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Ghost Adventures is a paranormal reality TV series that started in 2008 and is currently in its 25th season. It started on the Travel Channel, but is now also streaming on Discovery+ and Amazon Prime. Basically, it follows a group of ghost hunters made up of lead investigator Zak Bagans, and his team members, Aaron Goodwin, Jay Wasley, and Billy Tolley. Each episode, they investigate a new location that’s been reported to have paranormal activity. They’ve had a couple of celebrity guests throughout the years, like Post Malone, Loretta Lynn and Holly Madison, but it’s generally been a lowkey show with a loyal fan base.
Earlier this week, however, Ghost Adventures made national news when Goodman’s wife, Victoria Goodwin, was arrested in a murder-for-hire plot in Nevada. According to police, she paid a Florida inmate to kill her husband in order to get out of her marriage. Victoria’s been charged with “solicitation to commit murder” as well as “conspiracy to commit murder.”
The wife of Ghost Adventures star Aaron Goodwin, Victoria Goodwin, has been arrested after allegedly conspiring to have him murdered, per police. Victoria, 32, was arrested on March 6 on charges of soliciting to commit murder and conspiring to commit murder, according to inmate records in Clark County, Nevada, obtained by PEOPLE. She was held on $100K bail and was scheduled to make an initial appearance in court on Tuesday, March 11, according to the records.
Police in Florida told TMZ — who first reported the news — that investigators found messages from Victoria to an inmate in a prison in the state about murdering her husband, Aaron. One of her alleged texts read, per the outlet, “Am I a bad person? Because I chose to end his existence. Not divorce.” Victoria has denied plotting to have her husband killed and wanting him dead, police told TMZ.
Police told the outlet that she had provided the location and filming times of Aaron’s hit show. The outlet also reports that, according to police, she had also set aside over $11.5K to pay the inmate in October 2024, and they had also exchanged messages about a $2,500 upfront payment.
She had allegedly communicated with the Florida prisoner several times about the scheme, including one message that read, per TMZ, “He’s asleep right now in the hotel room … I need to know what’s going on. Can I get an update? Was it done?”
Police told the outlet that they became aware of the messages after corrections officers found and seized the smuggled phone that the Florida inmate was using.
Victoria has denied plotting to have her husband killed and wanting him dead, police told TMZ. She also claimed that she had no recollection of sending messages to the Florida prisoner and alleged that she thought the money promised to be exchanged was for cell phones. However, she did concede that she and Aaron had been having marital issues.
PEOPLE has reached out to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department as well as the Police departments in Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, and Miami for more information but didn’t immediately receive a response.
Aaron told TMZ that he was blindsided by the news and thought the pair had been in a happy marriage.
He and Victoria wed in August 2022, with the Ghost Adventurers star sharing the news on Instagram alongside several photos of the celebration held at the Haunted Mansion in Disneyland. He posted photos of the pair dancing in a golden ballroom and happily exchanging their “I do’s” at the altar.
“It finally happened 💍 we got married. After postponing many times due to Covid we got our day. I couldn’t be happier ❤️,” he captioned the photos at the time.
Most recently, he also shared a Valentine’s Day post showing the back of Victoria’s head as she appeared to take a swing at mini-golf. He captioned the post, “My valentine always beats me at mini golf ❤️.”
“Am I a bad person? Because I chose to end his existence. Not divorce.” Uhhh, yeah. Yeah, you are a bad person. Divorce may be an expensive PITA, but morally, it’s a better option than, ya know, murder. I can’t believe that Aaron allegedly had no idea that anyone was wrong. He had to have seen some type of warning signs, right? And to want it to happen while he’s on set filming? That sounds like the plot to an Elsbeth or Castle episode. I wonder if Victoria thought that would help her get a better insurance payout or something. Apparently, the hitman she hired is Grant Amato, who was convicted in 2019 of murdering his parents and brother. Amato is also the subject of the Paramount+ true-crime series, Ctrl+Alt+Desire. Victoria actually contacted him after seeing the series. This is just such a truly wild story. I bet a lot more comes out over the next few weeks.
“Am I a bad person?”
I am really curious about what her standard is for what makes a person bad if there’s still room for uncertainty over the choice to murder someone unnecessarily.
I think she’s removing herself from the equation of badness their because she was planning to get an experienced professional to do it, not do it herself. Like, in her mind all she did was ask a guy to do something and offer to pay, somehow it’s the potential hit-man’s fault because HE was the one that said yes and was actually physically going to do it.
Just a semantic point that murder by definition is always unnecessary. Killings if of a necessary nature aren’t murder, but likewise and to your point, the bar is pretty well established at murder=bad person.
Holy crap. Grant Amato! He is crazy as hell just like her.
Well damn, I got to go deep dive on this. That man is a mess! He murdered his whole family since they wanted him to work and stop stealing money to send to a cam model who he insisted he was dating!
Isn’t Grant Amato sitting in prison for his crimes? How was he supposed to kill her husband from there? Was he going to hire someone from the outside to do it? And her lies are idiotic — she was going to to give a prisoner $$$$ to purchase cellphones? The Verizon or Apple store didn’t have what she wanted? Poor Aaron. Quick divorce and walk away from this mess.
My heart goes out to Aaron. Holy hell. Side note, she gives me Lauren Boebert vibes.
100%!
Many years ago when I was going through a divorce I told my cheating ex-husband “Watch your back. I’d much rather be a widow than a divorcee.” After what he had put me through it was fun to have him a little worried.
OMG GRANT AMATO, WTF.
That Amato dude looks like Steven Miller.
Yes! Saw it first thing and can’t unsee it!
Two psychopaths in a pod
So she solicited a murder for hire from a man who’s serving life in prison on the opposite side of the country? Doesn’t sound like she’s running a brain trust.
Not murder, but my husband dragged out the divorce so long that I ended up a widow.
That murderer looks an awful lot like steven miller- same dead eyes. Total sociopath.
They only married in 2022????
How did things get that bad that quickly and WHY not divorce?? Because murder is always going to be worse than divorce.
My guess: she would get money as a widow that she may have signed away in a prenup in case of divorce. And she was likely fronting affection the entire time and once you start acting delulu, well…
She looks a lot younger than he does. I love it when old dudes with money get with women 20+ years younger and they think it is because they have a soul connection.
@nohope, bingo! She wanted to keep the lifestyle, so I’m sure she had no trouble pretending to be in love. Looking at their loved-up picture reminds me of Kanye West saying that he didn’t have to date women who didn’t have flat stomachs now that he was rich and famous, lol. So many men are as deep as puddles.
NoHope,
He is 44 ( not an “old dude” unless you’re in your early years) and she is 32, not really much of an age difference. Beards can make a man look way older because they go grey/gray much sooner than the hair on top. That is if they have hair on top.
@Robert
Heard and agree regarding age spread.
VERY glad she got caught.
Wow. She just wanted to marry somebody on TV; murderer, ghost adventure guy, whoever. And yep, bad person.
So, she wanted the murder cops concluded that her husband was murder by ghost?
Oh look. she would hire a Stephen Miller look-a-like. Bottom of the barrel failure of humanity. Now, she could spend more years in prison than she was married. She made a stupid decision.
I think she got her wish. The marriage is over now.
Another ghost to hunt!
I’m just hung up on logistics. Just when does someone convicted of murdering 3 people get released from prison?
Oh, he was probably going to subcontract the job?