GUILTY NV - Julia Woodward, 21, murdered, Washoe County, 1979 *Arrest in 2019*

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Cold Case: 36-Year-Old Murder Getting A New Look
Updated: Thu 8:29 PM, Mar 26, 2015 By: Ed Pearce

RENO, NV - February 1, 1979, 21-year-old Julia Woodward left her home in San Rafael, California. A friend dropped her off at the San Francisco Airport. She'd told her parents she was going to Reno or Lake Tahoe to look for a job.

Where she went, what she did, who she met here is unknown. But March 24, nearly two months later, her body was found near Eagle Canyon in Hungry Valley, 15 miles north of Reno. She had been struck on the back of the head, apparently killed where she lay.

[...]
And they were left with an eerie coincidence which may or may not be related, a second body also of a young woman with similar fatal injuries found the same year a short distance away.

[...]
Anyone with information that might help is asked to call the Washoe County Sheriff's Office or Secret Witness, which has posted a $2,500 reward for information leading to arrest and prosecution. The number is 322-4900.
 
RENO — Forty years after a woman’s bloodied body was found in the remote desert hills north of Reno, an Arizona man has been arrested in connection with the cold case killing.

Charles Gary Sullivan, 73, was arrested on Aug. 28 in Yavapai County, Arizona, by the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office.

Sullivan was extradited to Reno on Friday and will be arraigned in court Tuesday morning in connection with the 1979 killing of Julia Woodward, a 21-year-old woman who had only just moved to the state before going missing some four decades ago.

[...]

In 2015, the sheriff’s office re-opened Woodward’s case in hopes that modern technology could help them find new leads.

And four years, later, that’s exactly what happened.

Due to advances in DNA technology that weren’t available to investigators four decades ago, police were able to re-examine biological evidence from the crime scene that identified Sullivan as the suspect in the killing, according to a statement released late Friday by the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office.

Read more: Washoe County makes arrest in 1979 murder
 
RENO, Nev. (KOLO)-- A man charged in a 40-year-old murder case has been extradited to Reno and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday in Washoe District Court.

Charles Gary Sullivan, 73, is charged with open murder in the death of Julia Woodward, 21, of San Rafael, Calif. Her body was found March 25, 1979, in Hungry Valley northwest of Sparks.

The victim in another unsolved murder case, Jeannie Smith, 17, was found about 1 mile away. Smith disappeared before Woodward.

ABC 15 in Phoenix reported on Sullivan's arrest in Arizona. They reported: "According to some of Sullivan's own family members and other law enforcement sources, Sullivan could be connected to other murders in Arizona."

Sullivan was indicted by a Washoe County grand jury. Detectives from the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office cold case unit arrested him in Yavapia County, Ariz., on Wednesday and he was extradited to Reno on Friday. The case is an investigation of several agencies, including the sheriff’s office, the Nevada Attorney General’s Office and the FBI.

Arrest in 40-year-old Reno-area cold case murder
 
This guy clearly had an established M.O. & there are probably so many more victims out there. Also it's infuriating that he wasn't convicted of kidnapping or more charges in the 2007 case:

Arrest in 40-year-old Reno-area cold case murder


"Sulllivan has had brushes with the law before. In September 2007, he picked up a 25-year-old Eureka, Calif., woman hitchhiking along California 20 near Interstate 80 in Nevada County, coming back from her aunt’s funeral in Utah and heading towards Yuba City, according to court documents filed in Sullivan’s appeal of the California case. Court records indicate he drove her to a secluded location with the promise of showing her a vein of turquoise near Bowman Lake.

After a hike along an embankment, he handcuffed her and zip-tied her wrists and ankles, a court document said. Sullivan told the woman: “The only thing that’s going to be involved is sex. We’re just going to be out here for a few days having fun.”

She pleaded and he threatened to knock her out, the documents said. He returned to his minivan and she escaped and ran in the other direction and came to two men in an all-terrain vehicle and was rescued.

The Nevada County, Calif., jury rejected the kidnapping charge and found Sullivan guilty of false imprisonment and making a criminal threat.

The sentencing judge gave Sullivan three years, 8 months in prison, the maximum amount for the crimes for which he was convicted. Sullivan was paroled to Blythe, Calif. He was living in Pollock Pines, Calif., in El Dorado County, Calif., at the time of his 2007 arrest."
 
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Using DNA tools that were unavailable four decades ago, investigators tied Sullivan to Woodward's death, according to an indictment filed in August and unsealed this week.

"The defendant, Charles Gary Sullivan, in or about 1979, within the County of Washoe, State of Nevada, did willfully, feloniously, without authority of law, and with premeditation, deliberation, and malice aforethought, and/or in the perpetration or attempted perpetration of a sexual assault, kill Julia Woodward by striking her with a rock," the indictment said.

Sullivan, according to court documents, was charged, but not convicted, with kidnapping a 25-year-old California woman. A Nevada County, Calif. jury did find Sullivan guilty of false imprisonment and making a criminal threat.

