The Vanishing of Nancy Woodrum

It's hard to talk about that day because when I look back, I just think about the tragedy.

911, address of your emergency? Emergency? Yeah, we have a missing person. The woman who owns the property where the wedding guests are staying is nowhere to be found. I had her neighbor go over there to check on her.

She said the door is wide open, the TV's blaring, and you better come over here. It is haunting and chilling in a way that I'll never forget. Did you see anything else strange when you went in the house? Yes. There seems to be blood all over her pillow.

There's 20-plus guests staying in the big house, and there's a wedding party. The house turned into a crime scene. It's taped off. The police are there. There's helicopters.

There's dogs. All of my friends don't know how they're getting back to that house. These are all potential suspects in the case. I mean, this is like an Agatha Christie novel, like a classic whodunit. I knew that something really bad had happened.

Happened, and it wasn't going to be good.

The draw for Paso Robles is, of course, the scenery, the layout of the land. The real name of Paso Robles is called El Paso de Robles, which is the Pass of the Oaks. Oak trees, horses, cattle, and then there's the vineyards.

The Paso Robles area, it is very much the hotspot of wineries in the county.

Just, it's a It's honestly like a fairy tale place to go.

I was born and raised in California. I have close family and friends who lived and grew up not far from here. I've always loved this area. Paso Robles, nestled halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, a getaway town, scenic and quiet.. But down El Faro Road, in the middle of all this beauty, something ugly took place right here at this secluded vacation home.

The owner of this ranch-style property was 62-year-old Nancy Woodrum. She lived alone after her husband passed away a few years before, and she was really a fixture in the Paso Robles community and ran a popular salon downtown. We are at Nancy's salon. This is The Strand. This is where I come every 3 weeks to have her do her magic.

Nancy clicked with everybody. She just had that amazing gift of just openness, kindness, just generous. And she passed on her amazing gift to her daughter Amanda, who now is my stylist. Do you have a favorite photograph? This one of my mom and I.

What makes this photograph so special? We had a special bond. I was her firstborn, and it just really shows that relationship that we had. Sums it all up. How would you describe your mom?

What was she like? She liked to have fun. She liked to do things. She was active. We were always doing stuff, going here, going there with the horses, the animals.

Oh, oh, oh, okay, you're fine. All right, I won't move. She loved riding. It was calming to her, and she loved being out in nature with the horses. You and your mother You shared this talent for hairdressing, passion for horseback riding, but also a belief in a particular faith.

Well, she raised me as one of Jehovah's Witnesses, and she had very strong morals and raised me to be a good person. Nancy was always a devout Jehovah's Witness. We believe that the earth will be made new again. We believe that God created it for a purpose and he's going to make it a beautiful paradise again. Amanda's parents, Robert and Nancy, purchased the property on El Faro Road in 2006.

It was a fixer-upper. They were going to have this project and make it their home, but eventually they decided to turn this property into a vacation rental. My dad was a contractor and they made it beautiful. They remodeled it and worked really hard on it. So you come in, you'd see this two-story Victorian home with wraparound porches and this willow tree that you parked under.

What did Nancy name the property? It was called Paradise Ranch because she had the hope of being in paradise, the hope that the Bible gives us. On Friday, May 4th, this big group of wedding guests check into Paradise Ranch for a weekend wedding at a local winery. The bride, who found the place online, is staying there with her bridesmaids and some close friends. She asked us not to show her face or reveal her name.

We wanted to do a vineyard wedding in Paso Robles. It was a special place to us. Paradise Ranch seemed perfect when we saw the pictures. The main house was very large and welcoming and just charming. And then the guest house was where I was staying, and that was also just very quaint and cute.

Nancy came by the guest house and introduced herself. She was very warm and welcoming. And gave me a hug, and she was so kind, and she mentioned that she was staying close by on the property. And then on Saturday, May 5th, you received a phone call that concerned you. What did you learn on that call?

My mom had not shown up for a Bible study, and that was very unusual. I had her neighbor go over there to check on her. She said the door's wide open, the TV's blaring, and you better come over here. What did you see when you first approached your mother's apartment? Everything was there as she left it, but she wasn't there.

There was a stain on the carpet Her sheets and her bedding were missing. I looked closer at the walls, and when I saw what looked to be splatter on the walls, that's when I grabbed the phone and called 911. 911, address of your emergency? Yeah, we have a missing person. My mother-in-law has not been heard of or seen today.

Did you see anything else strange when you went in the house? Yes. What? There seems to be blood all over her pillow. Okay.

There's 20-plus guests staying in, in the big house, and there's a wedding party. And there's a wedding party that was there this weekend?

Yes. I was so excited getting ready for my wedding day, and a couple family members came by And I just remember, have you seen my mom? Have you seen our mom? And something about blood. And I freaked out.

I just asked if they had seen my mom today and no one had seen her. And what's your state of mind at this point? Panic. Shaky and frantic. Amanda is frantically looking for her mother.

The cops are on the property looking for clues, but at the same time that this is going on, down the road, an eagle-eyed officer makes a discovery that could break the case open. What was extremely suspicious in my mind just really quadrupled. My name is Clinton Cole. I'm a reserve detective with the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office. I live in a house with my girlfriend and 3 dogs and 2 birds.

Hi, little bird. I usually get up pretty early. I have coffee. I get the dogs outside. I feed them and then just kind of just relax.

In 2018, I was a senior deputy with the sheriff's office. That Saturday, it was May, so it was a pretty nice day when I received a phone call. From my sergeant at the time asking if I was available for a suspicious missing persons case. I got in my truck and was told that I needed to start heading to El Faro Road. So that's what I did, is I started towards that location.

What did you first see as you pulled up to the property? I saw this very large white house. I met with the first responding deputy and the on-call detective sergeant. Senior Deputy Dagnon came over. He said, this is very suspicious.

Something's very wrong here. I could sense by his demeanor, his voice, that this was not good. You're making your way around the property, and then finally you approach Nancy's cottage right here. What's the first thing you see? I see this door is open as it is now.

