The Vanishing of Nancy Woodrum

A search gets underway for the missing driver, 19-year-old Sarah Stern.

Is it a missing person? Is it a suicide? At this point, nobody knows. Old friendships. Bear in cash, and a sinister plot that was once pitched as a movie plays out in real life. I'm Juju Chang, from 2020 and ABC Audio. Listen now to Bridge of Lives, wherever you get your podcasts. It's hard to talk about that day because when I look back, I just think about the tragedy.

I'm a one-edgest of your 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 now.

“It is haunting and chilling in a way that I'll never forget.”

Did you see anything else strange when you went in the home? Yes. When there seems to be blood, all of us are 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 aggregate the Christy knob, like a classic who done it. I knew that something really bad had happened. And it wasn't going to be good. The draw for Passa Robles is, of course, the scenery, the layout of the land.

The real name of Passa 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 Passa Robles area, it is very much the hotspot of wineries in the county.

“It's honestly like a fairy tale that plays to go.”

I was born and raised in California. I've closed family and friends who lived and grew up not far from here.

I've always loved this area. Passa 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 Woodrow. She lived alone after her husband passed away a few years before. And she was really a fixture in the Passa Robles community and ran a popular salon downtown. We are at Nancy's salon. This is the strand. This is where I come every three 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, my mom and I. What makes this photograph so special? We had a special bond. I was her first born and it just really shows that relationship that we had, something that all of it.

“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 horses, and wolves. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, She loved riding, it was the calming to her, and she loved being out in nature with horses.

Well, she raised me as when I drove as witnesses, and she had very strong morals and raised me to be a good person.

“Nancy was always a devout to hope as 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 a beautiful paradise again. Amanda's parents, Robert and Nancy purchased the property on Elfaro Road in 2006. It was a fixer upper, and 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, wrap around 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 in to Paradise Ranch for a weekend wedding at a local winery. The bride who found the place online is staying there where their bride's made 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 is 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 on 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 as your emergency? Yeah, we have a missing person. My mother-in-law has not been heard of her scene today. Did you see anything else strange when you went in the house? Yeah, there seems to be blood all over her pillow.

Okay. There's 20 plus death thing in the big house, and there's a wedding party.

“And there's a wedding party that was there this weekend?”

Yeah. I was so excited getting ready for my wedding day. And a couple family members came by, and I just remember how 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 and eagle-eyed officer makes a discovery that could break the case open. What was extremely suspicious in my mind, just really quadrupled?

I'm a reserve detective with the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office.

I live in a house with my girlfriend and three dogs and two birds. I live a bird. I usually get up pretty early if I have coffee, I get the dogs outside. My feed-home and then just relax. In 2018, I was a senior deputy with the Sheriff's Office.

That Saturday, and it was May, so it was pretty nice day when I received a phone call. From my sergeant at the time asking if I was available for a suspicious missing person's case. I got in my truck and was told that I needed to start heading to Elfaro Road.

“So that's what I did, as 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 respondee deputy in the on-call detective sergeant. The senior deputy, Degnan, 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 a 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 has made that changes the entire case's direction. We received a phone call from an officer with the California Highway Patrol,

who had located some bedding and clothing about six or seven miles from Nancy's house on Le Ponza 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 L. Farrell. These items were located on Le Ponza 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,

We showed these items to her daughter who confirmed in fact these items did come from Nancy's bedroom.

Did you recognize them immediately?

“Yeah, 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 needed to do it now. It's Saturday evening, and police are trying desperately to figure out who would want to hurt Nancy Woodroom. 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 entered.

You have a suspect pool of 20 plus people that you've got to ask yourself, is this a thing where someone came to town for a wedding and became involved in the crime? I really feel like you can help us, because I feel like you have me, I've seen something.

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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 we're 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 between two people 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.

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 bloodstained of the 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 ventures,

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 has 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 babies' food,

seeing became a little chaotic. That even possible for us to be able to come back later and go to sleep there. What I'm going to do right now is go find out what the answers to those questions don't 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 have over 24 people heard a thing. Anything unusual happened that you guys noticed in any way. Does 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. It's 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 was doing like a face mask and stuff.

And then we went to bed at about 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 because I had cast winery.

