← Going West: True Crime
Going West: True Crime
Catherine Woods // 563
00:43:43
In November of 2005, a 21-year-old dancer was found brutally slain in her New York City apartment. She was ambitious, talented, and chasing her dream of dancing on Broadway, but few knew the obsession, jealousy, and betrayal she faced offstage. And soon, police would find, there was more than one person with a motive to kill her. This is the murder of Catherine Woods.
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- [00:00]
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- [01:32]
Daphne (Podcast Host)
What is going on? True crime fans? I'm your host Daphne. It is just me today. A lot of you guys probably hopefully listen to the episode that we came out with yesterday. It is the major major update on the Rebecca park case that we covered last week. Like we have so much more this week than we did last. So if you guys were invested in that case as much as Heath and I were, go check it out. But if you did listen then you know that Heath has kind of been having a sinus thing going on so he is not well enough to be in the studio with us today. But I have an all new case for you guys that we can dive into together. So thank you for tuning in today and keeping me company in the studio. And without further ado, this is episode 563 of Going West. So let's get into it. Sam. In November of 2005, a 21 year old dancer was found brutally slain in her New York City apartment. She was ambitious, talented and chasing her dream of dancing on Broadway. But few knew the obsession, jealousy and betrayal she faced off stage. And soon police would find there was more than one person with a motive to kill her. This is the murder of Catherine Woods. Catherine Elizabeth woods was born to parents Donna and John woods In June of 1984, growing up in Worthington, Ohio, which is a northern suburb of Columbus, alongside younger siblings John and Victoria. From a young age, her life revolved around music and performing, as her dad, John, was a music professor and the marching band leader at Ohio State University, located just north of downtown Columbus. And Catherine discovered that she too, had a passion for performing when she started dancing at just three years old. So as she got older, she started dancing competitively and became very skilled in ballet, jazz, tap, and modern. But her ultimate goal was to dance in Broadway musicals. She took her art very seriously from a young age, and by the time she graduated high school in 2002, she knew she was ready to move to New York City and start auditioning. In fact, she graduated in January, six months early, so she could get a jump on the rest of her peers. Well, four months later, in May of 2002, Catherine headed to the city for kind of a trial run after finding a roommate online. But this would quickly prove to be a really bad situation. So at this point, you know, she graduated early. So Catherine is only 17 years old, and the guy that she found who was looking to fill this room in his apartment was in his mid-30s, and the apartment was in Brooklyn. But during the short amount of time that Catherine was living with this man, he cornered her and raped her inside the apartment. So she ended up reporting this assault, and the man was actually arrested, but the charges were eventually dropped after Catherine chose not to testify against him. But Catherine was as tenacious as ever. She did not let this stop her from heading back to the city that she knew she belonged in. So two months after her assault in July of 2002, she moved to Manhattan after finding a one bedroom apartment on the Upper east side that really fit her needs. Her parents really hoped that she would attend school first, even emphasizing that Ohio State, of course, where her dad taught, had an excellent dance program. But Catherine refused. She was kind of afraid that if she stopped for four years and went to school, that she would kind of fall behind the people that she was competing with in dance. Like, she really just wanted to get herself out there and start auditioning right away, which that is such a struggle in this field and one similar that you have to kind of like, strike while the iron is hot, while you're really young. So she felt like an immense amount of pressure regarding that. But despite prioritizing her professional life, she found herself falling in love. That summer, while out at a bar with friends on a visit home, Catherine met 20 year old David Hahn, who was actually a rapper. They met through mutual friends and he went by the name City270. So he was kind of like more of an aspiring rap artist. He had big dreams of heading to New York as well, but for the time being, he was in Ohio, she was in New York. Obviously there's a bit of distance between them, but they made it work until eventually, By September of 2002, David moved out there to be with her. They squeezed into her modest apartment, as many people in New York City do, and for a while, their relationship seemed to be the ideal fit for both of them. David totally worshipped Catherine, but, you know, in a good way. Like, he did things that she needed while she crammed multiple jobs and auditions and dance classes into her schedule. And in turn, Catherine gave David that love and stability that he had lacked at home because David had grown up in foster care after being removed from his mother's home when she was arrested for drugs, solicitation and child endangerment. Catherine's friends described David as a sweet and simple guy, and he was a calming presence to balance Catherine's bubbly, high energy kind of go getter Persona. But before long, the pressures of living in a city that can be as suffocating as it is rewarding kind of started to get to both of