Transcript of The After Show: The Vanishing of Nancy Woodrum

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Hi there, everybody, and welcome to 20/20: The After Show. I'm Deborah Roberts, and as always, I'm so glad you're joining us today. We are gonna take you inside a mystery, and if you watched our 20/20 program last last week, you know this one was one that is pretty unforgettable. And if you didn't, you're going to hear some details. And for those of you who may have seen it, there are details you may not have heard. The story was called The Vanishing of Nancy Woodrum, and it centers around basically a head-spinning disappearance of a woman who's a mom and a grandmother who went missing in the middle of the night from her home in Paso Robles, California on May 5th, 2018. And what really got us about this story and made it feel so resonant is that this is a 62-year-old woman, Nancy, who could have been somebody that any of us knew. Those who knew her described her as kind, as well-liked in her community. She lived in this scenic, beautiful community, owned a popular hair salon in town, had a dedicated clientele. So there was no reason for anybody to think of her as being the target of a kidnapping.

And as you listen to this, you're probably thinking there are a lot of similarities here, right, compared to another big story that we've all been following, the disappearance of another Nancy, Nancy Guthrie. In her case, an 84-year-old mom and of course the mother of my friend and colleague Savannah Guthrie and her brother and sister. Well, like Nancy Guthrie's case, this one too initially left investigators in California stumped for some time actually. So we're going to kind of wind it back and tell you how it all took place. It took nearly 7 months for investigators to finally track down what really happened to Nancy Woodrum. That night. And there was also a pioneering use of digital forensic technology, which I don't really understand, but fortunately the correspondent who's here does understand it and will tell us about how this helped them piece together this bizarre crime and what led them to the stunning realization of who was behind Nancy's disappearance. Turns out it was somebody just right there in their plain sight. So with all of that lead-up, I got to introduce you to our guest today, which is Whit Johnson, my pal and colleague. Whit, so great to see you and have you here.

You have exclusive reporting in this 2020 report. And there's so much for us to get to. And you went back to California. But before we get to that, you and I have never had a chance to do this.

Yes, it's my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Yeah, well, you know, all the viewers know you from, of course, GMA and World News Tonight on the weekend and all your reporting here. But reporting on a 2020 episode, I hope this was something that was interesting for you because it's a chance to do a real long format program.

And this was fascinating, too. And I'm from California, born and raised, and I have family from Southern California, actually not far from Paso Robles where this story played out. So I feel this connection to the story, connection to the community, and the community there was almost like a character in the setting, the backdrop of this story.

I said Paso Robles, it's Paso Robles.

Paso Robles, yes.

Paso Robles, tell us all about the community.

You are forgiven. Yes, and in fact, the people who live there just call it Paso.

Okay, good. Let's do that. Let's do that.

But it's, it's this wonderful, beautiful community sort of nestled in Central California between San San Francisco and Los Angeles. It's scenic, rolling hills, farms, wineries. It's really become like this getaway town for people, you know, living in Los Angeles, you know, looking for a place to get away, get off the grid. Exactly. And it's become very popular for large gatherings, wedding venues, and things like that. And so that's what takes us to this community for the scene of this crime.

Obviously, against this backdrop, this beauty, this woman who had made her life there, a mom, a grandmother. What did you make of the story when you first heard of it that this woman had gone missing and the way police put it together, what were your first thoughts as a Californian?

Yeah, I think to your point that all of us know someone like Nancy Woodrum, whether it's a mother, a neighbor, a family member, or a friend. You know, this is a woman who was tough, who was independent, who had been through a lot in her life, but she was grounded in her faith as a Jehovah's Witness. But here she was living this wonderful life in Central California on her own, running a business, a hair salon in town, but also renting out this property that she called Paradise Ranch. And the property itself is a big part of this story too, because it's this old Victorian home. There's a guest house that's just across the courtyard, and then this cottage that's connected to the guest house where Nancy would stay. So she would rent out the rest of the property, and there were tennis courts and a swimming pool and horses. It's just beautiful.

So people would come there for events.

Exactly. And that's how this scene starts. It's a wedding party that rented out the property, and they were all staying there on that weekend in May in 2018.