No signs of a forced entry. So this is inside Nancy's cottage here. What were the first red flags that you saw as you walked in? Well, when I first walked in, right here below me was two large blood spots. Blood stains right here.

Right here on the floor. And then over here, there was a bench, and on that bench was Nancy's purse. Car keys, her cell phone, her iPad. Her two vehicles were parked out there. There was a pillow sitting here, a beige pillow that had blood on it, and there was blood spatter on that cabinet as well as on Nancy's headboard and against the back wall.

What are all these signals telling you about what happened in this cottage. I felt immediately that she was taken against her will. You thought this was a crime scene? Absolutely, right away. While investigators are on the property looking for any clues they can find, down the road that evening, a huge discovery is made that changes the entire case's direction.

We received a phone call from an officer with the California California Highway Patrol who had located some bedding and clothing about 6 or 7 miles from Nancy's house on La Ponsa Road. So this area here is where items were located by the California Highway Patrol. Those items consisted of bedding a pillow, a dress, a woman's dress, a pair of shorts, and a shirt. We obviously wanted to find out if they were related. All of the evidence is brought back and secured in the crime lab annex.

When I opened everything up, we looked at all of the evidence more thoroughly. What struck me with this bedding was that there were stains that appeared to be blood stains. The gingham-type print was consistent with the remaining bedding that was at El Faro. These items were— located on La Panza along with the bedding, and this was two of the clothing items. My thought was that Nancy was wrapped in part of the bedding and transported, whether it be that she was deceased or whether it be that she was severely injured.

We showed these items to her daughter, who confirmed, in fact, these items did come from Nancy's bedroom. Did you recognize them immediately? Mm-hmm. Yep. It was her stuff.

I think that's when I knew that something really bad had happened and it wasn't going to be good. That's when I knew in my heart we needed to find her, and we need to do it now. It's Saturday evening, and police are trying desperately to figure out who would want to hurt Nancy Woodrum. Well, suddenly their potential suspect list gets really long, because returning to the property from the wedding are all those guests. Staying at the ranch.

There were approximately 20 or more guests staying in this large white house and the smaller house. These are all potential suspects in the case? Yes, it's very overwhelming. We have a missing person on this property and potentially 20 to 24 people that could be suspects but have to be interviewed. Now you have a suspect pool of 20-plus people that you've got to ask yourself, is this a thing where someone came into town for a wedding and became involved in a crime?

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abcsecretsavings.com/2020. So you're searching all around the property, essentially every square inch, and then something catches your attention in the driveway? About right here, I had noticed what appeared to be two fresh tire tracks that had pulled in and were in here. And is where we're standing right below us here. I noticed what appeared to be scuffle marks as if there was a fight, a between two people with the— with their feet.

The scene spoke very loudly to me that Nancy was assaulted inside of her bedroom and then taken somewhere against her will. I saw a pillow on the bed. To be honest, I wasn't as focused on that as much as I was, kind of the rest of the room. Janine did an excellent job of getting up on top of a ladder to look down, and that's when she was able to see what looked like a handprint. From up above, when I looked directly down, I really thought the pattern of it stood out as being a partial handprint.

The one side that had a lot of blood most likely was against a person that was bleeding. And the other side that had just the handprint was that this could very well be the weapon that was used to suffocate or smother. So investigators swabbed this pillow right in the middle of the bloodstain with a bloody hand for DNA and sent it off to a lab. I was at the property when people started coming back from the wedding. So, yes, we have just this huge list of potential suspects, persons of interest, whatever you want to call them, that had ready access to Nancy.

So Paradise Ranch is so remote that there just wouldn't be anybody else around. To have access to Nancy to harm her. So it's logical that you would look right at the wedding party for potential suspects to see if maybe anybody have something to do with this. You need to talk to every single one of them. Absolutely.

Well, we had a search warrant for the entire property. As the wedding guests start coming and they're being told you're not allowed in here, some of them had children, you know, my diapers my food, my baby's food. The scene became a little chaotic. Is it even possible for us to be able to come back later and go to sleep there? What I'm gonna do right now is go find out what the answers to those questions are for you.

What was the bride's reaction when you told her what was going on here? She was very emotional. She was upset. I was in complete shock and horrified and could not believe that this was happening to Nancy, who I had just met, and she was so kind and lovely. It's extremely frustrating to us that you can see how close this house is to Nancy's residence, so you would think someone would hear a car drive up, a scream, or something, but No witnesses of over 24 people heard a thing.

Anything unusual happen that you guys noticed in any way with anybody? No, not anything out of the ordinary. So the bride is just sleeping on the other side of the wall from Nancy's apartment. As hard as it is to believe, Nancy's door is here. It was open.

And right next door, only one wall separating the two, was where the bride was sleeping. And she said she did not hear anything. I, you know, went into the guest house and then my girlfriends and I were doing like face masks and stuff. And then we went to bed at about like 11:15. Did my usual thing where I pop in my earplugs and go to bed.

Keep in mind that police believe that Nancy actually went missing the evening before, and then they learned that that wedding party that had been staying on the property, they were at the rehearsal dinner until late that night. We went straight to the rehearsal dinner, which was at Cass Winery. Okay. And got back from that around 10:30. I would say at like midnight we all went to bed.

So there was one wedding guest that we couldn't 100% account for him being at the rehearsal dinner. I wasn't in the wedding or anything, so I pretty much just hung out at the house. So you were here the whole time? Yeah. Okay.

He wasn't clear whether he was here possibly alone with Nancy Woodrum, or did he in fact go to the event at the wedding. And so that raised some concerns, and so we had to to take extra time and speak to him again the next day. We're just trying to figure out what happened. And I would love to be helpful, but I don't have anything else. Like, this is just kind of— this is onerous at this point.

All of a sudden, this guy now is like not wanting to cooperate, you know? Usually people who aren't involved bend over backwards for you. I really need your help. I don't want to impact your day. I don't want to impact your work.