them. David really struggled to find work and therefore really couldn't contribute, while Catherine worked as a children's dance teacher and a receptionist at a spa. So for two whole years of their relationship, she fully supported him while he attempted to kind of get his rap career off the ground. Though David did eventually secure a position working at the front desk for a high rise apartment building. But by that point, the damage was done and Catherine was feeling resentful of having to float the cost for his lifestyle and her own. You know, doing that for two years, she just got sick of it, and it really affected their relationship. So by the fall of 2005, their relationship was on the outs and she actually asked him to move out of the apartment. And he did, instead staying with a friend while continuing to work his security job at that front desk. But after only about two weeks, Catherine, who felt guilty and missed the companionship that David offered her, asked if he wanted to move back in. Only this time as just friends and roommates instead, instead of as her boyfriend. So David happily moved back in and stayed on the couch. Thankfully, Catherine had found a job that put her in a better financial situation as well. But she concealed this news from most of her friends and family, hoping to Spare herself from judgment, because Catherine had started dancing at two different gentlemen's clubs, Privilege, located in Chelsea, and Flash Dancers, which is in Midtown. But she told her parents and siblings that she had been hired at a restaurant, knowing that the money that she was getting from the gentleman's clubs was helping her immensely. And she just, she didn't want that judgment, but she didn't want to quit these jobs. They were doing so much for her financially because at just 20, she was able to work only a handful of days a week and fully support herself, as well as pay for her own dance classes, her own voice lessons, and even a membership at an Equinox gym, which is not cheap. You know, this was a luxury for her to be able to go to this gym. But just being a member there changed her life forever. Because it was there at Equinox that Catherine met a man named Paul Cortez, who was four years her senior in August of 2004. So she's about 20 at this point, he's about 24. And with her relationship waning, you know, her and David are on the outs. Katherine was growing restless. She really wanted to entertain other romantic prospects. She was ready to be in a relationship again. And Paul had approached her in the gym in an attempt to sell her a personal training package. But instead, they hit it off romantically. Catherine was instantly taken with Paul, who seemed to be able to offer everything that David couldn't. So now let's get a little bit more into Paul's background. He is a major player in today's story, so he's motivated. He's a self starter, seemingly because he was the product of an impoverished single parent household in the Bronx. And his mom, Yvette, struggled to care for Paul and his two siblings. So he had a lot of motivation to make his life work and take care of himself. But Paul, at the same time, growing up in this type of situation, Paul actually exhibited such academic prowess that he was awarded a scholarship to the prestigious and private Poly Prep Country Day High School in Brooklyn. He was also somewhat of a wrestling and theater prodigy, which his school quickly took notice of. After spending his freshman year on the wrestling team, he pivoted his extracurricular focus to acting and wound up landing lead roles in all of his school's plays and musicals. But this was kind of tough for him to get there every day from the Bronx. He had a four hour daily commute, which included multiple buses and trains, all while he's a teenager. So he really stuck it out and ended up graduating with honors in 1999. He was then awarded yet another Full Ride scholarship, this time as a theater major to Boston University. And after graduating in 2003, he moved back to New York City to start auditioning. So, like Catherine, he held down multiple jobs. He was working at a yoga studio. He was personal training at Equinox, which obviously connected him to Catherine. And he was also singing in a band called Monolith. So Catherine, again, she was instantly taken by his charm, his charisma, his confidence. And they started dating. And he fell for Catherine quickly, too, and loved showing her off to his family and friends. But Catherine would soon find out that he had a possessive and jealous side and that he did not approve of her job or her living situation. Initially, Paul feigned concern about her work. It wasn't that he didn't like that she worked there at the two gentlemen's clubs. He just didn't like that she was potentially in danger there due to the nature of sex work. So he would frequently meet her at the club at all hours of the night in order to safely escort her home. Not so bad. She has a man who cares about her. But it seemed to come off more and more judgy as time went on. And then regarding the fact that she lived with her ex boyfriend, David, you know, understandably that would upset him too. But he didn't approach this normally by having a conversation with Catherine or both Catherine and David to kind of sort it out. He showed up unannounced at her apartment to confront David personally. Almost like he wanted to get into a fight, which David was not down for. He told Paul outright he was not going to get into it with him about Catherine. So this made Catherine really uncomfortable. She decided that she couldn't handle all of this controlling behavior that was coming from Paul. So she broke it off. And in response, in this weird act of revenge, Paul called her parents back in Ohio and told