And got back from bed around 1030. I would say 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 couldn't just pull out 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 take extra time and speak to him again the next day. We're just trying to figure out what happened.

And yeah, I would like to be helpful. But I don't have anything else. Like I, this is kind of, this is honorist at this point.

You know, usually people who aren't involved bend over backwards for you.

It really needs your help. I don't want to impact your day. I don't want to impact your work. We can do it after work. Um, I prefer that too.

“I feel like you have me, I've seen something.”

And I knew it. And so that immediately was a red flag for us. And it was still confusing. We needed to clear it up as soon as possible. Now, detective decide they're going to go for round three with this particular guest.

And this time they go right to his home.

And they intend to come back with two things and 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. How are you? Welcome back.

Absolutely. [music] There was one wedding guest who's whereabouts. The night Nancy Woodrim disappeared.

We're questionable.

“So we went to his residence in Northern California”

to try and confirm his whereabouts that night.

[music] Hey, it's got your call. Awesome. Hey, smart to just ask you a few more questions. You want to come in?

Absolutely. I'm Dave. To meet you. I've seen absolutely. He was no longer resistant.

He was very cooperative. Actually appeared to feel bad for the way he had talked on the phone. We just had a couple more questions to clarify. And then just picked yourself.

“Did you go to the rehearsal and the rehearsal dinner?”

Or did you stay? Okay. I went to both. I went to the rehearsal dinner. Not the rehearsal.

I think there were a few pictures on my wife's phone. You can see if you look at the rehearsal dinner. I can show you pictures from the proper. He liked it. His wife remembered, show us, photos at the rehearsal dinner on Friday.

So the confusion that he stayed back was immediately erased. It was very frustrating time for us. All right. Thank you, sir. Sure.

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 pass-of-rolls community. Deputies are expanding their search asking nearby residents for security footage, 62-year-old Nancy Woodrow has been missing since Friday afternoon. We're leveraging all of our resources 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 utilize helicopter to come in and search at a high level for signs, 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 Ponza, go down 58. We've looked through everything, the culverts, everything.

And what was going through my mind is a Nancy's a tough girl. And I know that she is a fighter and I'm like, she's alive. We will find her and she's going to be okay. During the investigation, we developed another lead.

but we learned that there was a fairly large number of other people

“that had access to Nancy Woodrom'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 worked on her house to assist with the sale at the home. Why did Nancy decide to sell Paradise Ranch? Because she wanted it to preach full-time.

She really wanted to teach people about the Bible and share her hope with other people. There were contractors, painters, plumbers, all-doing repair work to finalize the sale of Nancy's residents. You needed to talk to all about. Absolutely.

Every single person that was on this property within the last couple of weeks had to be located and interviewed. One of the pieces of evidence left behind was Nancy's iPad case. And all around her pamphlets, 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. I am calling because we're investigating the disappearance of Nancy Woodrow. Do you remember when you were there? Do you remember if Nancy was there? Yes, he 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, to be honest, I didn't notice anything like that. And then she gave me a family. And Amanda mentioned the name of Sean Bloom, who's a general contractor who had worked on the house. And she reported that Nancy and Mr. Bloom had had some dispute over what that had been before. And it had become quite heated and quite contentious.

How would you characterize the relationship between your mother and Sean Bloom? Sean was very frustrated. He eventually got fired. He did not get payment until Esperlo 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 in 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 with Nancy. It was not happy with our work fired me off of job.”

When was the last time you talked to Nancy? Mr. Bloom had a chance to have a deal with Nancy. All the text messages between him and Nancy made no denials about his dislike of Nancy. That's what we would think to. Let's see. So I said if I don't get paid in quickly, I'm going to begin with lawsuits against you and everybody involved.

We're asking everyone we talk to. We're going to be providing what we call a fuck off service. 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.

We're 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? Nancy grew up in the San Fernando Valley. At 18 years old, you already obtained her cosmatology 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, can you Rogers?

She always liked to let everybody know that by 21 she under own home and had a corvette.

And then she met her husband, Robert, who was your quintessential Southern California surfer. We moved up here in 1991, and it was the three of us kids, my parents, and we moved from Woodland Hills to the Central Coast area.

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 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.