We can do it after work. I prefer not to. I feel like you have— may have seen something. And I— you know what? And so that immediately was a red flag.

Flag for us, and it was still confusing. We needed to clear it up as soon as possible. Now detectives decide they're going to go for round 3 with this particular guest, and this time they go right to his home, and they intend to come back with 2 things: an explanation and some DNA. We knew we had to get this interview done with or without his permission, or at least try to, and did not let him know we were coming. And we went to the front door and knocked on the door.

Well, how are you? You want to come in?

Absolutely. There was one wedding guest whose whereabouts the night Nancy Woodrum disappeared were questionable, so we went to his residence in Northern California to try and confirm his whereabouts that night. Hey, I just got your call. Awesome. Hey, just wanted to to, uh, just ask you a few more questions if you don't mind.

Sure. You want to come in? Absolutely. Yeah. I'm Dave.

Good to meet you. I'm Clint. Good to meet you. Nice to meet you. Have a seat.

Have a seat. Absolutely. He was no longer resistive. He was very cooperative, actually appeared to feel bad for the way he had talked on the phone. We just had a couple more, uh, questions to clarify and And then just, um, a picture.

So did you go to the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner, or did you stay? No. Okay. I went to both. Or sorry, I went to the rehearsal dinner, not the rehearsal.

I think there were a few pictures on my wife's phone that you can see of me, like, at the rehearsal dinner. I can show you pictures from the property. His wife remembered to show us photos at the rehearsal dinner on Friday. So the confusion that he stayed back was immediately erased. It was a very frustrating time for us.

All right, thank you, sir. Thank you. The wedding guest who wasn't legally obligated to participate in the investigation also agreed to submit a DNA sample. While all of this is happening, police are ramping up their efforts now to find Nancy. This shocking disappearance makes huge news in the Paso Robles community.

Deputies are expanding their search, asking nearby residents for security footage. 62-year-old Nancy Woodrum has been missing since Friday afternoon. We're leveraging all of our resources to, to do the best we can to figure out where Nancy may have gone and what took place. This search is playing out all through these foothills and along the riverbed. There's a riverbed right behind Nancy's property line.

We had search and rescue search all of this area out towards the riverbed, the exterior parts of Nancy's property. We also utilized helicopter, um, to come in and search at a high level, uh, for signs of bodies, anything like that. We had a very good group of friends that were very close to us, and they would go out and go search, go down La Panza, go down 58. We'd look through everything, the culverts, everything. And what was going through my mind is Nancy's a tough girl, and I know that she's a fighter.

And I'm like, she's She's alive. We will find her, and she's going to be OK. During the investigation, we developed another lead. So not only were the wedding guests on the property, but we learned that there was a fairly large number of other people that had access to Nancy Woodrum's property at the time she went missing. Nancy had decided to sell Paradise Ranch. It was too much work for her.

She was having work done on her house to assist with the sale of the home. Why did Nancy decide to sell Paradise Ranch? Because she wanted to preach full-time. She really wanted to teach people about the Bible and share her hope with other people. Contractors, painters, plumbers, all doing repair work to finalize the sale of Nancy's residence.

You needed to talk to all of them? Absolutely. Every single person that was on this property within the last couple weeks had to be located and interviewed. One of the pieces of evidence left behind was Nancy's iPad case, and all around it were pamphlets of notes and numbers. And there was one of a painter, and the name was Carlo Fuentes and a phone number.

And so we decided that we should call Carlo Fuentes since he was on scene and see if he saw anything that hadn't been reported yet. Hi, I'm calling because we're investigating the disappearance of Nancy Woodrum. Do you remember when you were there on that Thursday Thursday. Do you remember if Nancy was there? Yes, she was there.

He was very cooperative, very friendly with Detective Cole. Did you see Nancy like having an argument or disagreement with anybody? You know what, to be honest, I didn't notice anything like that. And I remember she told me, oh, you are a hard worker, and then she gave me a tamale. And Amanda mentioned the name of Shawn Bloom, who was a general contractor who had worked on the house.

And she reported that Nancy and Mr. Bloom had had some dispute over work that had been performed and had become, uh, quite heated and quite contentious. How would you characterize the relationship between your mother and Shawn Bloom? Shawn was very frustrated. He eventually got fired. He did not get payment until escrow closed for the work that he had done up to that point.

Like, he wanted his money. Sean Bloom was definitely a person of interest and one of the first couple of people that we called in to be interviewed once we were done with the wedding party. Actually, I don't like working with Nancy. It's been very difficult. We had issues where Nancy was not happy with our work, fired me off the job.

Um, when was The last time you talked to Nancy? It was during one of our texts. I have it here. Let's see. All the text messages between him and Nancy made no denials about his dislike of Nancy.

And what was the nature of those texts? Let's see here. So I said, if I don't get payment quickly, I'm going to begin with lawsuits against you and everybody involved. We're asking everyone we talk to, could you mind providing what we call a buccal swab and see if there's any DNA that might be associated? I hear what you're saying.

I'm going to say let me talk to my attorney. So we were like, all right, well, he won't give his DNA without talking to his attorney. One, he's just being cautious, or two, he's concerned. So which is it? Nancy grew up in San Fernando Valley.

At 18 years old, she already obtained her cosmetology license and wanted to do more fashionable hairstyles, and so she commuted to Woodland Hills where she worked in an exclusive salon. Neil Diamond's wife came in. She did Kenny Rogers. She always liked to let everybody know that by 21 she owned her own home and had a Corvette. Then she met her husband Robert, who was your quintessential Southern California surfer.

We moved up here in 1991, and it was the 3 of us kids, my parents, and we moved from Woodland Hills to the Central Coast area. I understand that there were a number of tragedies that struck the family. So in between me and my brother Chad, there was another baby, Christopher Michael, and he was 10 days old when he died. He was born with a blockage in his intestines. And then your, your sister?