them how she was making her money not at a restaurant, but at two gentlemen's clubs, which obviously she had been keeping private from them. He also told them that she had been doing sex work and acting in pornographic films. But there is no evidence that either of those are true. But it certainly shows what a petty piece of shit he is that he's trying to get back at her by possibly destroying her relationship with her parents. Right. And just to show you how much her parents did not approve of this, her dad, John, was so rattled by these allegations that he flew to New York City to check on her and make sure she was okay, which only made Katherine angry, explaining to her dad that Paul was nothing more than a spiteful ex, and just to disregard everything Paul had told him on the phone, despite part of it being true. But their breakup didn't last long because Catherine found herself unable to resist his allure. And by the time David moved out in the fall of 2005, she was seeing Paul once again. She actually continued to see both men casually now that she's living alone, but prioritized her career. Though one of them would decide that this was not enough. So late November 2005. Remember, this is a little over a year after she even met Paul. Shortly after David moved out, Thanksgiving is approaching, and Paul actually asked Catherine to spend it with his family in his childhood home in the Bronx. So he is serious enough about Catherine that he says, even though we're dating casually, we've known each other for a year. You know, of a casual, more casual relationship throughout most of that period of time. He wants her to meet the family, but it was close by, so then she wouldn't have to go to Ohio to see her family. But she decided she didn't want to do either of those things. She politely declined Paul's invitation, opting to spend a quiet day at home with David in New York instead. So even though she and David were no longer technically together, they're not roommates. They were still really close friends, who are sometimes friends with benefits, but mostly just very, very good friends. And they really enjoyed having that. Now, the day Catherine was murdered was the Sunday following Thanksgiving. So after Paul went home to his family, after Catherine and David spend the day together. And we don't know exactly when it happened, but at some point that November or so, David actually moved back in. So this is casual. He's still kind of floating around. But Catherine had not told this to Paul. So on the day that Catherine was murdered, again the Sunday following Thanksgiving, she left David at home, sleeping off the overnight shift that he had worked and headed to church with a friend. That afternoon, she was getting ready for a shift at one of her clubs, and David offered to drive her. While on the way, they chatted while she did her hair and makeup, and they wound up having sex before he headed out to pick up the car from where he had left it overnight. So this happens the day that Catherine was killed. So she was very much still seeing David. David then returned to the apartment building and pulled up outside, calling Catherine's cell phone to let her know that he was downstairs. When she didn't answer, he left his flashers on and went to the building's intercom to buzz up to the apartment. When she again didn't answer, he started up to their second story apartment to find her. Meanwhile, Catherine's next door neighbors reported hearing screams coming from her apartment sometime between 5:45 and 6pm but at the time, she was actually still on the phone with a friend. Per her cell phone records, that call concluded at 6:03pm so her neighbors probably confused the time for earlier than it really was. A more realistic timeline was that of her upstairs neighbor who said he heard dogs barking, screaming and furniture being shuffled around. Looking at the clock, he noted it was 6:18pm so only 15 minutes after she got off the phone with her friend. When David headed into the apartment building to check on Catherine upstairs, he was surprised to be met with a neighbor who said that the black lab that David had been watching for somebody in the apartment building that he worked for had fled from Catherine's apartment and was running free in the street, which would obviously suggest that someone left the door open. Thankfully, this neighbor chased the dog down the street and brought him back inside. So David's kind of thinking, why was the door open? Why is Catherine not answering? What's going on? So he enters her apartment and sees his own dog, which was a chihuahua sleeping on the couch. So it seems at first glance that everything is okay. But all was not calm because David instantly noticed clear signs of a struggle. And then he spotted blood alongside Catherine's motionless body. So he ran to her side. He's calling out her name, but she wasn't reacting naturally. Many questioned how her assailant could have gotten into the apartment. But David unfortunately had left the front door unlocked when he headed out to pick up his car. And many residents of their building complained that the front gate and front door of her walk up apartment building were frequently broken. So someone definitely could have gotten in. In a Frenzy, David called 911 while he tried to wake her gently by tugging at the back of her shirt. But tragically, Catherine was already gone. The aftermath of Catherine's murder was shocking and gruesome. And there had clearly been a major struggle because her bed, which was mounted on wheels by the way, was pushed against her bedroom door. Blood spatters coated the walls around her and she was left on the floor in a puddle of her own blood as Catherine had been stabbed 20 times and her throat had been SL.
