MANATEE COUNTY, Fla. (WFTS/KGTV) — A man who avoided authorities for nearly 40 years in San Diego County took a plea deal Thursday in connection to a Florida murder case from the '80s, just a week before his trial was scheduled to begin.
Donald Santini's plea deal consists of 50 years in prison and 15 years probation after.
Santini was arrested by the U.S. Marshals Fugitive Task Force on June 8 near San Diego, California, and extradited back to Florida. He'd been wanted on a first-degree murder charge since June 18, 1984.
According to the warrant issued for Santini, he's accused of killing a 33-year-old woman named Cynthia Ruth Wood.
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According to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, Wood was last seen leaving her Manatee County apartment with Santini five days before her body was found. Court documents show that on June 6, 1984, Wood was reported missing. Her body was later discovered on June 9, 1984, in a "water-filled ditch" in Riverview.
Those documents also show that the medical examiner at the time determined Wood had been strangled.
A witness statement from June 15, 1984, claims that Santini told a woman he knew about the killing. It also said that Santini went by several aliases, including "Charles Michael Stevens," "Donald Chapman," and "John Trimbleon."
In June, Florida Gulf Coast University forensics professor Dr. David Thomas offered his perspective on the case. He said that due to the nature of Wood’s death, Santini likely left a lot of evidence behind for investigators to gather all those years ago. And it's evidence that Dr. Thomas said if stored correctly, can still be processed.
“There’s this thing called 'Locard’s exchange' — meaning that what is on me usually is left at that crime scene, so I’m going to leave some part of me there. So it may be in her clothes, it may be on some part of her body, but there’s something that he left there at that scene, and they were able to collect it, so kudos to them," he said.
Santini was living in California under a different name but confirmed to a judge that he was, in fact, the man deputies were searching for.
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