Let's talk about about initially your arriving there. Again, you said you're from California. You get there, you start walking the property, you get to see everything there and the whole feeling of like where this crime has happened. Obviously it's many years after. What was that like for you as a reporter?

My first reaction driving up was, this is exactly where you would want to have a wedding gathering. Because I mean, it's just gorgeous. I mean, the views of the rolling hills all around the property. And then like I said, the horses, the courtyard, there's also this wraparound deck where at the back people were having drinks on the night that she disappeared. And you can sort of like get a sense of, okay, I could see how this all plays out. But you have more than 20 wedding guests staying at this property on the night that Nancy Woodrum vanishes, including the bride. And this was something that I had to really see in person. The bride staying in her apartment was separated by only a single wall to Nancy Woodrum's cottage where this awful crime occurred. But right there next to where tragedy happened, at the time nobody saw or heard a thing, which is how this all plays out, almost like an Agatha Christie novel. In the beginning you have all these potential suspects and nobody saw or heard anything.

There were missing persons posters that were put up. This goes on for months and, you know, police are questioning all kinds of folks. Kind of walk us through her family. You said she'd been through tragedy. Her daughter was the one who had discovered that she had been missing. Tell us a little bit about her life and what you learned about her and, and the way people thought of her there.

Speaking to the family, I got a sense of just the agony and the pain and what that was like in the first days, weeks, and months before they had any idea what was going on. And I can tell you just a sense of like the family dynamics. So I spoke to Amanda Peel, who is Nancy's daughter, and she walked me through the entire investigation from beginning to end. And after Nancy disappeared, Amanda, her daughter, talked about how it was virtually impossible to even go into town, even though the community was so supportive. You mentioned the missing posters and all these things, and people wanted to help, but she's constantly asked and reminded, hey, what do you know? What, what's new? What, what, what are investigators saying about what happened to your mother? And she just described how difficult it was to just walk through life day after day after her mom disappeared.

Yeah. So she took you back to that night, and there were some real disturbing signs right off the bat.

Absolutely. Absolutely. So it's May 4th, 2018. So that night, all the wedding guests arrive, right? 20+ wedding guests staying on the property. And it's Nancy Woodrum who is organizing all this for them. So she greets the bridal party, you know, the bridal party goes off to rehearsal dinner. And then they come back and they're having some drinks, enjoying themselves, and then they all go to bed sometime before midnight. Then after midnight. And again, this is sort of like fast forwarding a little bit because we didn't find— investigators didn't learn this until later. There was a 911 call that came from Nancy's apartment that was like an immediate hang up. And so that sort of gave investigators this time frame that it was sometime after midnight that they think something happened to Nancy. So the next morning, Nancy's daughter Amanda told us that the way they found out that Nancy was missing is because she didn't show up for Bible study that morning. And so her friends who are used to seeing Nancy there immediately knew that something was wrong. They tried to reach Nancy and they couldn't. So they reached out to Amanda. So Amanda works her way over to the property with her husband.

And remember, everybody's getting ready for the wedding.

Yeah, this is supposed to be a happy occasion.

They're getting ready to take pictures. The bride is there, the bridesmaids, people are getting dressed up, and then they're going to— the bridal party is going to then go off to a winery to get married. But as soon as Amanda got there and went to her mother's apartment, the door was left partway open. There were stains on the floor, stains on the bed. Things just didn't seem right. The TV was on. Her car was still there. Her belongings were still— she didn't take her shoes. Right. So if somebody were to leave the apartment, you know, it wouldn't look like this. Yeah. Now, later they understood that those stains were bloodstains, right, on the rug.

That wasn't immediately apparent.

They, again, in the moment, the way Amanda and her husband Aaron described it to me was they were just so shocked by everything that was happening. They were just taking it in in bits and pieces. And maybe it was a stain, maybe it was a wine stain, right? You're—

because they're trying to think that maybe there's an explanation here.

Your brain doesn't want to go to the worst possible case scenario. But they then started to realize that this looked really bad. And so Amanda approached the bride and the wedding guests and was asking, hey, have you seen my mom? Have you seen my mom? Meanwhile, they're trying to get on with the wedding. They don't—

they don't—

at this point, they don't realize how bad this is. Amanda's husband Aaron calls 911.. And then ultimately they show up and they just with caution tape, they divide up the place and now it's a crime scene by the time the wedding party gets back that night.