- [21:24]
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Daphne (Podcast Host)
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Home chef.com goingwest must be an active subscriber to receive free dessert. Though the crime scene was sloppy and hadn't been a neatly calculated attack, there was little evidence left behind. One single fingerprint was found in the blood on the walls, a few strands of hair were found in her hand, and a single bloody shoe print was left behind on Catherine's bed sheet, which was likely the result of her killer fleeing from the apartment. Now this shoe print was determined to be from the sole of a Skechers brand cool cat bully 2 combat boot. I know that honestly sounds kind of dorky, but just to be able to picture it, it looks like a standard work or combat boot. So detectives of course brought David in for questioning as soon as they arrived on the scene, just to get the full story. Since he was the one who found her, he was one of the last people to see her, and he was as cooperative as he could have been from the onset of the investigation. He even declined representation from a lawyer and readily offered up a DNA sample as well as shoe prints and fingerprints. He's like, I got nothing to hide. Detectives also collected scrapings from underneath his fingernails as well as pictures of his naked body just in order to ascertain whether he had sustained scratches or cuts from a potential confrontation with Catherine, who clearly put up the fight of her life against her attacker. When asked who he thought could have been responsible since he was so close to her, David offered up only one one name, Paul Cortez. By David's explanation Catherine had been intermittently romantic with him and was seeing him casually, whereas Paul was so obsessed with Catherine that his activity in the months leading up to her murder was borderline stalking. Well, David's one mistake, which would cost him later in the investigation was the timeline that he offered. When initially asked by the police, David explained that he had left Catherine deceased behind in the apartment at 6:39pm, shortly after discovering her. And exactly 20 minutes later, he called the police to report her murder. He didn't do it in that moment. During that 20 minutes, he says that he stopped by the apartment building that he worked at as a security officer to retrieve a few of his rap demo CDs, which he had left behind. And he also touched base with his boss about taking time off for Christmas. So it just kind of feels like your best friend and a woman that you have a history with, that you are partially living with, was just brutally murdered and you go to pick up some CDs of yours and ask for time off for Christmas. Like, it seems like kind of a weird move, right? Well, then David said he picked up his car, which was parked on a street nearby, which we already know, and drove back to he and Catherine's, mostly Catherine's apartment building. But based on Catherine's cell phone records, which reflected the phone call with her friend that ended at 6:03, as well as the timing of the screams, which were around 6ish, police wanted to make sure that his timeline was correct and that his cell phone records couldn't potentially place him at the apartment around the time she was killed. So his cell phone records were subpoenaed, but his history showed nothing out of the ordinary. So David's kinda on the back burner now. And it's the next morning and detectives decide it's time to stop by Paul's apartment to talk to him. He was served with a search warrant and his apartment was scoured from top to bottom. But detectives didn't find any item of clothing with blood on it, nor could they find any sign of the boots that the murderer was believed to have been wearing, which obviously is a very important piece to this story, but also an easy thing to dispose of. So then Paul's cell phone records were subpoenaed as well. While those were in the process of being gathered, Paul said that he had heard the news of Catherine's murder from his mom, who had seen it in the papers that morning and told detectives that he was devastated at her loss. And although he was certainly acting the part of a grieving quasi Boyfriend. His cell phone records told a different story. Between 5pm and 6:33pm on the evening of Catherine's murder. Sunday, November 27, 2005. This is a really important window. Five to 6:33, Paul called Catherine 13 times and she didn't answer any of these times. After the final phone call, at which time she was deceased already, he abruptly stopped making phone calls and would never contact her again. Which you may agree feels like it may be due to the fact that he knew she was deceased because he was responsible, right? Maybe so. 12 of the 13 calls that he placed to Catherine that evening were made between 5 and 6pm we know that during this time she was on the other line with a friend, so that could explain why she's not answering some of them. Or maybe she's deciding again she doesn't