After nearly four decades, a Florida man featured on “America’s Most Wanted” was arrested and extradited in connection to the murder of Cynthia Ruth Wood.
Donald Santini, 65, was wanted for the death of 33-year-old divorcée back in June of 1984, authorities confirmed. He was arrested in California this week and returned to Florida to stand trial.
Investigators said the two crossed paths in the mid-1980s when Santini promised Wood he would provide information about her husband that could help her win custody of her children, according to reporting from Tampa Bay Times.
The two were said to have met up on June 6, 1984, and Wood wasn’t seen again until three days later when detectives found her body in a drainage ditch, she appeared to have been strangled to death, The Tampa Bay Times reported.
An autopsy confirmed that Wood, a mother of three from Bradenton had been strangled. A witness told detectives that Charles Michael Stevens, a known alias used by Santini, had confessed to her he killed Wood, according to The Tampa Bay Times.
Stevens was one of three aliases he had used before Wood’s death, Tampa Bay Times reported.
He fled Hillsborough County almost immediately after he was identified as a suspect, according to the Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office.
More:He was on death row for 29 years. His case pingponged through the courts. Now, he’s free
A criminal history
Being charged with the murder of Wood wasn’t the first time Santini had gotten in trouble with the law. While he was serving in the U.S. Army in Frankfurt, Germany in 1978 he was convicted of rape, according to Tamba Bay Times.
He was later charged with aggravated robbery in 1983 in connection to a convenience store robbery in Texas, his home state. Santini disappeared a few days later after confessing, Tampa Bay Times reported.
The next time he was seen, he had changed his last name to Stevens and was working as a janitor in Longboat Key, Fla. There, he began a new life and befriended the…
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