Arizona Man Charged In Cold Case Slaying Could Be A Serial Killer, Authorities Say

An Arizona man facing a murder charge in the death of a California woman in Nevada 40 years ago could be responsible for the deaths of at least two other women, authorities allege.

According to Phoenix's KNXV-TV, the Washoe County Sheriff’s Office arrested 73-year-old Charles Gary Sullivan, of Yavapai County, in August. Authorities extradited him to Reno, Nevada, and on Nov. 19, prosecutors reportedly arraigned him in the death of 21-year-old Julie Woodward.

A friend last saw Woodward heading into the San Francisco International Airport on Feb. 1, 1979. She planned to fly from California to Nevada’s Reno-Lake Tahoe area to look for work. Her concerned family filed a missing person report after weeks with no word from her.

Less than two months later, detectives discovered Woodward’s body in a shallow grave in Hungry Valley, 15 miles north of Reno. According to the Washoe County Sheriff's Office, evidence found at the scene indicated someone gagged Woodward with a cloth, bound her legs with cable ties, and covered her eyes in bandages. The medical examiner determined she died from blunt force trauma to the head. Despite the evidence recovered at the crime scene, the case went cold.

In 2015, the Washoe County Sheriff's Office’s newly-formed cold case unit reopened the investigation, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported. Detectives reportedly retested biological evidence found on Woodward’s jeans.

New advances in DNA technology helped to identify Sullivan as a suspect in Woodward’s death, prosecutors said.

Court records reportedly show authorities collected DNA from Sullivan, a former autoworker, during an investigation into the 2007 sex attack on a 25-year-old female hitchhiker. In that case, a jury reportedly convicted Sullivan on charges of false imprisonment and criminal threats for binding the woman’s wrists and ankles with cable ties after allegedly taking her to a remote area and threatening to physically and sexually assault her.

In a recent court filing, The Associated Press reported, prosecutors allege Sullivan is a suspect in the cold cases of two more women who went missing around the same time as Woodward.

“All evidence points to [the] defendant being a serial killer,” Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford wrote in a court filing before Sullivan’s arraignment, according to Phoenix's KPHO-TV.

In 1978, Circus-Circus waitress Jennie Smith, 17, reportedly vanished after she told friends she was meeting a man named Chuck to score cocaine. Sullivan was initially listed as a person of interest in her disappearance since he and the teen knew each other, police said. However, he was never arrested or charged with a crime, and he eventually moved out of Nevada.

In November 1979, Smith’s skeletal remains were found in a shallow grave in a remote area about a mile from where authorities found Woodward’s body. Like Woodward, she reportedly died from blunt force trauma.

"It's very unusual that two victims from the same year with similar circumstances would be found in the same geographical area like that," Lt. Tom Green of the Washoe County Sheriff's Office told Reno's KOLO-TV of perceived similarities in the cases.

In March 1979, a tipster allegedly connected Sullivan with another missing woman, Linda Taylor. Prosecutors say Sullivan admitted dating the 23-year-old but denied knowing anything about her disappearance. Her whereabouts remain unknown, and he has never faced charges in that case.

Sullivan has pleaded not guilty to Woodward’s slaying. He is being held without bail and is expected back in court for a hearing at the end of January.

The investigations into Smith and Taylor’s cases continue.

“Evidence may have gone cold, but our tears have never run dry, and our quest for justice never ends,” Ford told KPHO-TV.

Read more: KNXV-TV, San Luis Obispo Tribune, Heavy