want anything to do with Paul because he's controlling and he's being a bit obsessive. But again, it's a weird time because the last call was placed only minutes before her other phone call ended and then in turn minutes before she was killed. But there was one outlier. One call that was placed at 6:33pm but this call was hung up so abruptly that Paul's cell phone carrier hadn't even registered an outgoing call, though the call was visible on Katherine's phone records. So police started to believe that Paul had made the call by mistake, maybe even while committing the murder or running away from the scene. According to Paul, the reason for the short call was because he had become fed up with her not answering his calls. And he explained that he had finally gotten the hint and that she clearly didn't want to talk. But that wasn't the only revelation from his phone records. When questioned about his movements on the evening that Catherine was murdered, Paul maintained that he had been at home in his apartment, which, by the way, was only a mile and a half or 2.4 kilometers away from Catherine's. He was supposed to have a rehearsal with his band Monolith, but told his bandmates that he had been taking a nap and that he overslept. But if we're to believe his cell phone records, as we should, because he even admitted to making these calls, then neither of these claims are true. He wasn't hanging out at his apartment and he hadn't overslept because the phone records place him in the vicinity of Catherine's apartment. A detail which Paul, of course, could not explain. However, he attempted to justify his rehearsal absence to his bandmates by telling them that he knew they weren't happy with his rehearsal attendance and his recent performance, which was true. And that he decided to bow out of their rehearsal that night for fear of being fired. As the investigation zeroed in on Paul, one more surprise about him came out in The Press. On December 19, 2000, 5, weeks after Catherine was killed, Paul was arrested, but not for her murder. He was arrested on a sodomy charge after a report of a sexual assault was filed by a woman that he had gone home with one time, almost two years earlier. So here's that story. On New Year's 2004, a young woman attended one of Monolith shows along with her friend who is dating one of the members. So she's like his bandmate's girlfriend's friend. And also, I just want to remind you guys, Catherine and Paul met in August of 2004. So this would have been like, eight months earlier. So she and Paul, this woman, this young woman, and Paul hit it off, and he came home with her. But she says that he was aggressive and drunk and that he made her uncomfortable. He then coerced her into having sex without a condom and also demanded anal and oral sex. In the aftermath, she felt confused and violated, but also felt embarrassed about how it had unfolded. So she decided that she wanted to keep this situation to herself. But then, two years later, she hears the news about Catherine's murder and that Paul was a person of interest. And she felt like she knew this side of Paul that was aggressive and forceful. Right. So she hesitantly came forward to the nypd, who were able to press charges in order to secure an arrest and then in turn, demand a DNA sample and fingerprints from Paul. And get this. These fingerprints that they took from him match the bloody print that was left behind on Catherine's wall. So there is no reason for that to be there. Paul wasn't the one to find Catherine. Maybe if it was David's, he could give the excuse that, oh, well, I was assessing the scene and seeing if Catherine was okay, and my hand accidentally touched the wall. But Paul is saying that he wasn't at the scene before, during, or after the murder. And yet here is his fingerprint in blood. It's not like it's on the kitchen counter or a doorknob, like this was a part of the crime scene. Well, then it tumbles down even more, because after this brave woman's account, another woman came forward to tell the police that she had experienced a similar encounter with Paul and that he had followed her and called her so much after she ended things with him that she was forced to get a new phone number. So suddenly we have a lot of examples of how Paul is obsessive and does not understand the word no. But Paul apparently kind of made a habit of this, of this obsessive behavior, calling women incessantly that he should be leaving alone. Because the month before Catherine was killed, he called her nearly 300 times across the month. Now, Paul's family and close friends accused all these women of lying. But it's not just these women talking. We have the fingerprint. And now police are looking more closely at the boot print, which was a size 10.5 Skechers combat boot. Well, interestingly enough, David also Wore A size 10.5. You know, this isn't too much of a coincidence. I'll add. That is the most common men's shoe size. But still. Because another weird detail is that the boots were not