote that Goode admitted shooting both men. The mother also showed detectives a shirt with what they described as a bullet hole, a detail that helped support the recklessness allegations.
As the homicide case opened, older court history also resurfaced. Reporting on the hearing noted a 2023 felony battery case in which Goode pleaded guilty after court records said he punched an autistic friend and fractured the man’s jaw in five places, injuries that required surgery and wiring the jaw shut. That prior matter is legally separate from the current charges, but it gives prosecutors and the public a broader picture of his earlier contact with the criminal system. It also adds weight to the defense push for evaluation, even though no public court filing in the homicide case has yet explained what role, if any, mental illness or intoxication may play in strategy.
For now, some of the biggest questions remain unanswered. Authorities have not publicly described any forensic testing results, whether toxicology reports exist, or how the gun was accessed if it had been locked away. The probable cause filing is built mainly on the mother’s account, the surviving friend’s presence, the physical scene and what police say was Goode’s own admission. The next phase will test how those pieces hold up in court, whether additional records become public and whether any competency or mental health findings alter the schedule.
The case was headed to further court review in Floyd County, with a pretrial conference set for April 16 and a jury trial scheduled for July 20. Until then, the public record remains a mix of witness statements, early motions and a family tragedy now defined by criminal charges.
Author note: Last updated April 6, 2026.