Grandfather of dead teen stripper found stabbed to death in home

A grandfather who won notoriety in a case involving the suicide of his granddaughter, a teenage stripper, was found stabbed to death in his home during the weekend.

Charles Gouveia, 80, was found dead shortly after midnight Saturday morning, and his live-in girlfriend, Donna Buchanan, 38, was charged with his murder.

Broward County sheriff's deputies went to the home after an out-of-state friend of Buchanan called them, reporting that Buchanan threatened suicide after learning her boyfriend had been killed.

But when deputies showed up, Buchanan told deputies Gouveia was out of town, according to the Sheriff's Office. She let deputies inside but wouldn't let them enter one room that was locked. Deputies outside looked through the bedroom window and saw Gouveia lying in a pool of blood.

Investigators questioned Buchanan, according to the Sheriff's Office, and she confessed to repeatedly stabbing her boyfriend during an argument.

She was arrested and charged with a of murder.

Gouveia made international news in the late 1980s along with his daughter, Theresa Jackson, and his granddaughter, Tina Mancini, who shot herself in March 1986.

The state contended that Jackson drove Mancini to suicide by pressuring her into dancing nude in bars, forging her birth certificate and keeping a portion of her income of $200 to $300 a week.

Gouveia was said to have influenced them by bringing a stripper home when Mancini was 9.

Within days of Mancini's death, Gouveia and one of Mancini's brothers told Coral Springs police that Jackson was responsible for Mancini's death. Gouveia testified against his daughter at her trial, often getting into hostile exchanges with her attorney.

His daughter was convicted in October 1987 on three felony charges of child abuse, forgery and procuring a sexual performance by a child. She was sentenced to a year in jail. Later she became a taxi driver in Fort Lauderdale.

After the trial, squabbles erupted over movie and book rights.

In January 1988, after the state Attorney General's Office went to court to prevent Gouveia and Jackson from making money off the story, Gouveia testified that he had accepted $5,000 for a six-month option to film rights, and that he had met with moviemaker Carlo Ponti to discuss making a movie of the death.

One of 12 children, Gouveia had many careers, said his 91-year-old brother, John Gouveia of Fort Lauderdale. He was a boxer, a singer, an auto painter, a landlord.

But he was a loner and had little contact with his five brothers and six sisters, John Gouveia said Sunday.

"Charlie was just the bad apple," John Gouveia said. "We've never associated with him."

John Gouveia said his brother and Buchanan had been living together for years. Though Buchanan was less than half Charles Gouveia's age, no one was surprised. "Oh, yeah, that's Charlie," John Gouveia said.