That is absolutely unbelievable. And it is like something out of a novel, as you said, when you think about that. Well, you and the team were able to— I mean, of course, we're going after the fact now, but you want to go back and understand what happened. And you were actually able to gain access to the property, which not many people had had an opportunity to see, to kind of get a feeling but what that was like. And that had to be sort of heavy for you.

It really was. And it wasn't just the property. I mean, we were allowed to go inside where this awful crime occurred. And I got to tell you, for me personally, I know for you, you've covered a lot of these cases. You've been to various crime scenes and things like that. There, there was just a heavy atmosphere in that room. I had seen prior to this visit crime scene photos and images and stuff like that. So I walk in and all of that is flashing through my mind. But if you didn't know what you were looking for, it's an ordinary bedroom. It's an ordinary studio apartment.

And going back to that night, which is where this all gets to be so interesting, because again, her daughter is asking about her mom's whereabouts. The wedding party doesn't really know. So now investigators have got to question, what, 20+ people? And it's almost like one of those crazy things, like, you know, on the train or something like, you know, Murder on the Orient Express or something, right?

Yeah. And detectives basically described it that way. It was like a classic whodunit. It's like everybody comes back from the wedding. The property's completely shut down. The wedding party doesn't really know what's happening. People are like, I have to get in. I've got a baby. There's baby formula, like, you know, other like clothing and stuff. They're not allowed to go back. And now investigators need to interview every single guest. That's like sort of their first wave of potential suspects. Everybody is a potential suspect at this moment in the investigation.

Well, that was what was really, I think, fascinating about this story. And I want to get more into all of that. So So don't go anywhere. And you're not going to want to go anywhere either because investigators eventually cleared the entire wedding party as they went on with this investigation. But then things get more interesting. And when we come back, we're going to tell you how police realized that there was somebody they were looking for who was right there in plain sight. And Whit is going to help us dive into the technology that really turned this case. So don't go anywhere.

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Welcome back to 20/20: The After Show. I am sitting here with Whit Johnson, who is just spinning this incredible story, the tale behind the story, um, that we just covered on 20/20. It was our latest 20/20 episode called The Vanishing of Nancy Woodrum. And it's the story of a 62-year-old Nancy who went missing from her own bedroom in the middle of the night in May of 2018. Witt, along with our 20/20 team, just did extensive work on this story. They went to San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office, where this all sort of played out. And what stood out for producers is really how dedicated these investigators were. I mean, we find that in so many of the stories that we're doing, particularly in small towns, leaving no stone unturned. They actually shared with us an interview between Detective Cole and Aaron, Nancy's son-in-law. And this was just weeks after Nancy's disappearance. And here's a little bit of that conversation.

I think we're just starting to get really concerned for our own safety because we don't know who's done this and we don't know what their intentions were or where they're coming or if they're coming after us.

We don't—

none of this makes any sense to us.

Senseless.

Yeah, no, it breeds other senseless stuff and we just don't get it. So it's been, it's been rough, right? Setting up, putting up Cameras at my house working on that. Just every noise at night's keeping us up.

I mean, just listening to that, I mean, I had that impact for me. I'm sure it did for you. Yeah.

The pain, the trauma, and the way they described it to me is it just didn't make any sense. It was senseless. They were asking these questions. Who could possibly want to harm Nancy? What, what could, what could have happened to Nancy? They also learned during this time after the investigation played out in the first 24 hours or so, they discovered some of Nancy's belongings left on the side of the road away from the property. So this was like a couple of miles away from the property. It was some bedding, some clothing that belonged to Nancy and Aaron and Amanda, Nancy's daughter, really felt like when they got that information that they found some of this evidence down the road. Yeah, that's something really bad.

They know that likely happened. They know that it's not going to have a good outcome. Let's talk about DNA, because so many of the stories that we cover turn on DNA and technology. And in this case, there was unknown DNA that was found in her home on that pillow that you talked about, those bloodstains and so forth that they discovered. And of course, then you start thinking, days go by, you haven't found this person, they find some other belongings, things are not looking good. But the DNA was very critical for them to start start looking.