found in his apartment. Which isn't that weird. Maybe, if you think about it, because he said that he didn't have boots like that. So if he didn't have any, they wouldn't be found in his apartment. But detectives were able to locate security footage from the day of Catherine's murder, Sunday, November 27, just hours prior to her death, in which the boots that Paul says he didn't own made an appearance. So that afternoon, Paul was running errands with a friend named Stephanie, who he trained at Equinox. And surveillance footage of the two of them heading into an electronic store so Stephanie could buy a humidifier showed Paul in a pair of chunky boots that seemed to match the measurements of the Skechers Cool Boot Bully two boot that he said he didn't own and that were not found in his apartment. So that's why it's really weird because we are very clearly seeing him wearing them. Yet they were not found at his apartment. Which would tell us that perhaps he got rid of them after killing Catherine due to the fact that there would have been blood on them. Well, when Stephanie was questioned, she noted that Paul had spent the day complaining about Catherine, alleging, like he had to her father that she'd been filming porn and that he didn't like it. So after a few errands, Paul says he went to a Starbucks that Sunday evening to book a few client appointments for the coming week. Then came the dozen phone calls to Catherine which were made between 5 and 5:56pm in the vicinity of her apartment building. After that, There was the one second call at 6:33pm and the next time he used his phone was at 6:50pm Though he never used it to call or contact Catherine again. He instead called a friend of his, asking if he wanted to meet up for drinks, which police came to believe was an attempt to kind of retroactively create an alibi. Later that night, after having a few beers and smoking weed with a friend at a sports bar called the Back Page, which happened to be located just four blocks away from Katherine's apartment, Paul alleged that he returned home and went to bed. But a neighbor of his reported seeing him taking trash to the dumpster around 4am which may have been his way of disposing of the clothes and shoes he was wearing. Despite all of this, which, let's be honest, this seems like a lot of stuff going against Paul, his friends and family stood behind him in the aftermath of his arrest and continue to do so to this very day. A friend of Paul's named Marguerite even fundraised to hire a better defense team than they felt he would receive with public defenders. Marguerite claimed that she was 99.99% sure of his innocence, but that she became wholly convinced. So she went from 99.99 to 100. When he said his public defender had spent hours and hours trying to convince Paul to take a plea bargain. And he kept telling his attorney, I'm innocent. He says, yeah, yeah, but if you go to court and get a guilty verdict, you'll spend 25 to life. So take a plea. Just take a plea. Which I don't know about you guys, but if the defense attorney is trying to spend hours and hours trying to convince you to take a plea deal, I don't think that means he thinks you're innocent. I think it means he knows that people are going to think you're guilty. But Paul didn't want to take the plea deal. He didn't want to accept responsibility for Catherine's murder. He is saying that he's innocent. He said, I will tell the truth and God will do as he will. I did not kill Catherine. So Marguerite then said, when he repeated that story to me, it had that absolute conviction. I know it was the absolute truth. So he wanted to try to prove his innocence during trial, which began in January of 2007. And Donna and John woods, who, of course are Katherine's parents, were present for the entirety of the court proceedings, despite, of course, how difficult the details were for them to hear. Donna explained how important it was for them to be there, saying, quote, I feel that we're her voice. I feel a responsibility to represent her and do that. In a way that would be consistent with her values, because she's not here to do it for herself. To their surprise, an anonymous donor, likely somebody that they knew from John's connections to Ohio state, offered to cover the cost of their lengthy hotel stay, as well as transportation to and from the courthouse. In a predictable move by the defense team, Paul's lawyers blamed David Hahn for the murder and latched onto the one thing that David had done wrong, which was to give a slightly incorrect timeline. His attorneys, Don Florio and Laura Miranda, also painted David as the midwestern simpleton who sponged off of Catherine for her apartment and the money she received from dancing, While Paul was like an intellectual and an accomplished artist. In her opening statement, Don Florio accused, he also stayed at home and didn't contribute. You could see the apartment was totally a mess, and it was never cleaned up. It was very, very filthy. And he basically stayed in the house