When Moab Police Detective Jeremy Drexler first began working one in all Moab’s extra high-profile chilly circumstances — the homicide of Ann Woodward on March 2, 1973, at Woody’s Tavern — he thought notorious serial killer Ted Bundy was his main suspect.
In any case, Bundy dedicated one in all his many murders in Utah at round that point and an intensive investigation yielded no native suspects, no less than any they may show a case in opposition to. However Drexler went the place the information took him: To the Nebraska grave of Doug Chudomelka, who rented a Walnut Lane trailer for $100 a month as he labored for the Rio Algom Mine from the early to mid-Nineteen Seventies.
Chudomelka, a person with a historical past of violence, died at 67 in 2002, almost 30 years after police say he strangled and doubtless sexually assaulted Woodward, 46, who was the spouse of then-Woody’s proprietor Leslie “Woody” Woodward.
Drexler theorizes that Chudomelka, who would have been about 36 in 1973, was offended at Woodward for beating him at poker, however he admits it may even have been a criminal offense of alternative slightly than rage.
He is aware of indubitably that the pair performed playing cards, that Chudomelka drank beer and smoked Camel cigarettes that night time, and that he brutally murdered Woodward, leaving her half-dressed physique on the ground between two pool tables. Her pants have been off. The precise leg was inside out and tied right into a knot. Her shirt had been unbuttoned.
The pant leg, mentioned Drexler, was used to strangle Woodward. It was nonetheless wrapped round her neck when her husband found her physique at about 6:30 a.m.
“He (Chudomelka) was the one one on the earth who may have been sitting in that chair,” mentioned Drexler. He was additionally the one one whose DNA was discovered on the buttons of Woodward’s shirt and on the waist of her pants. However the deal nearer was the DNA discovered on the within of her pants.
“He may clarify away having his DNA on the surface of her garments, however not the within of her pants. No means,” mentioned Drexler.
Chudomelka was one in all 25 suspects. Nearly anybody who had been within the bar or who was identified to be a daily at Woody’s was a suspect, however Chudomelka had extra going in opposition to him than the remaining. His mid-Nineteen Sixties Ford sedan matched the automotive witnesses mentioned they noticed parked subsequent to Woodward’s truck on March 1. She was killed between 1:40 a.m. and a pair of:30 a.m. March 2.
Chudomelka advised investigators on the time that he had not been in Woody’s that night time however had as a substitute spent the night consuming on the Westerner Grill. His girlfriend, Joyce, supplied an alibi, telling police that Chudomelka got here house at about 2 a.m.
“He simply may have killed her and made it house by 2 a.m., however the bartender on the Westerner advised police Chudomelka was not in in any respect the night time of March 1.
On July 3, 1973, Chudomelka was arrested on a home violence cost. Joyce advised police then that he was Woodward’s killer and that she would speak in regards to the homicide to the county lawyer. He would later be convicted of cattle rustling in San Juan County and served a time period of probation earlier than he left the area.
She later recanted and refused to say something apart from admitting Chudomelka got here house at 4:10 within the morning on March 2, not 2 a.m.
Thirty-three years later, when former Police Chief Mike Navarre reopened the case in 2006, she nonetheless refused to speak about what she knew.
The case languished till Drexler got here alongside, armed with Twenty first-century science and legislation enforcement instruments, however the detective credit a former police chief who investigated the homicide in 1973.
A cop forward of his time
If former Moab Police Chief Melvin Dalton have been nonetheless alive, he would know the steps he took then would assist clear up Woodward’s homicide.
“He was a forward-thinking man,” mentioned Drexler.
Certainly, Dalton took quite a lot of steps in that path. First, just a few days after the homicide, March 6, he requested for and obtained permission from Chudomelka to tug hairs from his physique. “He took it from his stomach button, his chest, his pubic space and his head and punctiliously preserved them in proof. He took Camel cigarette butts present in an ashtray and preserved them. He requested the FBI to check the hair and to see if there was saliva on the cigarettes to be able to decide the suspect’s blood sort.
“This case hinged on the hair Dalton pulled in 1973,” Drexler continued. “I don’t know how he knew that we’d have the ability to try this at the moment. Dalton made this case very straightforward for us in that facet.”
Dalton was so superior in his considering that when he despatched the FBI the fingerprints of suspects and cigarette butts, the FBI returned the field, unopened, with a letter that basically learn: “This can be a nice concept, however we don’t have the expertise to try this.”
Occasions have modified and now that expertise is used to convict criminals — or eradicate them as suspects. Certainly, the expertise has led to the exoneration of a whole bunch of incarcerated individuals in recent times.
Dalton’s work additionally allowed the case to be solved with out having to exhume Chudomelka’s physique.
Whereas Dalton was meticulous in his investigation, the way in which issues have been performed 51 years in the past muddied the waters. There was no data administration system in place then and the proof, whereas “very neatly put collectively and prepared for our taking,” as Drexler put it, was ultimately faraway from the Grand County Sheriff’s Workplace proof room and positioned into an outbuilding, due partially to its age and partially to higher protect it.
As soon as Drexler found the hidden proof issues broke open. “It was 50 years and 6 months later, however we obtained it and I knew we had it,” mentioned Drexler. “I known as my spouse and advised her I had the proof within the backseat of my truck and I obtained emotional. It was a treasure trove.”
Drexler mentioned Chudomelka not solely murdered Woodward, however he additionally took $75 out of the money register and the $50 she received from him taking part in poker out of the left pocket of her pants. He paid his hire two days later with 5 $20 payments. Drexler mentioned he has no concept if he paid hire with the stolen cash or not. There’s no approach to know, but it surely’s a chance.
He mentioned there have been tissues in each one in all Woodward’s pockets, aside from the left pants pocket. Subsequent to the pants on the ground was one tissue and eight dimes.
Chudomelka and different suspects have been requested to take polygraph assessments. Chudomelka agreed, however they have been unable to manage the check as a result of Chudomelka was intoxicated when he arrived. “They have been Doug,” mentioned Drexler. “They only couldn’t get him.”
Finally, Chudomelka and a handful of different suspects stopped speaking to police and requested for legal professionals to signify their pursuits.
Fashionable strategies
Drexler, utilizing fashionable strategies, was capable of separate the 29 items of proof that have been a part of the unique case and break them aside into about 80 items of proof, every with its personal story to inform.
When The Occasions-Unbiased interviewed Drexler in November of 2022, he mentioned he was assured he may clear up the case if given the assets. He was certainly supplied important assist and whereas he acknowledges he’s the driving power behind fixing the case, he additionally mentioned many individuals in Moab, from his colleagues at MPD and Grand County Sheriff Jamison Wiggins and individuals who have been round in 1973, all the way in which to the FBI performed key roles find Ann Woodward’s killer.
Now energized, each the MPD and the sheriff’s workplace are poised to open different chilly circumstances and, as soon as the Woodward case is formally closed, Chudomelka’s fingerprints and DNA might be uploaded into federal databases to presumably decide different crimes he may need dedicated within the 29 years he lived following Woodward’s homicide.
