Witness in '93 slaying recants

A Woburn man pleaded guilty yesterday in Woburn Superior Court to charges of misleading police and perjury, stemming from his role in providing cover for a Stoneham doctor suspected of killing his girlfriend in 1993.

Richard Chambers, 45, admitted conspiring with another man to tell investigators that Dr. Linda Goudey, 42, who was found strangled in her car in October 1993, was last seen with a man who looked like then-NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason, authorities said.

Goudey's boyfriend, Dr. Timothy Stryker, has always been a suspect in the still-unsolved killing but has never been criminally charged. However, in June 2006, he was found liable in a civil suit brought by Goudey's family and ordered to pay more than $15 million. In March 2007, he sought a new civil trial, alleging that a witness could clear him.

According to a statement released by Middlesex District Attorney Gerard T. Leone, Chambers, a close friend of Stryker, enlisted Craig Pizzano, who was 18 at the time of the killing, to tell police the "Esiason story." Money was allegedly promised for providing the story.

Telephone records, however, indicated that Pizzano, Chambers, and Stryker talked on the phone regularly around the time the Esiason story emerged, and last June, Pizzano recanted his testimony and agreed to cooperate with authorities. Chambers and Stryker were indicted on perjury charges in July.

Pizzano and Chambers have agreed to cooperate with authorities in the perjury case against Stryker. Stryker faces up to 20 years in prison if convicted in the case. His trial is set for April 21.