That was sad. And I understand then, you lost your father, suddenly. Yeah. 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? Chad 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. Families obviously anxious. The investigators are anxious. They're trying to figure out what happened. The communities interested is this going to happen to somebody else.

“We know that a timeline is essential to a detective.”

And about a weekend to 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 zero 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. And when something bad may have happened, Nancy. Approximately 12 days within the investigation, we got a big lead. The lab informed us that they had developed unknown Mel DNA on the pillow that we submitted from Nancy's bed.

They submitted to the state database, Codes. 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 gas who police initially found suspicious. But as they started digging deeper into the case, they found something surprising. It 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 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. But he was angry about it. She just decreed her teachings. 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 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 she disappeared. She was reaching out to my brother trying to just get on common ground, maybe with that way. He was the last text to her that she had in her phone. He said he doesn't trust cops in 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, and he was adamant about it. He could have mentioned the DNA sample, so it would just simply be specifically for this investigation. I've heard of cases of misappropriated samples, and it can really be devised.

So we surveilled him. We watched him drink five or six 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. A 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 that a point when you felt like you were desperate for news?”

We just wanted to figure this out. I was more than willing to help. No one knew where Nancy was, and 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 is 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. This show is sponsored by Bumbus. If people are asking you if you're still working on your New Year's resolutions, while here's a new one to add to your list, get more comfortable.

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We did our under 17 on a bedu-out there at only Beater's Friday.

“I always remember Nancy liking the old country music.”

We would 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... And it's called. Serip and honey by a duffy. Don't you be wasted and all your money on Sarah and honey.

Maybe good. [music]

Me just kind of came to the conclusion that we might never know what happened to her.

[music] It was really tough. And it was tough for me, but a her daughter and child. 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.

So you've hit a wall in the investigation, you decide you're going to try something new called G-of-Fencing. 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 at Google G-of-Fencing. You can put a fence, a virtual fence around an area, a house, a property, and Google will track which Google accounts, emails or cellphones, 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 G-of-Fencing information, search horns needed to be written and served upon Google,

for a very specific time period. Now remember, because of that interrupted 911 call at 1217 AM, well, that gives detectives a timeline to work with us 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 their 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 G-of-Fence. So little by little, resuming 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 four. Yeah, twenty-plus wedding guests. Correct. The reason their phones aren't showing,

as their phones are probably kind of in silent mode, sleeping, no apps are being used. So that's why you only see four. 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 133 in the morning, and at 0152 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 to go on now. Could it have been Nancy's phone? We don't know. But what we do know is it's it's 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. It's where one. Yes. For months, it's been a daunting mystery. Who could have taken Nancy Woodrow,

from a beautiful Paso Robles property in California, and in the middle of a wedding, we're more than 20 guests were staying. But thanks to Geofencing, the 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,

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 weight and weight for the data. Sometimes it could take a few weeks.

It's in November. I'm in the courthouse in 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,”

Florence earlier. This guy was cooperative, and mild manner, and there was no reason to suspect him then, but now there's a reason. We know it's just following.

We know he's 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 at night.

It's looked like he's at least somebody 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, so he'd want on your team,”

worked on an offer for me for 20 years. You just had a good way of communicating, which is kind of rare in the trades. It 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 loved his daughter, like just raped about his daughter. He was a father, has been, you know, and by all counts was someone who was just leading a normal life. The geofensive was not enough to rest him at the time,

and large part because it's simply a phone. It doesn't prove that Carlo Fuente's floors 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 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 they're initial findings just don't fit the pattern of a suspect in a brutal crime. It isn't adding up why Carlo's phone 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 sexually lingerie videos. That's odd. That is odd, yes. As you can see, cougar lingerie porn videos, sexy cougars.

This has a theme to it. It is tied to art case. Nancy Woodrum was older than Carlo 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, he's 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.

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 curdles of the night kind of thing. He told me about a call girl. He had picked up in Las Vegas. And then there was an older guy that he was seeing. So I just told him, hey man, you're going to mess it up.

You've got a wife, you've 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 Carlos DNA without letting him know that we were on to him.

But detectives began surveillance on Carlos 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 surveillance of people and drug dealers and gang members. Well, we know Carlos is not a drug dealer and not a gang member.