She passed away shortly before her 18th birthday. Nancy's daughter Amy passed away from cystic fibrosis. Amy was a great person and It really broke my parents' heart. Yeah, it was sad. And I understand then, um, you lost your father suddenly.

Yep. Unexpectedly. Yeah. What happened to him? He had a heart attack and collapsed as he was getting into my car.

It was hard. It was very traumatic. How did Nancy cope with all of these tragedies? She had really strong faith in God and a good hope that she was going to see her loved ones again, and that really got her through. After suffering through all these tragedies, now Nancy herself has vanished into thin air, and her loved ones are hoping against hope that somehow she'll turn up alive and well.

Family's obviously anxious. The investigators are anxious. They're trying to figure out what happened. The community's interested. Is this going to happen to somebody else?

We know that a timeline is essential to a detective. And about a week into their investigation, they make a critical discovery that's going to tell them exactly the time that Nancy went missing. At midnight 17, there was a 911 call that showed up on the bill for 0 seconds, meaning it didn't go through. It gets shut off somehow. Like in a split second?

Like very quickly. What that did was provide what appeared to be a pretty good time and date stamp on when, you know, something bad may have happened to Nancy. Approximately 12 days within the investigation, We got a big lead. The lab informed us that they had developed unknown male DNA on the pillow that we submitted from Nancy's bed. They submitted to the state database CODIS, but no matches were found, which meant that the person whose DNA this was had no record.

To our surprise, several days later, Sean Bloom contacted us and submitted his DNA voluntarily, which cleared him as a suspect. The DNA results also cleared that wedding guest who police initially found suspicious. But as they started digging deeper into the case, they found something surprising that has investigators wondering whether this was a highly personal crime with a possible suspect much closer to home. In terms of looking at all potential suspects or persons of interest, there was information that was provided that she potentially had conflict with her son. I'm going to be honest with you, I haven't talked to my mother face to face in probably 5 years.

I think my brother had a lot of anger growing up. He did not want to be part of the religion that we were in, which was his decision. And, um, but he, he was angry about it. She tends to correct our teachings, you know, about God, heaven, people. They believe in different things, and that's when that kind of just squashed the relationship, you know.

How bitter or challenging did the relationship become between Chad and your mother Nancy? At the point of her disappearance, it was not good. They hadn't they hadn't spoken in quite a while, and my mom was not allowed to see his kids. But Nancy and Chad were texting each other the night before, right before she disappeared. Yeah.

And she was reaching out to my brother, trying to just get on common ground maybe with him that way. He was the last text to her that she had in her phone. He said he doesn't trust cops and that he's not coming to the station. We were welcome to come to his house and interview him. So we did, and he refused to give his DNA.

He was adamant about it. Can I mention the DNA samples? It would just solely be specifically for this investigation. I've heard of cases of misappropriated samples, and, you know, it can ruin people's lives. And unless it's, unless it's mandatory, I strongly, I strongly stand by my decision.

So we surveilled him. We watched him drink 5 or 6 beers. He put the empties in the cab of his truck, and then he drove home. Chad was stopped and arrested for driving with an open container. While the charge was dropped, those beer bottles were sent to the lab for DNA testing.

Chad ultimately was cleared by DNA. The case kind of did stall because you got a lot of people we've looked into up to this point, and we're not getting a lot of traction. Was there a point when you felt like you were, you were desperate for news? Right. We just wanted to figure this out.

I was more than willing to help. No one knew where Nancy was and needed, needed something to break. Detectives are about to throw a Hail Mary. They're going to use a relatively new crime-fighting tool, one this department has never used. If it's successful, they'll be able to find out who was in Nancy's cottage at the very moment she disappeared.

I'm excited. We've got something to go on now. ABC Wednesdays. The Emmy-winning comedy Scrubs is all new. This is a whole new chapter for me.

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I'm RJ Decker, a private investigator uncovering the Sunshine State's darkest secrets. Tuesdays, it's the premiere of ABC's hottest new crime show. RJ freaking Decker, as I live and Breed. He's a private eye. It's not a standard murder, something bigger.

And a public mask. Trying to get sent back to prison today. You go to prison one time and suddenly it's all the jokes. RJ Decker series premiere Tuesdays on ABC and stream on Hulu. I always remember Nancy be liking the old country music.

We'd always be playing music either at Nancy's house or my family's house, and it was a big part of our lives. Every summer they would set up a concert series, and Nancy volunteered her property for this. It just was a music party, and everyone would dance, and she loved that. This was one of her favorite songs that she liked when I sang, and it's called Syrup and Honey by Duffy. Don't you be wasting all your money on syrup It'd be good.

We just kind of came to the conclusion that we might never know what happened to her. It was really tough. It was tough for me, but her daughter and Chad, like, I— and her grandkids, like, that— it was hard. We are definitely very frustrated. The public was unhappy.

They felt like we weren't doing anything. They felt like we weren't working the case. We were working on it every single day. The case kind of did stall because came to the point where we sort of ran out of investigative leads. Other avenues had to be explored, and one of the detectives had recently heard about this novel type of evidence called geofencing.

So you've hit a wall in the investigation, you decide you're going to try something new called geofencing, and this is something that really hasn't been done in California before. At that time, yes, we were one of the first agencies in the state of California that did this, what is called a Google geofence. You can put a fence, a virtual fence, around an area, a house, a property, and Google will track which Google accounts, emails or cell phones come within that fence in a given period of time. These are actually GPS coordinates that you send to Google? Yes.

You're essentially able to isolate not necessarily who's on the property, but what devices may be on the property, and that's giving you an avenue to now investigate. It doesn't matter what kind of phone you have— iPhone, Android— Google is tracking you. That is correct. As long as location services are on on your cellular device, Google is tracking that phone and you. In order to obtain Google geofence information, search warrants needed to be written and served upon Google for a very specific time period.

