'America's Most Wanted' fugitive Donald Santini, 65, gets 50 years in prison after he pleads guilty to Florida woman's 1984 murder
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA: Donald Santini, a former California fugitive who eluded authorities for nearly four decades, might die in prison after entering a plea deal for a 1994 murder.
On Thursday, November 16, the 65-year-old pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the death of Cynthia "Cindy" Ruth Wood in a deal with prosecutors to avoid a first-degree murder charge.
Circuit Judge Samantha Ward approved the plea deal before sentencing Santini to 50 years in Florida State Prison, followed by 15 years of probation.
"The man who spent nearly four decades on the run...accepted responsibility for the crime in court today," stated Florida's Office of the State Attorney, 13th Judicial Circuit, in a statement, according to Daily Mail.
Santini appeared on 'America's Most Wanted' three times - in 1990, 2005, and 2013 - and remained on the list until cops received a tip-off in June when he applied for a passport.
How Donald Santini was arrested in connection with Cindy Ruth Wood's death?
Before his arrest, Donald Santini lived under the name Wellman Simmonds just outside of San Diego in the small town of Campo, where he married a woman in Nevada in March 1990, and welcomed a daughter shortly afterward.
In Campo, the fugitive installed surveillance cameras and barbed wire while serving as the president of the Lake Morena Views Mutual Water Company.
Neighbors who claimed they were shocked by the news described him as a "pillar of the community" and noted that he frequently attended public meetings.
The life he had built in California came to an end thanks to a tip from the Florida/Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force, leading US marshals to Campo, where Santini was taken into custody.
During his trial, it was revealed that in 1984, Santini moved to Florida, where he began working as a janitor in a hotel under the name, Charles Michael Stevens.
In this period, he started a relationship with Pamela Kincaid and ultimately moved in with her and her two kids. Police said that Santini made an attempt to date Wood, who managed a childcare center that Kincaid's children attended.
He is suspected of murdering her on June 6, 1984, after setting up a meeting with her and promising to provide her with information that would have enabled her to prevail in a contentious custody dispute over her three children.
About two days later, her body was discovered fully clothed in a wet grave in Riverview, not far from Bradenton. The hunt for her killer went cold for 39 years until Sanitni was arrested in June.
Donald Santini’s daughter comes to his defense
Donald Santini addressed a message to a local television station following his detention in the summer, stating, "The reason I have been able to run so long is to live a loving respectful life."
"Things are not as they seem. I need a lawyer that doesn't try to push me through the system to keep me quiet. The problem is I have no money," continued the 65-year-old.
In the wake of Santini's arrest, his daughter Whitney Simmonds, also made several posts online protesting his innocence. She wrote, "My dad didn't do it," in one post, while in another she said, "I miss you, papa," attaching a video of him being escorted into a police station.
Simmonds also told Daily Mail that she believes her older siblings, whom Santini fathered through various relationships, "set up" her father despite him being innocent.
"I feel like they knew and they folded on my dad. I think my sister and my brother did. Within the next week [after Santini's arrest] they were at my mom's house selling stuff that belonged to my dad. It was rough for me, to walk into his house and see everything gone already," claimed the daughter to the outlet.
She added, "I want to see the actual evidence. They say they have his fingerprints on her body but those fingerprints aren't around her neck, so who strangled her?" talking about Wood's murder.