all day and smoked pot. They even went so far as to bring up the consensual sex that Catherine and David had, you know, shortly before her murder, saying that it had been rape. They said the boots and the boot print did not belong to Paul and that the fingerprint had been left on the wall after a prior sexual encounter with Catherine when she had been menstruating. It doesn't get crazier than that, folks. The only truly unexplained detail, though, which the defense also harped on, was the identity of the clump of hairs found in Catherine's hand, Because, according to Don Florio and Laura Miranda, the hairs were only tested against Paul's, who was apparently found not to be a match. And I think we can all agree that's pretty strange, because if they were in her hand, you imagine she would have ripped them from the head of the person who was attacking her. But they weren't Paul's hair. So whose were they? Well, the New York Police department has not acknowledged whether or not they are still in possession of the hairs, but with the other evidence stacked against him, this was becoming kind of an erroneous detail when the stray hairs could have belonged to almost anybody. Though David had confused his timeline and was off by about 20 crucial minutes, he chalked this up to nerves and the shock that he was experiencing in the aftermath of Catherine's murder. But the minds of the jury were made up when they were shown the security footage of Paul entering the electronics store with his friend on the day of Catherine's murder. And they acknowledge that the mysterious missing Skechers boots closely resembled the pair that he was wearing, which again, he didn't have an explanation for. He didn't say, oh, I was borrowing those, and here's my friend, and here are the boots, and there's no blood on them. And these are different boots. He didn't have anything like that. Just like how he didn't have an explanation for why his cell phone records showed that he was near Catherine's apartment during the time that she was killed. And while he was making all those calls when he said that he was home. And it does seem like regarding motive, it makes more sense that Paul would be behind it because he was very vengeful. When they had broken up before, you know, he spitefully called her family to try to out her about her job. And maybe the fact that she wasn't answering all of his calls the day she was killed means that she didn't want to see him anymore. So is it possible that she let him up to her apartment? They had a conversation. After having a lovely Thanksgiving and weekend with David, she decided she wanted to completely cut things off with Paul. And he didn't like that answer so much that he killed her in a jealous rage. Because David seems to have less of a motive. When she had previously asked him to move out and broke up, he was seemingly okay with it and went to find another place to live temporarily. He didn't get mad at her. He didn't try to get even or get back at Catherine. So on February 15, 2007, Paul was found guilty of second degree murder, just like his defense attorney had worried about. Then on March 23, 2007, he was handed a sentence of 25 years to life, and he remains in prison to this day. Paul has continued to proclaim his innocence, but all of his appeal attempts have been denied. He also alleges that the prosecution withheld security camera footage from a camera that happened to be positioned across the street that apparently showed David leaving the apartment building just after the murder is believed to have taken place. But the video has never been released to the public. But because they had David in their possession, like, I imagine if they had video proof that David had committed the murder, they would have just gone with him. But we don't even know if this video is real. A group of online supporters of Paul's remain in the form of a website and a Facebook group to this day, and they have tried to push for the Innocence Project to take up Paul's case. But as of the most recent update, it seems they believe he most likely is guilty of Catherine's murder because they continue to deny his case. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this solo episode of Going West. I really appreciate you guys hanging out with me today while Heath recovers. Send him your well wishes. I know I missed him today but I would love to hear your guys thoughts on this case. You know we really can't always believe when people say they're innocent. I think there is a decent amount of evidence in this case that point towards Paul, but I do think the fact that the hair found in her hand wasn't his is really bizarre. So would love to hear your guys thoughts. Make sure you're following us on socials. We're on Instagram @goingwest podcast and we're also on Facebook and TikTok. Give us a follow, leave us a comment and we'll see you guys on Tuesday. All right, for everybody out there in the world, don't be a stranger.
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