But he's now on those office sites. He has no clue what's going to happen to him next. So now investigators have that geofencing evidence showing Carlos Fuentes Flores is 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 the Nancy Woodrow, a DNA match to that bloody pillow. So we followed him and he went to a local restaurant. Have 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 retrieve 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 Carlos Fuentes Flores. So once we received the confirmation that it was Carlos DNA in the bloody handprint, we needed to talk to Carlos.

“When you need to hear his side of the story.”

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

I was off off to this side, you're 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, the face of boards. No, it was the thick 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 some bathroom in the main house and down below. And then we used 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 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, he 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 to Molly's. And they read scripture together. And then he doesn't know what happened with her. What have you heard about? You know what happened to her.

“We just, the only thing that I heard like it was from my boss.”

I mean from my boss like that she just disappeared and that's it.

And then we never like her anything else.

So at this point in the interrogation, he's saying he doesn't know anything about what happened in Nancy. But then you start applying a little more pressure. Yes, that was a plan of ours. Please don't take this so long way. But are you in any way involved with Nancy missing?

Oh no. Can't you use the lighting and we'll see that? Well, because I, there's no reason. Yeah, there's no reason.

They let Carlo know they have DNA evidence.

And they don't buy his story.

“We've done a very thorough 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'll give him you a chance now.

All right, 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 wouldn't have be honest with you guys.

I know that. I'm going to mistake. I'm going to mistake. Yeah, 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. What just Flora said, "Mits, 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 one of the letters I supposed to be getting

for the next job. He said, and 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.

You're drunk." Okay, and then I took her back in the place. And that's when she collapsed. It was an accident 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. Please tell us what happened. All right, okay, so I got shit to be heard. I got shit to be heard.

This was the first time in the interview when my job

really hit the floor. How did you have sex with me? Tell me how that turned out. I was drunk. I was drunk.

Did she invite you over there? Did you just show up? No, I just shot there and then just to go 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 he is at 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 that.

I would like to take you. I would like to take you. Will it like you to do that to you? All right. [Music]

When Carlo Frontist Flores told us that he would take us to Nancy Woodrom'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 station was about an hour. It goes from more arable land and Paso Robles to kind of a more desert topography, out to the Creezzo 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 lie. Carlo Frontist Flores's demeanor on the ride was very subdued, quiet. I know that you guys just need to chop it. And which that could be forward, I don't know why.

Because this time it has been killing me right. No, 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.

How far off of the road was she?

Oh, it wasn't not far, really like 100 feet. We can check that this area right here. You think it might be in here? Sure, we can check on this area.

“I think everyone behind us who was following us”

were like, okay, what's the deal? Can he find her? The anxiety's tremendous. I was something like these, and I remember there was a car coming. I think I'd have to bend down.

Then there's gonna be a higher or higher rocker. Can we throw it on a different spot? Yeah, if you don't run it. 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 was anybody going to ever find anything in that grass?”

I remember looking at them just walking in circles thinking, I can't see going to be here. He had stopped at four or five different locations. And we were unable to locate the spot that Carlo said he placed Nancy. I started feeling like he may not be able to remember.

He's like a long ways to bring her. And then we went to the next location.

And it looked the same as the first location.

Which went out 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... Fuck the 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. Six or eight inches that were kind of stacked in a circle that looked completely out of place. So I turned to Carlo as 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. You understand, man, 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 any time a loved one 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 looked 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 develop that big thing? You can't develop that one at a time.

I would start. You can talk to my little one and tell her that. And I feel so so happy that they see each other stay there. And I think he knew he wasn't going to go home again.

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 to try and prove?"”

And then when we got back to the interview room, back in our later, then he told us what really happened. And then he went, "I'll let you know. Just be honest with you guys." I could see a human skull. After we located, Nancy Woodrums 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 in to 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 in to the same interrogation room and began questioning Carlo again. So he went into the flooding last year? Yes, that's when they went into it.

He finally admitted what we had suspected.

He came in to Nancy's house around 12.15 in the morning. When she was in bed, she was on bed. And then he started telling a different version about what happened. The real story? Yes.

