By Charlotte Aguilar
Dror Haim Goldberg has been denied parole for the 1998 Weslayan Plaza “wig shop murder” and won’t get another shot at lessening his 45-year sentence until October 2028, Andy Kahan of Crimestoppers of Houston confirmed Friday (Oct. 27).
Goldberg, 44, was convicted by a Harris County jury in 2000 of slashing the throat of Manuela Silverio, 54, in a sudden, savage daytime knife attack on Nov. 27, 1998 at the Wigs by Andre shop at the West U-Bellaire-adjacent shopping center.
Silverio’s daughters, Yvonne Palmer and Yvette Menendez had appeared before a parole commissioner Wednesday in Angleton, where Goldberg is serving his sentence, to give victims’ statements against his release after serving only half his sentence.
Palmer said they’d been told the decision wouldn’t be made until sometime in November, so she was stunned to receive a text from the Texas Department of Corrections Friday morning announcing the denial.
“We were heard — the justice system heard us,” she said. “It’s been eight long months since we first learned about his parole hearing, and I’m kind of numb right now. We’re so relieved — we can breathe for another five years.”
For a quarter-century now, victim rights advocate Kahan has been supportive of Silverio’s survivors and the couple, wig shop owners Roberta and Roland Ingrando, who were also injured in the attack. Roberta was stabbed 14 times in the attack and survived massive internal injuries. Kahan accompanied Palmer and Menendez to Angleton.
“Dror Goldberg deprived Manuela Silverio of her life,” he said Friday. “All we asked was for the Parole Board to deprive him of his liberty and to give him the maximum five-year set-off as prescribed by statute.
“I’m ecstatic for Yvonne and Yvette and so many others who worked tirelessly for 8 months to ensure that Goldberg remains where he belongs: Prison. We will be back in 2028 to ensure the fight to make sure one of Houston’s most notorious killers doesn’t breathe free air for as long as the law allows.
“We would like to thank the Parole Bosrd for listening to the concerns of Yvonne, Yvette and hundreds of others before making what we believe was the right decision”
Goldberg was 19 and a resident of Bellaire at the time of the killing. The son of a divorced doctor-father and attorney-mother, he had been in trouble as a juvenile, and a Houston ISD policewoman told of his writings she had found when he was a Bellaire HS student that were “a blueprint” for how he later attacked Roberta Ingrando.
More about the case, tracking down of Goldberg and trial — where he was represented by celebrated criminal defense attorney Dick DeGuerin — can be read here and it will be the subject Nov. 25 of an episode of “Prosecuting Evil,” a new Oxygen Channel true-crime broadcast by Kelly Sigler, former Harris County assistant district attorney who tried the case. The series is executive produced by Dick Wolf, the creator of the Law & Order TV crime series franchise.
Palmer returned to her home out-of-state on Friday morning, but not before visiting her mother’s grave Thursday. “I was bawling my eyes out, but I let her know we did everything we could to make sure he will still pay for what he did.”
Facebook Comments