WOODS GUILTY OF MURDER
Life term for killing his wife
Family and friends of Dorothy Woods clapped and cheered as they watched her husband David Woods led out of a Saskatoon courtroom to serve a life sentence in prison for her murder.
A jury of nine women and three men deliberated for about seven hours Thursday before reaching the verdict, finding David Woods guilty of first-degree murder.
He was then sentenced to the mandatory term of life in prison with no chance of parole for 25 years.
Chief Justice Martel Popescul spent Thursday morning instructing the jury on the essential elements of first-degree murder. First, he said, the jury had to determine that David Woods intentionally caused his wife’s death as part of an unlawful act.
Then, to reach the threshold of first-degree, the jury had to decide the murder was planned and deliberate or committed during the course of another unlawful act, namely forcible confinement — referring to Dorothy’s body being found with her hands tied behind her back.
After beginning to deliberate at noon, the jury sent a note to the judge in the early evening with a question, asking for a definition of second-degree murder. The judge clarified his instructions to them at 7:30 p.m., then just as the lawyers and family members were leaving the courthouse 15 minutes later, the news came. The jury had a verdict.
The jury considered a “substantial” amount of circumstantial evidence that pointed to David Woods as his wife’s killer.
David and Dorothy Woods had both decided their marriage was over on Nov. 11, 2011.
That fall, Dorothy was having multiple extramarital affairs, and that day, she told her husband she was leaving him for another man.
The Crown’s theory is that David Woods grew so angry at his wife that he hit her over the head to incapacitate her, then bound her hands behind her back and strangled her. He then stored her body somewhere on their Saskatoon property at 19 Riel Cres. while he shopped for supplies to dispose of her body, ultimately covering her in a large piece of plastic wrap, taking her body south of town and hiding it in a large culvert near Blackstrap.
Police found her body after the GPS tracking device they installed on David Woods’s truck showed a suspicious trip to Blackstrap in January 2012.
Outside court, Crown prosecutor Michael Segu complimented the police work that led to the murder conviction.
“I really give my true admiration to the Saskatoon police department,” he said. “To do an investigation of this quality without either a body or a witness was truly a remarkable piece of detective work and it was a privilege to prosecute this case.
Defence lawyer Michael Nolin said David Woods was disappointed in the verdict. He still maintains his innocence, so an appeal is likely, Nolin said.
“Every time you go into a trial of this nature you’re hoping for an acquittal, but at the end of the day, the elephant in the room spoke pretty darn loud,” Nolin said, referring to the fact there were no other suspects to point the jury to.
Dorothy’s family declined to speak with media Thursday night, but her brother Lawrence Carter’s victim impact statement was read in court by Segu.
“Missing you hurts so much,” Carter wrote. “I love you, Dot.”