Charlie Sigmin thought the third time was the charm. After two failed marriages, the thirty-nine-year-old Blytheville, Arkansas, man believed he had found the love of his life. He shared many interests with his attractive new bride, Ann, and her two young sons adored him. Charlie reciprocated the warmth, loving the boys as if they were his own.

The marriage was initially everything Charlie had hoped. For his new family, he bought a nine-acre ranch near Blytheville, only a few miles from the southeast Missouri border.

Within several months, however, Charlie Sigmin was dead, and the woman he wed was charged with his murder.

Charlie Sigmin

Air Force veteran Charlie Sigmin worked as a lineman for the Southwestern Bell Telephone Company. He had an adult daughter, Christie, from one of his previous marriages.

I believe, but am not sure, that this is young Christie in the photo.

Thrice Divorced

Charlie and Ann Mitchum, a thirty-year-old divorced mother of two young boys, married in the spring of 1986, but the relationship was deteriorating by late summer.

Charlie told friends and family he believed Ann was seeing another man, but friends say he was more upset with the ritualistic activities practiced by his new bride.

Ann Sigmin

Charlie told friends and family that he had awakened in the middle of the night to find Ann in the garage engaging in satanic worship. He said he also found a doll with a needle through it in their bedroom. Ann told him it was part of her witchcraft rituals; Charlie told her to get out.

Ann was no longer the woman Charlie had fallen in love with, and he could not take any more of her bizarre behavior. As heartbroken as he was that his third marriage was ending in failure, friends say he was more devastated to see Ann’s children leave, as he was concerned for their well-being. Because he was not their biological father, however, his efforts to gain custody of them would probably have been unsuccessful.

Ann’s children were also upset about moving. Charlie’s friends say the boys were closer to him than to their mother.

Ann’s Eerie Actions

Almost immediately after being kicked out by Charlie, and perhaps even before, Ann began a relationship with a co-worker, forty-three-year-old Garey Goff, a truck driver for the company she worked for in Steele, Missouri. Goff had previously been a police officer. He had grown up in the area and had Charlie since childhood.

Ann and her children moved into Garey’s Caruthersville, Missouri, home, thirty miles northeast of Blytheville, Arkansas.

Garey Goff

While a friend was visiting him on the evening of October 19, 1986, Charlie received a phone call from a distressed Ann. The friend said Charlie told her Ann’s children were crying for him and that Ann was threatening to commit suicide. Although the friend said Charlie was hesitant, he agreed to go to the home. The friend said Charlie had not been drinking that evening and was sober when he left.

At 3:20 a.m. on October 20, a frantic Ann stormed into the Caruthersville police station, saying Charlie had been shot at Goff’s apartment. When police arrived at the residence, paramedics were already there and pronounced Charlie dead. He had been shot seven times: twice on the inside of his upper left thigh, and once each on his upper left scrotum, right jaw, outside right fist, right ear, and in the front of his neck.

Charlie was also soaked in sweat and his clothes were in disarray, as though he had been in a fight. Blood was spattered throughout the house, including on the doors and walls, and two bullet holes were in the walls.

Two guns were found in the home; a .32 revolver was lying on the floor and a .25 caliber pistol lay on top of the television. Both had been fired. Charlie had also been struck on the head with a steam iron, found in the kitchen waste basket.

Charlie is shot to Death

Both Garey Goff and Ann Sigmin claimed self-defense when questioned by police. Each said that Charlie, in a drunken rage, forced himself into the home and began attacking Ann. Interrogated separately, both said Goff, despite having one broken arm in a cast, came to Ann’s aid and fought Charlie, hitting him with the iron and firing all seven shots.

Ann admitted to handling the .25 caliber pistol but insisted she had not fired it. Powder residue tests administered to her proved inconclusive.

A blood test could not be taken to determine if Charlie had been drinking because actions of the paramedics in attempting to revive him prevented the test from being performed. I could not find what, specifically, the actions were. Charlie’s friends say he was not a heavy drinker.

Although most investigators were suspicious of their stories, the police released both Ann Sigimn and Garey Goff that morning.

