Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney announced that Willie Hart, 61, of Yaphank, was found guilty of Murder in the Second Degree for murdering his girlfriend Candace Woodruff, 37, of Texas.
“The defendant behaved cowardly and callously when he took his girlfriend’s life,” said District Attorney Tierney. “I am relieved that the jury has held him responsible for his actions. I urge anyone who is in a relationship involving violence to call 911 or Suffolk County’s S.T.O.P. Violence Against Women Program at (631) 853-8222.”
The evidence at trial established that Hart, a long-haul trucker, called police and claimed that he had discovered his girlfriend, Candace Woodruff, unresponsive on the floor of his tractor cab, which was parked near the Shore Motor Inn in Patchogue. When police arrived at the scene, they saw Woodruff on the ground in front of the tractor cab, not breathing.
Police and medical staff then observed injuries to Woodruff’s body including facial and neck abrasions, neck soft tissue hemorrhage, head and neck contusions, and minor contusions and abrasions to her extremities. Woodruff was transported to Long Island Community Hospital, where she was pronounced dead.
The Suffolk County Medical Examiner determined that Woodruff’s cause of death was asphyxia by neck compression.
Video showed that both parties got into the truck cab for approximately 35 minutes, during which time a struggle occurred.
After exiting the cab, casually walked back to the motel room, where he retrieved a bag, placed the bag in a car, and then returned to the trailer cab in a disheveled state. Hart did all of this before calling 911.
This case was investigated and prosecuted by Assistant District Attorneys Eric S. Aboulafia and Sheetal Shetty of the Homicide Bureau, and Detectives Richard Jones and Michael Ronca of the Homicide Squad.