It was critical that they had that DNA because in the cottage at the crime scene there was a lot of blood, and obviously you had Nancy Woodrum's DNA in that. But they did find this other DNA in this bloody handprint on the pillow, but at the time it didn't match anything in the database. So they didn't have somebody with a prior criminal record who had DNA in the database that was connected to that. So then they go on this search And they go out and they're asking every potential suspect to submit samples of their DNA. And a lot of people agreed to do this. And so one by one, they were able to check people off the list who potentially had some connection to Nancy or some connection to the crime scene itself. And they kept coming up empty over and over again.

Which had to be so frustrating. And then in the piece, you introduce us to a new form of technology that I had never heard of, geofencing. Now, tell us a little bit about how that played a part here, because everything turned on this.

And the interesting thing about geofencing is this is basically a tracking technology, a way that you can isolate an individual device like a cell phone. We've heard about this more recently because it was used after the January 6th riot at the Capitol. Law enforcement used it to try to catch some people who were there. It's controversial. It's been making its way through the courts because there are a lot of privacy questions., but at this point in the investigation where they're basically getting nothing.

They're trying everything.

One of the investigators had been to like a training session learning about this and how you might use it, and they thought, well, maybe we should give this a try considering this is such a remote area. Maybe this could work. And in a nutshell, what it is, is you're basically outlining, drawing an invisible fence, right? It's a virtual fence around the property, and they started sort of like a bigger fence that included the entire property around Nancy Woodrum's home. And when I looked at it, the way they showed me these images, it's fascinating because you see these different devices pinging on the map within the fence that you drew. And if you look closer at the map, you see the bigger home on the property where most of the wedding guests were staying. You can see the cell phone activity that night as some guests are turning off their phones and turning them on, or it can just be alerts that you get on your phone., and you don't even have to have a certain kind of phone. It could be an Android, an iPhone. Google is tracking you because Google is connected to all these different apps that could initiate and come on and could ping your phone.

So what they ended up doing is they zoomed into Nancy Woodrum's cottage, and in her cottage they saw these two alerts. Now at the time it wasn't clear, are these two separate devices, is it one device, but they saw alerts in her cottage at the time they believe she disappeared. And so at this point, they're looking at this information. They're thinking, well, this is either Nancy's phone and then we're at a complete dead end once again, or this device belongs to someone else and that becomes our potential killer.

That becomes a potential killer. And police had been questioning everybody. There had been talk about that, but then they zing— they zero in on someone who was involved.

Exactly. There were all these people coming and going from the property, right? You had the wedding guests, you had family members, you had friends. She was fixing up the property because she was trying to sell it. And Carlo Fuentes Flores, who was just painting the deck, and investigators spoke to him as they spoke with everyone early on, but he didn't really raise any flags early in the investigation because he didn't have much of a connection to Nancy. So she— he was a name that they sort of captured. And they held on to. But now after the geofencing, it actually took more steps where they had to file more warrants to try to connect what it is, is a little device number. You then have to get a warrant to connect that to someone's cell phone and you get a name. And the name Carlo Fuentes Flores comes out and investigators say, what on earth is the painter doing inside Nancy's room on the night she disappeared?

In the middle of the night. In the middle of the night. And suddenly now they've got a suspect. Well, That is something we have to hold on for. So we're going to come back and talk more about that because they've got a suspect. But what about a motive? When we come back, Whit is going to talk us through what investigators revealed to our 20/20 team about that painter, Carlo Fuentes, on the night she was abducted. So you definitely don't want to go anywhere.

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Jetzt kostenlos ausprobieren. Welcome back to 20/20: The After Show. I am here with Whit Johnson, who just has fascinating reporting our latest 20/20 episode, "The Vanishing of Nancy Woodrum." And as you've heard, it centers around the disappearance of a 62-year-old mom and grandmother, Nancy Woodrum, from her home in California. And Whit, you were talking about the months into this investigation, and what got me in the piece is that they're, you know, investigators are talking to everybody, then they have this painter, Carlo Fuentes Flores, who by all accounts doesn't have much of a connection, but they're checking into testing DNA from everybody, why wouldn't they have gone to him earlier?