One of Ann’s friends soon contacted police saying Ann had told her she wanted Charlie dead; the friend suspected the motive was his insurance money. The friend wore a police wire in an attempt to get Ann to say something incriminating. Ann made several statements suggesting she had killed Charlie, but she stopped short of confessing. While being recorded, the friend told Ann she was skeptical of her story. Ann then abruptly ended the conversation.

After listening to the tape, Pemiscot County prosecutors believed they had enough evidence to charge Ann Sigmin and Garey Goff with murder and prepared warrants for their arrests; the couple, however, had already left Caruthersville, leaving Ann’s two young boys behind.

One week later, Goff’s truck was found abandoned 1,500 miles away in Phoenix, Arizona.

Self-Defense?

Gary Hilbrun, one of the patrolman involved in the initial investigation, believes the couple’s claims of self-defense, citing the noticeable bruises to Goff’s back, chest, and face. He also believes the angle of the bullet wounds to Charlie’s body are consistent with someone firing in self-defense. He believes Garey Goff and Ann Sigmin are innocent of murder.

Caruthersville Police Chief Jack Davis and the Pemiscot County Prosecutor Mike Hazel disagree, believing Charlie Sigmin was murdered by his estranged wife and childhood acquaintance.

Caruthersville Police Department Patrolman Gary Hilburn

On May 22, 1989, two-and-a-half years after fleeing, Garey Goff surrendered to the Pemiscot County, Missouri, Sheriff’s Department. One month later, authorities thought they had nabbed Ann. A woman strongly resembling her was arrested in Saline County, Arkansas, but she was not the wanted fugitive.

Goff told authorities that during their time on the run, he and Ann traveled throughout the western United States, living in California, New Mexico, and on an Indian reservation in Arizona where Ann continued practicing her satanic rituals and, Goff claimed, threatened to use satanic powers to kill him if he turned himself in. He also said he and Ann had separated a month before his surrender.

Goff Surrenders

After his surrender, Goff changed his story, saying Ann fired some of the shots that struck Charlie, but he still insisted both he and Ann acted in self-defense.

Despite his contentions, Garey Goff pled guilty to second degree murder in January 1991.  He was sentenced to twenty years in prison. He was released in 2002 after twelve years. While imprisoned, Goff issued numerous pleas for Ann to surrender; all were to no avail.

Ann Sigmin is apparently not on Satan’s A-list as Garey Goff is still living not yet having succumbed to her satanic powers.

                                     Still Sought               Sentence Served 

Ann Sigmin is wanted on a charge of murder. When last seen in 1986, she was five-feet-six-inches tall and weighed between one-hundred-forty to one-hundred-forty-five pounds. Authorities believe she has lived across the country in her thirty-seven years as a fugitive. They have tracked her to Phoenix, Arizona; the Eugene, Oregon area; and, more recently, to Troy, Tennessee, where she has family.

Sigmin is also believed to have and may still be using her physical features to falsely identify herself as an American Indian and feign acculturation with Indian nations. She may be using the aliases Andy Hayes, Andy Partlowe, or her maiden name of Ann Mitchum.

Ann’s family rejects the reported sightings of her and say they have had no contact with her since she absconded. They believe she may have been killed by Goff while on the run and deny contentions that she practiced satanic worship. Family members also claim that Charlie physically abused Ann; investigators say they found no evidence to corroborate the claims.

I could not find the names of Ann’s two sons or what became of them after their mother fled. I assume, but do not know for sure, that they were returned to their father.

Ann is still on the Lam

Ann Sigmin would today be sixty-eight-years-old. The specific age of these aged-enhanced drawings is not stated; I could not find any later age-enhanced drawings or computer-aged images.

If you have any information on the whereabouts of Ann Sigmin, please contact the Pemiscot County, Missouri, Sheriff’s Department at (573) 333-4101.

Aged-Enhanced Drawings of Ann Sigmin

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/138503678/charles-algernon-sigmin

SOURCES:

• America’s Most Wanted
• Blytheville, (Arkansas) Courier News
• Pemiscot (Missouri) Press
• Unsolved Mysteries