Now remember However, because of that interrupted 911 call at 12:17 AM, well, that gives detectives a timeline to work with as to when she went missing. Then Google sends the results, and what do you see? What you're seeing here is what we got back. So this is your first fence. Some people feel that there are privacy concerns.

Paradise Ranch is in a rural area. And there are not going to be a lot of unknown people who are going to be located in this geofence. So little by little, we're zooming in here. These are the phones associated with the wedding guests. That is correct.

The larger circle here within this circle is all wedding guests, and it looks like there's 4. Yeah, 20+ wedding guests. Correct. The reason their phones aren't showing is their phones are probably kind of in silent mode sleeping. No apps are being used, so that's why you only see 4.

And just to be clear, this number, this is not a phone number, correct? Correct. Google assigns each cell phone its own device number. The device number is right here, and that is specific to whoever owns that phone. It's like a fingerprint.

By now, all the wedding guests have been cleared. So those numbers are not really the major focus of detectives. What is the major focus is what they see when they examine Nancy's cottage. As we get here, that is actually Nancy's studio, and we see a cell phone, what we call pinging, basically right in the wall of Nancy's studio. It pings here at 1:33 in the morning and at 01:52 hours.

And that's the time when you believe Nancy disappeared. That is 100% when we believe Nancy disappeared. I can tell you from my perspective, I'm excited. We've got something. We've got something to go on now.

Could it have been Nancy's phone? We don't know. But what we do know is it's at strange, odd hours, and it's inside her studio. So this is a potentially huge moment in the investigation. Either that phone belongs to Nancy and it's another dead end, or it belongs to someone else.

You get a name, and that person becomes your most likely killer. 100%. Either that device leads us to a suspect, or we are back to absolutely nothing. Square one.

Yes. For months, it's been a daunting mystery. Who could have taken Nancy Woodrum from her beautiful Paso Robles property in California and in the middle of a wedding where more than 20 guests were staying? But thanks to geofencing, this cell phone tracking technology, investigators finally have their first big clue. So this is a key moment in the investigation.

You have this huge piece of evidence, a cell phone inside Nancy's cottage. You have to figure out who it belongs to. What's next? We have to write another set of warrant for the subscriber information. So it starts the ball rolling, but there's still a fair amount of waiting, you know, wait for the data.

Sometimes it could take a few weeks. It's in November. I'm in the courthouse and my phone rings. It's my partner. And they said, you're not going to believe this.

We got a name of who owned that device, and it is Carlo Fuentes. A name you recognize? The painter? Yes. Carlo Fuentes was painting at Nancy's residence numerous times prior to her going missing.

Wait a minute. The painter? Well, this is a shock to investigators because remember, they had already interviewed Carlo Fuentes Flores earlier. This guy was cooperative and mild mannered, and there was no reason to suspect him then. But now there's a reason.

We know it's his phone. We know he was there. We know he had that opportunity because he's familiar with the property. He was familiar with Nancy's habits. All those things added up.

There's not a reasonable explanation why anybody would be out doing painting at that time of night. It's looking like he's at least somebody that needs to be talked to again. So once we get Carlo identified, we need to know as much as we can about him. What did you find? We spoke to people that he painted for and friends.

Seemed like a normal just a normal guy who had come here from Mexico. He was one of those guys that you'd want on your team. Worked on and off for me for 20 years. He just had a good way of communicating, which is, you know, kind of rare in the trades. Seemed very neat, you know, tidy painter and professional.

He was great with clients, very polite. And courteous. Just loved being a dad. He was, you know, loved his daughter, like, just raved about his daughter. He was a father, a husband, you know, and by all accounts was someone who was just leading a normal life.

The geofence hit was not enough to arrest him at the time, in large part because it's simply a phone. It doesn't prove that Carlo Fuentes Flores was in possession of his phone at that time. The phone could have been in the possession of somebody else. You looked into his criminal record. Anything there?

There was absolutely nothing in his criminal record, either in Mexico or the United States. We found no indication that he had a criminal history anywhere. It was, um, really kind of a surprise that way. He wasn't in a romantic relationship with her. There was not a dispute over funds.

There was simply no connection or explanation for why this normal person would try to hurt Nancy. Now, this is quite baffling to detectives because their initial findings just don't fit the pattern of a suspect in a brutal crime. It isn't adding up why Carlos Spohn was at Nancy's cottage. That is, until they do a deep dive into his Google search history. And find something surprising.

You found something unexpected? Yes, he was doing Google searches for cougar in sexy lingerie videos. That's odd. That is odd, yes. As you can see, cougar lingerie porn videos, uh, sexy cougars.

This has a theme to it that is tied to our case. Nancy Woodrum was older than Karla Fuentes by about 15, 20 years. And this is cougar porn. He clearly has a thing for older women. Based on his Google search history, absolutely.

As we went further into his Google search history, we found where he was searching for escorts in different cities that he was in. And did he connect with any of these women? We believe he did. Based on some things we found on his cell phone, we found numerous videos of him having sex. Videos that he shot himself with various women?

Yes, I would say there was at least 10 to 15 videos. So this father, this husband, had secrets? A lot of deep secrets that most people don't have. There was the daytime, very nice, courteous painter, excellent painter, great at his job. And then there was the night, kind of weird fetish, drinking too much Fuentes Flores.

I noticed after a period of time that he was drinking more and kind of like hooking up with different women. There was times where he asked actually to borrow money from me to go to Vegas and girls of the night kind of thing. He had told me about a call girl he had picked up in Las Vegas, and then there was an older gal that he was seeing. So I just told him, hey, man, you're going to mess it up. You know, you've got a wife, you got a daughter.

And so I tried to warn him, you know, multiple times. We needed more evidence to make this an airtight case. So we wanted to get Carlo's DNA without letting him know that we were on to him. The detectives began surveillance on Carlo Fuentes Flores shortly thereafter in order to get an actual DNA sample from him. We used our special operations unit because what they do all day long is surveillances of people and drug dealers and gang members.