Sullivan, court documents read, picked up a woman hitchhiking from her aunt's funeral in Utah to Yuba City, California. Instead of taking her there, he allegedly zip-tied her wrists and ankles and took her to a remote area off the interstate. The woman was able to escape and fled to the road and flagged down two men driving by on an ATV.
Man arrested in 40-year-old cold case murder of California woman
 
Charles Gary Sullivan, 73, is set to be arraigned Tuesday in Washoe County in connection with the murder of Julia Woodward, 21, of San Rafael.
upload_2019-11-17_13-52-56.jpeg

Investigators cracked the cold case through “advances in DNA technology,” the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office said.

After a Washoe County sheriff’s detective sought additional DNA analysis recently, prosecutors obtained an indictment against Sullivan in August.

Investigators arrested Sullivan in Yavapai County, Arizona, on Aug. 28. Authorities extradited him to Washoe County on Friday and announced the break in the case late Friday night.

Sullivan had traveled in Nevada in search of employment in the Reno and Lake Tahoe area, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported.

The Washoe County Sheriff’s Office said more details about the case would be released after Sullivan’s arraignment.
Marin woman’s alleged killer arrested in 1979 cold case
 
Is Charles Gary Sullivan a serial killer? That’s what authorities are trying to find out, according to ABC15 reporters Nicole Valdes and Jeffrey Popovich, who broke the story about his arrest.

The television station reported on November 15, 2019 that Sullivan stands accused of one homicide – that of Woodward – but is also under investigation in “multiple homicide investigations involving vulnerable young women.”

Luke Garrison, a producer for ABC15, wrote on Twitter, “Suspected serial killer arrested in Arizona. This dates back decades. This is going to be a BIG story for a long time.”
Charles Gary Sullivan: 5 Fast Facts You Need to Know | Heavy.com
 
Charles Gary Sullivan was extradited Friday to Nevada from Arizona, where he was arrested and charged in the 1979 murder of Julia Woodward, the Washoe County Sheriff's Office said in a statement.

It's one of the latest arrests made possible by advances in DNA technology decades after crimes were committed. In this case, a detective in the sheriff's office's new cold case unit asked for evidence from the scene to be tested.

Woodward's body was found on March 25, 1979, in Hungry Valley, about 15 miles north of Reno, according to the sheriff's office. The cause of death was blunt force trauma.
Technological advances are leading to more and more cold case arrests. The most famous is probably the arrest in the Golden State Killer case in April 2018, where investigators used DNA and a free genealogy database to arrest Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, for allegedly killing 12 people and raping more than 50 women in the 1970s and 1980s.
Arizona man is arrested after 40 years
 
In August, a task force of local and federal agents descended on the area, arresting Sullivan and - in a chilling sign - combing his property with cadaver dogs.

Law enforcement sources say that investigators are now probing for any connections Sullivan may have had to other murders through the last four decades, fearing he may be a serial killer.

Multiple cold cases in both Nevada and Arizona are undergoing review, sources say.

At the top of the list is the murder of 17-year-old Jeannie Smith, whose skeletal remains were found in November 1979 in a shallow grave just a mile from where Julia's body was found several months earlier.
upload_2019-11-17_18-3-0.jpeg
Like Julia, she died as a result of blunt force trauma, according to investigators.

Jeannie was last seen on October 28, 1978, at he Circus-Circus Hotel in Reno, Nevada. She had been reported as a missing person to Reno Police.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/new
 
Sullivan remained jailed Saturday pending a Tuesday arraignment on a murder charge. It wasn’t clear whether he has an attorney who could comment on the allegation.

This undated photo released by Washoe County Sheriff's Office shows Charles Gary Sullivan. Sullivan, 73, was booked Friday, Nov. 15, 2019, into the Washoe County jail on a charge of open murder with a deadly weapon. He was arrested in Arizona's Yavapai County and extradited to Reno for the 1979 murder of 21-year-old Julia Woodward. Woodward's body was found March 25, 1979 buried in a remote area north of Reno. She was last seen Feb. 1, 1979 at the San Francisco airport while headed for Reno. Sullivan remained jailed Saturday pending a Tuesday arraignment on a murder charge. (Washoe County Sheriff's Office via AP)

The statement announcing the arrest said a Washoe County sheriff’s detective who reviewed the cold case asked for additional forensic analysis of the evidence and that it identified Sullivan as a possible suspect.

Officials plan to release more information about the case following the arraignment scheduled Tuesday, the statement said.
Arizona man extradited from Yavapai County to Nevada in 1979 killing of woman
 
Tuesday, November 19th:
*Arraignment Hearing (@ am PT) – NV – Julia Woodward (21) (last seen Feb. 1, 1979 @ SF airport, found Mar. 24, 1979 near Eagle Canyon in Hungry Valley (15 miles north of Reno) - *Charles Gary Sullivan (77/33 @ time of crime) indicted (8/25/19), arrested (8/28/19 in Yavapai County, AZ), extradited (11/15/19 to Reno) & charged (11/15/19) with open murder. Held without bond.
DNA Match. Under investigation in multiple homicides involving vulnerable young women.
 
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