The Florida homicide suspect who evaded seize for 39 years, finally serving on the water board of a California city earlier than his arrest this month, claims he’s being “used as a patsy.”
Donald Santini, 65, made a trio of “America’s Most Needed” appearances in reference to a brutal 1984 slaying, however claims he’s being framed in two letters to a Tampa information station.
“Issues usually are not as they appear,” Santini wrote to Information 8 earlier than his extradition to Florida this week. “I really feel I’m being arrange.”
Working underneath the alias Wellman Simmonds, Santini was arrested at his residence in Campo, a rural neighborhood an hour east of San Diego, on June 7, the place he was thought-about a “pillar of the neighborhood” domestically.
Investigators assert he strangled pal Cynthia Ruth Wooden, 33, in Tampa and dumped her corpse in a canal earlier than skipping city nearly 40 years in the past.
Santini was lastly booked into the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Workplace on Wednesday, and is predicted to face first-degree homicide fees.
The letters — written earlier than his extradition — revealed his household has been shattered by the gorgeous arrest.
“I’ve listened to my spouse and granddaughter, cry and scream with harm,” Santini wrote. “Feeling that they could by no means see me once more. I can hardly discuss with out crying.”
He additionally addressed Wooden’s household at one level and prolonged his sympathies to them — however didn’t admit to the killing.
“I really feel I’m getting used as a patsy,” he wrote, arguing that he can’t get a good trial in Florida and doesn’t have the cash for a high quality lawyer.
“My coronary heart goes out to Cindy’s household,” Santini wrote. “For all of the ache, harm and lonelyness [sic] They should be feeling, for 40 yr’s.”
Detectives stated Santini was the final individual seen with Wooden, taking her out on a date whereas she was within the midst of a divorce.
Santini, who beforehand served time for rape whereas serving within the army, rapidly emerged because the prime suspect within the case after his fingerprints have been discovered on the crime scene.
The resourceful fugitive instantly bolted, with investigators chasing down leads from Texas to Thailand over the a long time.
Regardless of being the goal of a number of legislation enforcement companies, Santini managed to function president of the native municipal water board in his city of three,000, along with his arrest stunning colleagues and neighbors.
“We’re all flabbergasted,” a colleague of Santini on the Lake Morena Views Mutual Water Firm instructed ABC 10.
“He was a pillar of the neighborhood. He appeared upstanding. He was an advocate, non-confrontational, and was hardly hiding. I’m nonetheless attempting to course of all of this.”
The accused killer was a featured fugitive on “America’s Most Needed” in 1990, 2005 and 2013.
Santini lived his life in plain sight — even talking to native media retailers a few deadly automobile accident that occurred close to an condominium advanced he managed in 2018.
“It actually was one of the vital stunning issues I’ve ever heard in my life,” neighbor Rick Fox instructed the station, including that Santini referred to himself as “Wells” in dialog.
Santini is scheduled for a bond listening to on July 6.
Read the full article here