Well, we know Carlo is not a drug dealer and not a gang member, but he's now on those officers' sights. He has no clue what's going to happen to him next. So now investigators have that geofencing evidence showing Carlo Fuentes Flores's phone at the crime scene, and they've also got his search history of porn and escorts. But they're after more conclusive proof that he did something to Nancy Woodrum— a DNA match to that bloody pillow. So we followed him, and he went to a local restaurant.

Had lunch with his wife and left a Coke bottle that he drank out of on the table. And when it's in a public place, then we can take it without a warrant. They retrieved this Coke bottle. They took it to the DNA lab. They had the DNA pulled on it, and it matched the DNA that we had on the pillow.

It's a match, and it's a critical moment in this investigation. Detectives are now closing in on Carlo Fuentes Flores. So once we received the confirmation that it was Carlo's DNA in the bloody handprint, we needed to talk to Carlo. We needed to hear his side of the story. Yeah.

Thank you for being on— being on time. This is the room where you interrogated Carlo Fuentes? Yes, it is. This is the room. My partner Dave was here with me.

I was off to this side. You were asking him a variety of questions. And in this clip here, you're asking about his job painting at the property. What exactly were you guys painting? Like the deck, the trim, fascia boards?

No, it was the deck on the big house. Yeah, on the big house. So you then start showing him pictures of the property. So that's what you consider the big main house? Yes.

And that's where you did a lot of work in the decks back here? Yes. And you used the bathroom in there? We used— there is a bathroom in the main house and down below. And then we use a bathroom in this area right here.

What were you trying to do there? What we're doing is we're putting him on the property. We wanted to know that he knew where Nancy's studio was. They're looking for things that that person's going to tell them that is not true. And presumably that person has no idea what we know.

Did you know where Nancy stayed? To be honest, I didn't even know that she was staying in that area. He was painting for Nancy and she was nice to him and gave him tamales and they read scripture together. That then he doesn't know what happened with her. What have you heard about— you know what happened to her?

We just— the only stuff I heard, like, it was from my boss. I mean, from my boss, like, that she just disappeared and that's it. And then, um, we never, like, uh, heard anything else. So at this point in the interrogation, he's saying he doesn't know anything about what happened to Nancy, but then you start applying a little more pressure. Yes, that was a plan of ours.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but are you in any way involved with Nancy missing? Oh no, no. Any reason why anyone would say that? Well, because I, I— there's no reason. Yeah, there's no reason.

Now they ratchet up the pressure. They let Carlo know they have DNA evidence and they don't buy his story. We've done a very thorough investigation. Investigation. We spent thousands, thousands of hours on this case.

Because we waited for all of the evidence, we were able to say, no, we know you came back. We know a lot of stuff. We're giving you a chance now to change your story and be honest with us. Okay. If you Have something else that you'd like to tell us?

At that moment, in my opinion, he knew we knew. It was no longer, what do they know? It was, oh no, they know. And you could see his body change. Oh my God.

I want to be honest with you guys. I know that, um, I made a mistake. I made a mistake. I could literally see my heart beating in my shirt. There's just a million things going through your head.

But they aren't expecting what he says next. Fuentes Flores admits he killed Nancy, but he says it was an accident when he went to the house to retrieve some equipment. I went back and get, uh, one of the ladders I supposed to be getting for the next job. He said when he went and loaded the ladder up and he was backing up, he didn't know she had walked up behind him and he ran her over. So you said— you're saying you hit her with your car, your truck?

Okay. And then I took her back in, in the place, and, uh, and that's when she collapsed. It was an accident. And I hit her. I took her inside to help her.

But then you start getting down a road where he probably realized he could only lie so much at that point. You're not going to believe this. Please tell us what happened. All right. OK, so I had sex with her.

I had sex with her. This was the first time in the in the interview when my jaw really hit the floor. How did you have sex with— I mean, tell me how that transpired. I was drunk. I was drunk.

Did she invite you over there, or did you just show up? And no, I just show up there and then just to go and get the ladder. He said, no, she didn't know I was coming over. And if we know it was not consensual and it was a rape and she's dead, then we have a special circumstance murder case. But what they don't know is, where is Nancy?

Can we try and see if we can find where you took her? You actually bring in an iPad, and you're hoping he can point out on a map where you can find Nancy. Yes. And instead, this stunning moment when he offers to take you to her body. He did.

You guys don't mind? I would like to take you. I would like to take you. We would like you to do that too. All right.

When Carlo Fuentes Flores told us that he would take us to Nancy Woodrum's body, we placed him in a car and he directed us due east from the Templeton substation. So the detectives went in one car and I went in a car right behind them as we drove from Paso Robles. The journey from the police stations was about a an hour. It goes from more arable land in Paso Robles to kind of a more desert topography out to the Carrizo Plain, which is just on the border with Kern County. I'm thinking, wow, that's going to be a tough find.

When you have something, even buried something in that area, animals dig it up, so you don't expect a lot. Carlo Fuentes Flores's demeanor on the ride was very subdued, quiet. I know that you guys just doing your job, and I wish that I could be forward like a long time ago. And because this topic, it has been killing me.

Like, you know, the longer we were driving with Carlo, the more frustrating it was becoming. We didn't feel like he was playing games with us. But this is difficult territory to remember anything. And so there was a time where we felt like maybe he wouldn't remember where he put her. How far off of the road was she?

Oh, it was not far. Probably like 100 feet. We can check, like, this area right here. You think it might be in here? I'm not sure.

We can check on this area. Yeah. I think everyone behind us who was following us were like, okay, what's the deal? Can he find her? The anxiety is tremendous.

It was something like this. And I even remember, like, there was a, a car coming and I had to bend down, and then there's going to be a pile of rocks around her. Can we try a different spot? Yeah. If you don't— I mean, if you don't think it's this one, then.

Right. I hadn't brought a jacket, and I remember being so cold. And I remember thinking, how is anybody going to ever find anything in that grass? I remember looking at them just walking in circles, thinking, is Nancy going to be here? He had stopped at 4 or 5 different locations.