And that's a good question. I've talked to the investigators about that, and they said, you know, hindsight, if they, they wish they had done that earlier on in the investigation. But again, Carlo's DNA, he didn't have a criminal record. It was not in any database. It wouldn't have shown up, probably. I mean, you could have potentially had a match early on, but he just did not draw those red flags that they were looking for. There were other people at the time that that seemed more suspicious. And this is what happens sort of in the immediate moments after an investigation. There are all these things that you're trying to, you're trying to follow a hot lead. Someone seems more suspicious than another and they're chasing all of these things, chasing all these things. But then after the geofencing, suddenly Carlo is suspect number one. And they start tracking his movements and looking into his background. And that is where some shocking information came from.

Well, that was what was so amazing because most people thought of him as sort of this mild-mannered guy. But then there was like two sides to this guy.

He was living a double life, truly a classic double life. By day, he was a father, he was a husband, he was a painter, he had no criminal history. The guys who he worked with said, "Hey, he's a good guy, shows up on time, he's got some good stories, and he does great work when he paints." But when they started looking into his background, they were first started with his, his Google search history, they started seeing some interesting trends that that he had a particular kind of fetish for older women. Interesting. And he was Googling things like cougar porn and stuff like that. And, you know, pornography is not illegal, but in the context of this case and the fact that he had a particular type, that definitely alerted authorities. And they looked into it even more, and it was beyond just the searches. He was actually arranging meetings with female escorts who were older women, and he himself he was videotaping himself having sexual acts with them. Wow. So this was a guy who by day was a family man and a painter and did his job and did it well, and by night he was living a secret life.

Yeah. So police began to zero in on him, and then they discovered too that he had actually been to a church parking lot. I mean, the, the revelations here just were unreal.

Yeah. And then remember, so they have— they finally threw warrants. They, after the geofencing, they locate his phone in Nancy's apartment. Then decide they want to look up and track all of his movements throughout the course of the day leading up to Nancy's disappearance. And what they found was truly remarkable. That night, he was out having drinks with a friend, and he acknowledged that later on in police interrogations that he was drunk, that he drank too much. But then he goes to a church parking lot all alone in his car and just sits there for some 30 minutes. And investigators are like, what is this? What's going on here? And then after that, he continues the drive to Nancy's apartment and carries out this crime. And the detectives we spoke to believe that in that moment, perhaps Carlo Fuentes was considering the ramifications of this huge decision he was about to make. Was he going to carry out this crime, or was he going to stop himself? Was he looking for answers in that church parking lot. Oh my gosh. And he continued that drive to Nancy's apartment.

And of course, that's when the tragedy happened. It just was so mind-blowing when you think about it. Police begin to interrogate him. He denies anything at first, but then ultimately comes clean and actually takes them to the site where her body is. Did you get a sense that there was remorse there? Because it was sort of not quite clear whether he was remorseful.

One of the most remarkable things about this about this 2020 special is the access that we get into Carlo's mind through all of these different videos. We have the interrogation videos, we have the body camera video, and you see the evolution of his thought process when they start the interrogation process and he's sort of playing dumb, like, oh, I don't know anything. Then he realizes they got him on all this stuff, and then he starts to come clean, but he gives some false story about he went to get a ladder and then he accidentally hit her with his truck. None of that was really coming together. However, he first— he then says, well, I can take you to Nancy's body. And they say, okay, great. They pack everything up, they go out in their trucks, and they're driving this remote, also beautiful area of Paso Robles, outside Paso Robles, these rolling green hills with, you know, sporadic oak trees. And in the special, we are driving along with them, with Carlo, talking to investigators and you see this remorse start to creep in and the recognition of what he had done. And I think the turning point is when he points investigators to where her body is likely gonna be.

They find this little grove, these, these rocks in this area, and we then go back to Carlo, who's in back of a patrol car, and he asks the detective to send a message to his family.

At that point, he's crying and he recognizes—

And you see that in that moment, Carlo realized he's not going home.

