Nancy Woodrum’s murder: How geofencing technology cracked the case of a woman who vanished
By all accounts, Nancy Woodrum was the variety of woman who made everybody round her really feel like they mattered.
Woodrum, 62, was the proprietor of a hair salon in Paso Robles, California, who lived alone in her Victorian-style ranch dwelling, named Paradise Ranch, after her husband Robert died a few years earlier.
“Nancy clicked with everybody,” Louisa Spadia Beckham, who knew Woodrum from the salon, instructed “20/20.” “She just had that amazing gift of just openness, kindness, just generous.”
However, Woodrum’s daughter, Amanda Peel, grew to become involved after getting a telephone name on May 5, 2018.
A brand new “20/20” episode, “The Vanishing of Nancy Woodrum“ahring Friday, March 13, at 9 pm ET on ABC and streaming the subsequent day on Disney+ and Hulu, look at the case.
You also can get extra behind-the-scenes of every week’s episode by listening to “20/20: The After Show” weekly sequence proper in your 20/20 podcast feed on Mondays, hosted by “20/20” co-anchor Deborah Roberts.
Nancy Woodrum is pictured right here at her hair salon in Paso Robles, Calif.
Courtesy of Amanda Peel
Woodrum “had not shown up to her Bible study group,” Peel mentioned, which was uncommon since she was a religious Jehovah’s Witness.
“I had her neighbor go over there to check on her,” she instructed “20/20.” “She said, ‘The door’s wide open, the TV’s blaring, and you better come over here.'”
Peel went to analyze the dwelling, discovering what gave the impression to be blood spattered in her room and her bedsheets lacking.
Nancy Woodrum is photographed with a younger Amanda Peel on this archival picture.
Courtesy of Amanda Peel
Investigators started searching for Woodrum, quickly discovering her lacking bedding and garments discarded on the facet of a freeway, a few miles away from Paradise Ranch.
Police questioned if somebody who knew Nancy might have been liable for her disappearance and investigated varied leads over the subsequent few months — weekend visitors staying at the ranch, a contractor, even a member of his family. But none of these panned out they usually had been all finally cleared, and the case languished for greater than seven months.
Then police deployed geofencing, a cellphone monitoring technology that was new at the time, at Paradise Ranch.
Paradise Ranch was Woodrum’s Victorian dwelling in Paso Robles, Calif.
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“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,” prosecutor Chris Peuvrelle instructed “20/20.” “In order to obtain Google geofence information, search warrants needed to be written and served upon Google for a very specific time period.”
It allowed investigators to determine any units that entered Woodrum’s home on the night time of her disappearance. This led them to Carlo Fuentes Flores, who was half of a portray crew that was contracted out for renovations at Paradise Ranch.
Carlo Fuentes Flores was a painter who labored for Woodrum and was recognized as a suspect in her disappearance by way of groundbreaking geofencing technology.
San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office
Police adopted Fuentes Flores and surreptitiously pulled his DNA off a Coke bottle he drank from at a restaurant. They discovered that it matched DNA present in Woodrum’s bed room on the night time she went lacking.
Investigators introduced Fuentes Flores in for questioning, the place he mentioned he would take investigators to Woodrum’s physique. He led them to a distant space referred to as Carrizo Plain, an hour outdoors of Paso Robles, the place police mentioned they discovered her skeletal stays.
In a subsequent interrogation, Fuentes Flores admitted to sexually assaulting Woodrum at Paradise Ranch, whereas intoxicated, and suffocating her along with her pillow to cowl up the assault.
Police arrested Fuentes Flores in December 2018, charging him with Woodrum’s murder After he wrote a letter of apology to her household and his.
Peel instructed “20/20” she felt comforted when her mom’s physique was situated.
“There was relief. I just wanted to find her. We needed to have some closure,” she mentioned. “There’s a lot of people who never get answers.”
Amanda Peel spoke to ABC’s “20/20” about the disappearance and homicide of her mom, Nancy Woodrum, in an all new episode.
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Fuentes Flores pleaded not responsible, regardless of his earlier confession, admissions of guilt to his spouse in recorded jail calls and apology letter. The protection argued that any earlier claims of guilt had been forfeit, as there ought to have been a Spanish translator current throughout the police interview with the Mexican-born Fuentes Flores, as his first language was Spanish.
However, the choose discovered him responsible of first-degree homicide throughout a rape, sentencing him to life in prison without parole in February 2022.
Fonts Flowers had taken a gradual plea that allowed him to enchantment his conviction, nevertheless it was denied by the California Court of Appeals in July 2023.
peel instructed “20/20” she nonetheless remembers all the love her mom unfold all through her life.
“She was an amazing person. She loved God. She wanted that to be first in her life. And she wanted people to know that,” she mentioned.