Here, pull over right here. We were unable to locate the spot that Carlo said he placed Nancy. I started feeling like he may not be able to remember. It's like a long ways to bring her. Yeah.

You think he came this far? And then we went to the next location and it looked the same as the first location, which, when doubt creeped into my mind again, thinking, how is anybody going to tell this location from the last location? Was this far in from the road? No, right? If it was this far in, bunch of rocks down there.

So we stopped about right here. And I looked off over to my right over this way, and I saw some rocks. Rocks, I don't know, 6 or 8 inches that were kind of stacked in a circle that looked completely out of place. So I turned to Carlo, who was to my left. I said, are those the rocks you're describing?

He looked over and said words to the effect, "Oh my God, yes." He fell to his knees, started crying. Stay here with me, okay? I saw what I believed to be a partial leg bone, about 18 inches or so in length, and some other smaller bones, what looked like some vertebrae bones. I could see a human skull which was right up into this area, about right here, just laying on the ground. Quite a few remains fairly close together, but missing a lot.

And because of the animal activity in the area, her remains could be scattered for a mile. And it made me feel sad for her family and knowing that anytime a loved when is missing, just the emotional trauma, but also knowing that she was left in such a remote area by herself in the middle of the night. It always has bothered me that he didn't even have the courtesy to bury her. I look back over at him and my partner over there I was angry. This is treacherous wilderness to just leave a body out in the open.

Once he found Nancy's body, his demeanor changed. Can you do me a big favor? It depends on what it is, Carlo. I wish that you could talk to my little one. And tell her that, that I feel so sorry about this huge mistake I made.

Okay. Please do.

Yeah. I can do that. And I think he knew he wasn't going to go home again. He was emotional. He appeared to be contrite and sad.

I didn't give her a hug this morning. And once we had that body, my mind immediately went towards, okay, we have to confront him again. What do we need him to say, and what charges do I need need to try and prove. And then when we got back to the interview room about an hour later, then he told us what really happened. I'm not even, uh, lying anymore.

I'm just being honest with you guys. I could see a human skull. After we located Nancy Woodrum's remains, we took Carlo back to the Sheriff's North Station in Templeton, where we were hoping to get a complete story about how he killed Nancy Woodrum. Investigators already know a lot about where Carlo was before Nancy was killed, and that's because of all the tracking they had been doing of his movements. This animation shows where Carlo was going throughout the day and evening.

Yes, he's now traveling up to Paso Robles, and there's a church in a commercial building. Wait, Carlo goes to church? On the night Nancy disappeared? Yes. Church was not in session because it's almost midnight.

But yes, he pulls into the parking lot and he stays there for 20, 30 minutes. He was sitting there in a church parking lot. Chilling evidence as he's probably pondering whether he's going to go to Nancy's or not. And now he's way out here on Highway 46. Headed towards Nancy's house.

So his phone is pinging along the way, and that's what's sort of drawing out this map and showing all of his movements that night. That's correct. You'll see the little dots there. He's getting closer to Nancy's residence. So 14 minutes after midnight was the last location data that Google got.

The reason that is so important at midnight 14 is a 911 call was attempted at midnight 17. When we got back to the Sheriff's North Station, we went into the same interrogation room and began questioning Carlo again. So you went into this sliding— through the sliding glass door? Yes. That's when they went inside.

He finally admitted what we had suspected. He came into Nancy's house around 12:15 in the morning. Where was she? Was she in bed? Oh, yeah, she was in bed.

Was she awake? Yeah. Did she saw you come in? No. And then he starts telling a different version about what happened.

The real story? Yes. She just asked me, like, why are you here? And what happened? They started having sex with her.

He admitted that he went there with the intention of wanting or going to have sex with her. And Carlo tells you that he believed Nancy had been flirting with him. She offered him some tamales, and he took it as flirting, which seemed very, very odd. It was just something like she was being nice with me, and probably that I took it the wrong way. He hit her to wake her up, which confirmed the blood spatter on the dresser and the walls, and he raped her.

So you intended to kill her so that you didn't get caught for the rape, right? Yes. He goes on to admit that he suffocated Nancy with a pillow. Yes, he did. After you finished having sex with her, how long did it take you to put the pillow over her face?

45 minutes. She didn't suffer. It was so, so quick. He admitted to raping her, to smothering her to death. But for some reason, he wouldn't admit that he hung up the 911 call.

And you're sure that when you came in, she didn't try and dial 911 and you took the phone away from her? You know what, I don't remember. I don't think she did. Yeah, I don't think she tried. Are you really sure?

I mean, I was drunk, and, uh, to be honest, I don't remember. I don't remember that part. How long were you in her house for? I would say 40 minutes. Yeah.

And what did you do during those 40 minutes after you had sex with her? I went to, uh, put it back on the truck, on the tailgate, and, uh, and I just drove away. The bedding that was found on the side of La Panza Road, Carlo confirmed with us that he had wrapped nancy woodrum's body up in some of that bedding, that that was what blew out of his pickup as he was driving out to the Carrizo Plains. This is the entire truth. Yes.

I'm not even, uh, lying anymore. I'm just being honest with you guys. Now I have to pay the consequences. It appeared that he was sad that this had happened and that his confession was cathartic in a way and was bringing him some degree of peace. Would you be willing to write, like, an apology letter to Nancy's children and grandkids?

And at the end of the interview, he actually wrote an apology letter to Nancy's family and an apology to his own family within that same letter. Once he wrote the apology letter, the detectives placed him under arrest. Um, you are under arrest for murder. What was that like? It was a huge relief.

This clip brings back, you know, a lot of memories of at that moment, justice is going to be served for Nancy Woodrum. I could still see the emotion in your eyes. This was just a really sad case. This case was just a little more personal for me. Detective Cole presents to you a photograph and a name.

Carlo Fuentes Flores.

Okay. I was like, who? Like, who? Who? Who's this?

