A tech executive was charged for the third time with murdering his roommate’s girlfriend in California three decades ago, a case that hung juries twice in the 1990s
Prosecutors brought Mr. Woodward to trial twice in the 1990s, saying that he had no alibi and that his fingerprints were found on the outside of Ms. Houts’s car. Both proceedings ended with hung juries and were declared mistrials in Santa Clara County Superior Court, according to court records.
Detectives turned their attention back to the case in 2020, the Mountain View police said. Investigators, using new forensic technology, linked Mr. Woodward in 2021 to the rope found around Ms. Houts’s neck, prosecutors said. The Mountain View police added that Mr. Woodward’s DNA and fingerprints matched samples collected at the scene.
Mr. Baker said that his office doesn’t typically notify murder suspects of the charges against them because they could flee or destroy evidence. Prosecutors knew that Mr. Woodward flew to the U.S. about once a year so they waited to see if he would visit. Otherwise, they would have asked the Dutch authorities to arrest him and extradite him, Mr. Baker said.
“He was surprised,” Mr. Greenberg said of his client’s arrest. Mr. Greenberg added that Mr. Woodward was arrested at the airport in front of his two children and that he had no idea about the charges against him.Mr. Woodward was being held without bail in New York until his extradition, prosecutors said. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
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