A former tech CEO will go on trial for a third time for a 1992 murder in Mountain View after the U.S. Supreme Court said today (Feb. 24) it wouldn’t consider whether the constitutional prohibition against double jeopardy applies in his case.
The justices declined to take up the appeal of John Kevin Woodward, who was twice tried for the 1992 murder of his roommate’s girlfriend, Laurie Houts. Both juries deadlocked on whether to convict Woodward and a judge dismissed the charges in 1996 for a lack of evidence.
Woodward then moved to the Netherlands to enjoy his freedom. He was the CEO of ReadyTech, an online training company.
But prosecutors recharged Woodward in 2022, arguing that new developments in forensic testing linked his DNA to the rope used as the murder weapon. He was arrested at JFK Airport in July 2022 as he was returning from Amsterdam.
Woodward argued the new charges violate the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition on double jeopardy, which bars prosecutions from trying him more than once for substantially the same crime.
Woodward, now 61, faces life in prison, if convicted.
On Sept. 5, 1992, a passerby found Houts dead in her vehicle in the 1300 block of Crittenden Lane in Mountain View, near a garbage dump about a mile from her work. The rope used to kill her was still around her neck. Her footprints were on the windshield interior, a sign of her struggle with Woodward. Her unrifled pocketbook was nearby.
An investigation quickly determined that Woodward was a prime suspect. Prosecutors argued that Woodward, who is gay, was jealous of Houts’ relationship with Woodward’s roommate. The two roommates didn’t have a romantic relationship, however.
Woodward had no alibi. When her boyfriend asked Woodward if he killed her, as police listened, he asked what the investigators knew. Although Woodward’s fingerprints were located on the outside of Houts’ car, investigators in 1992 were never able to show he was inside the vehicle.
In 2021, the Santa Clara County Crime Lab and Mountain View Police Department detectives used DNA to link Woodward to the rope found around Houts’ neck.
Woodward’s fingerprints on the outside of a car owned by someone who, I assume, frequently parked in front of Woodward’s home, you don’t say? I would be more suspicious if no finger prints were left on the car. Anyone who touches the outside of any vehicle – door, door handle, hood, trunk, window – will likely leave fingerprints. This is weak circumstantial evidence at best and proves nothing.