We had no idea who it was. How could it possibly be the painter? Right. It kind of just opened up more questions. Like Erin said, why?

Just why? They found her body. What is going through your mind? I think there was relief. I just wanted to find her.

We needed to have some closure. There's a lot of people who never get answers, and I was just thankful that we had answers. I mean, it's the worst-case scenario, but Knowing that we found her and she's not suffering anymore, that was a comfort. But it's still something, it's really, it's a hard pill to swallow. It was one of those quiet moments where you start to cry and just, what a, she just got so cheated.

Finally got a chance to relax and do what she wants and retire. And then this happens to her. I just thought, how, how very, very unfair. Now all that remains is a trial. Prosecutors decide not to go for the death penalty, but they're confident they've got a winning case.

Now the defense has something in store, and if the judge buys it, everything could totally unravel. Okay, Nicola, Quizfrage: Homeoffice bei Strahler oder Fahrtkosten? Was bringt uns mehr? Moment, ich check das kurz. Oha, Homeoffice gewinnt!

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Being placed under arrest. We had a killer amongst us. Murder at the U, listen now. Hello, this is a prepaid call from Carlos, an inmate at the San Luis Obispo Jail. Hello?

Hello, Crystal? Carlo? Yes. I was responsible for monitoring any jail phone calls that took place involving Carlo Fuentes Flores. The ones that were of particular interest would have been the phone calls with his wife, Crystal.

Did you do this, Carlo? Yes, honey, I'm so sorry. Why? I don't know why that day. That wasn't even me.

I was like drunk. Yeah, I know, Carlo, but you did like the worst thing. Thing in the whole world. I know you did a couple of bad things mixed together, which is just crazy, crazy. Despite the compelling evidence from the confession and Fuentes Flores's police interview and admissions to his wife and recorded jail calls, he pleads not guilty, and his defense attorney has strategy that could upend the case.

The defense team presented a very spirited defense centered on a motion to suppress his recorded interview. Carlos spoke English with his wife. He spoke fantastic English, but he was a native Spanish speaker. And so the defense challenged that the Miranda warnings should have been given in Spanish, or he should have had an interpreter present. We wanted him to understand and make sure that he understood what he was doing, and so we had set it up.

Do you understand what I'm saying? If there's at any point you don't, please ask. If you have any questions, the way I say stuff, the way I ask you stuff, please tell me. I know it's something I do. It's probably not you, but as long as you can understand me, if you Just let me know, okay?

All right. Ultimately, the judge denied the defense's motion to suppress and found that the detectives preserved his rights and that they properly Mirandized him and interviewed him in English. He confessed, and then we were able to find her and then thought, okay, we're done, like, this is, this is the end. But no, um, now there's going to be a huge trial. So this case is set for trial in January 2022, and we show up for day one, and I see, uh, his attorney go and speak with him.

And his attorney comes back and he says, well, he wants to just plead to life without parole. He doesn't want to put his family through the publicity of a trial. Normally in a plea deal, the defendant waives his right to an appeal, but Fuentes Flores wants to preserve his right. So the judge proposes something called a slow plea. The prosecutor will still be able to present the evidence, but in the end, the judge is going to find Fuentes Flores guilty on all charges.

So the judge reviewed all of the evidence I submitted, and I submitted his recorded interviews, his jail calls. I wanted to make sure everything was in there there just in case. And the judge found him guilty of first-degree murder and the special circumstance that the murder was committed during a rape. The man who killed a Paso Robles woman and led investigators to her body will spend life in prison. He was found guilty of killing Woodrum during a rape and burglary, which means he isn't eligible for parole.

He was given an appropriate sentence in prison, so I think in that way that justice was served, although the family will truly never have closure as a result of what took place. What about the family? What about what? Their family. Yeah, their family.

I know. They're never going to get to see her again. It's just so stupid. So stupid.

So senseless. Aaron, you read the victim impact statement in court. What did you and your family want to say to Carlo? Just let him know how he changed our lives. The fact that he took her life for nothing.

Just to let him know that it sickened us and what was the point? You know, because now he's going to live behind bars for the rest of his life for one foolish night. People, I feel, remember Nancy as a strong woman. With the biggest heart. She survived a lot of heartaches, and it made her stronger, but it made her heart beautiful.

The memorial was probably the most beautiful thing. It was out at a vineyard on the way out to Nancy's property. It's a beautiful place. There was hundreds of people there, and it was just a testament to the person that she was. These photographs were all displayed at your mother's memorial, right?

Yes. They really show who she was. She loved outdoors. She loved the horses. She loved being in the barn, going camping.

With the grandkids. She was an amazing person. She loved God. She wanted that to be first in her life, and she wanted people to know that and her hope that she had to see her kids again. This is the horse that my mom used to ride.

Her name is Montana. She loved Montana. My daughter and I now go out on horses together, and I usually ride Montana and my daughter rides Fire, so we've passed that down. What I once did with my mom, now I do with my daughter, and that's a good feeling. She was a huge part of our life.

She was my best friend. We did everything together. Every time I ride, I think of my mom. Carrying on that beautiful tradition, David. Detective Clint Cole says he still feels a connection to Nancy's case and keeps in touch with her daughter Amanda, reaching out to her on May 5th of every year, the anniversary of Nancy's death.

We should also point out tonight, Deborah, that Carlo Fuentes Flores appealed his conviction. It was denied by the California Court of Appeals in July of 2022. 2023. That's our program for tonight. Thanks for watching.

I'm David Muir, and I'm Deborah Roberts. From all of us here at 2020 and ABC

News, good night. It's the Paradise Podcast. I am your host, Rya Michelle Bathé, with my husband Sterling. What's up?

Join us here on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+, where we'll discuss each episode with the cast and crew of Paradise. Paradise. I'll be getting all the secrets from Dan Fogelman, James Marsden, Shailene Woodley, Julianne Nicholson, and Sterling Kelby-Brown. Woo! Paradise, the official podcast, is now streaming.

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