Yeah. Ever again. One thing that I think was so striking for all of us, and particularly when we do so many of these stories that involve women and women who are victimized, and one thing that was made clear in your reporting, he misinterpreted Nancy's kindness for flirtation, which Again, just so random. You figure this is a woman who just is living her life and being kind, which you would expect people to be in life.

But he misinterpreted that and that made her a victim. Yeah, clearly. And Nancy and every— look, this is somebody who knew everybody in the community, who had these wonderful relationships with people. She had different contractors and people coming to the property. So Carlos said that Nancy offered him tamales. They read scripture together, but she was just friendly to him. But he, in his explanation to authorities, took that almost as like an invitation to carry out what ultimately was a rape and murder, and then he left her body out in the middle of nowhere.

Just really, really unbelievable, this crime. Well, Whit, as I said, we do so many of these stories, as you know, and oftentimes these victims are women, and one of the things I thought was important for us to do is to sort of talk a little bit about how women can protect themselves because this is so random, and we actually reached out to someone who is a friend of our program a criminologist by the name of Casey Jordan, about this case and the fear that women might have for letting down their guard with people. And she said, she gave us a few tips that I think is important for all of you out there. She says we should vet contractors thoroughly beforehand, checking out their license and insurance references, prioritize contractors who are recommended by trusted friends, family, or professional organizations. Many people just go online and find somebody. You should communicate and set boundaries and not overshare about your personal life. Or alert people when you think that there's something going on and you're going to be alone. And I think it's so important for us to take some kind of lesson from a story like this because, you know, how could she have known?

But sometimes there are red flags and, you know, it helps, I think, for us to at least communicate to folks some ideas. Let's talk about what happened to Fuentes Flores. He waived his right to a jury trial. In 2022, he was found guilty of first-degree murder, and special circumstance allegations of rape and residential burglary. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Obviously, that's a sense of justice for, um, her family. But, you know, you think about two families here ruined too. His family is ruined, but her family, of course, is heartbroken. What do you know now about the families and how they have coped since all of this happened?

I spent a lot of time with Amanda, Nancy's daughter, and the thing that stood out to me is the part that she's still grappling with all these years later is how senseless the crime was. It's nothing they ever saw coming. I mean, the painter, of all the people who were there, the painter? Like, it was like they just couldn't believe it. And it is just like this stroke of just awful bad luck in the sense that Nancy happened to be the person who entered this man's life at this moment when he was going going through whatever it was that he was going through. And so they— there's this feeling that they'll never truly get the answers as to why. However, they were so grateful in those detectives and the investigators who worked around the clock to get this done. And they do feel like, compared to some other victims of, of murders and crimes like this, that they got a lot more than many others do. Absolutely. They got a confession. They got it. They got their guy. He's behind bars. His explanation didn't fully satisfy all their questions, but it was an explanation. And a lot of people don't get that when they go to trial and they never get a confession and the person pleads not guilty.

So they do feel like they got whatever you could describe as, as close to closure as you can get. Yeah, but they still have so many questions. And all these years later, they just want to remember Nancy Woodrum for the incredible mother and grandmother person that she was. And Amanda, to this day, goes out and rides horses and thinks about her mom because her mom Nancy was such an avid horseback rider. And now Amanda rides horses with her daughter.

And so it's—

Sort of a tribute to her mom in a way. Exactly. It's like Nancy's legacy continues. She lives in her family. The family is also, um, you know, very devout in their faith, and they truly believe that they are going to reunite with Nancy again someday.

Well, ultimately, that's what these stories are all about. I mean, aside from the crime, it's also about honoring these victims, and in this case, bringing a little bit of light to who this woman was and reminding us that her life mattered. And you did such a beautiful job with that in this story, the gentleness. Thank you. And also just the, uh, the gee whiz technology, which was so incredible.

So Whit, thank you so much.

Appreciate it. Yeah, hopefully this won't be the Last time. We'll be seeing each other again, I'm sure. Looking forward to it. You'll be doing more stories for us. Well, thanks again, Whit, for being with us. And thank you for being with us too for this podcast episode. Of course, remember, you can watch us for our latest 20/20 episodes on Friday nights on ABC. And you can stream episodes like this one anytime on Disney+ and Hulu.

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