Monday, October 3, 2011

Moreno Valley man is suspect in 20-year-old murder

DNA evidence led to the arrest of a Moreno Valley man Monday in a gruesome murder of a Riverside woman, found bound, gagged and slashed with a hay hook, that went unsolved for nearly 20 years, authorities said.

Judith Goodman was found strangled in her apartment on Gould Street in February 1992, her wrists and ankles tied with plastic zip ties and her mouth covered with duct tape. She also had deep cuts on the back of her neck, apparently inflicted by a decorative hay hook inside her home, authorities said.

According to the Riverside County district attorney’s office, detectives with the Riverside Police Department reopened the cold case in 2010, submitting the zip ties, duct tape and victim’s fingernails for DNA testing that was not available at the time of the murder.

Under Goodman’s right-hand fingernails investigators found traces of DNA evidence that linked to a “potential donor”: Leonard Terrance Woods, 53.

Woods lived in the same apartment complex; and, in 1992, witnesses told police they had seen him entering Goodman’s apartment. They also said he had scratches on his face, which investigators also noted.

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