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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.