Yes, that's me right now. Then what happened? There's about 100 cents we've got. 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 that. She was being nice with me. I took it 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?”

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? Or do you hate me? She could have suffered.

It was so quick. He admitted to raping her, the 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 but I don't think she did.

Yeah, I don't think she did. Are you really sure? I mean, I was drunk and not doing this. I don't remember.

How long were you at our house for?

I was at 40 minutes. Yeah.

“And what did you do during those 40 minutes after you had sex with her?”

I went to put her back on the truck when it's okay. You know, if I guess properly. The bedding that was found on the side of La Ponza 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 Carizzo planes. This was the entire truth. I'm not even, I just be known as with you guys.

Now I have to pay the cost of questions. 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 the 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. And once he wrote the apology letter, the detective placed him under arrest. What was that like? It was a huge relief. This clip brings back, you know, a lot of memories of at that moment.

Just this is going to be served for Nancy Woodrum. I can 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 coal presents to you a photograph and a name, Carlo Fuentes Flores.

Okay. I was 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, Aaron said, why?”

Why? They found their 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, 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 that's really, it's a hard pill, as well. There's 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 I just thought, how very, very unfair.”

Now all that remains is a trial, prosecutors decide not to go for the death penalty. But they're confident that they've got a winning case. Now the defense has something in store. And if the judge buys it, everything could totally unravel. But what I wanted to do now is not to give the whole student a message.

Mr. Baithag left her bücher soft behind the internet. She's a master, I'm sorry. But you can't say that. You're right, you're right. But you're not. I don't know, it's obvious.

It's obvious, but it's just like that. And if you then go for it, you'll get it. That's it? Safe, like that. Hold it, then go for it.

Now you've got to try it out. It's your garden's start-cloth for the morning, with action in quality and the smallest price in hand. For example, for minikettensegan, only 24, 188. Or garden-touch garden-sharing, only 1,2 and 80. Indeed, all garden-productive in our field and in the action app.

Action, small price, big joy. Hello, this is a pre-paid call from Carl. An innate inter-family, a good-to-chelle. Hello? Hello, crystal? Carl? Yes.

I was responsible for monitoring any gel phone calls that took place involving Carlo Fuentes Flores. The ones that were of particular inches would have been the phone calls with his wife, Crystal. Did you do this, Carl? Yes, I'm the answer, sorry. I don't know why that day.

I was a drunk. Yeah, I know, Carl. But you did.

“You did the worst 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 in Fuentes Flores's police interview, and admissions to his wife in recorded jail calls, he pleads not guilty. And his defense attorney has a strategy that could up and the case.

The defense team presented a very spirited defense centered on a motion to suppress his recorded interview. Carlo 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.

Or I know something that I do. But as long as you can understand me, if you don't just let me know.

Ultimately, the judge denied the defense's motions of suppress and found that the detectives preserved his rights,

and that they properly Miranda's timid interviewed him in English. He confessed, and then we able to find her, and then thought, "Okay, we're done. This is the end, but no. 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 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 waves 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 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 the 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.

We'll have the family. What about what? They're family. We have this plea. I know.

They're never going to get to see her again. This is so stupid. So stupid, so stupid. Aaron, you read the victim's impact statement in court. What did you and your family want to say to Carlo?

Just let him know how he changed our lives. You know, not the fact that he took her life for nothing. Just to note, let her know that it's sick and dust. 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's 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, out of 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.

She was.

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 want to do with my mom, now I do with my daughter, and that's a good feeling. She was a huge part of our life. She's 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 Floria is appealed his conviction. It was denied by the California Court of Appeals in July of 2023. That's our program, Bertonite. Thanks for watching.

I'm David Newer. And I'm Deborah Roberts from all of us here at 2020, and ABC News. Good night. [BLANK_AUDIO] From 30 for 30 podcasts. [BLANK_AUDIO]

From 30 for 30 podcasts. [BLANK_AUDIO] [BLANK_AUDIO] Ryan Patus, Senior Defense of Lyme and from Miami, gunned out. [BLANK_AUDIO]

Before he died, he was on a phone arguing about this might be a hit. You want to true, you just want to conviction be close to your arrest. We had a killer amongst us. Murder at the you, listen now. [BLANK_AUDIO]