Young White Woman Throat Slit
- Thread starter White Boy
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I would like to mention a story here in New York which seems to not have
been picked up by the nationalist community, though I beleive it is of
profound importance. It involves the murder of an aspiring broadway
dancer/ exotic dancer by night named Catherine Woods. It now looks as
though she has been murdered by her estranged mestizo "personal trainer"
whom she befriended at a high end gymnasium where she worked out. It
would be easy to dismiss this case as simply a race mixer making a stupid
decision and winding up dead. the fact is though, is that this girl was
an extremely beautiful, sweet, graceful and classically trained dancer
from a loving and stable family. her father was the head of the famous
ohio state university marching band and his daughter was the pride of her
town. this young woman was just as much a victim of the media as she was
of her murderer. the same media that made it thinkable for her to date a
hispanic also seduced her into leaving her safe enviroment and travelling
to a morally depraved and corrupt place like New York in the first place.
media influence is also apparant from her first white boyfriend, who came
to New York with her from Ohio, and who was a wigger who was described by
papers as an "aspiring rapper". he no doubt lived up to his gangsta
rapper pimp image by allowing her, or maybe even introducing the young
impressionable girl to be an exotic dancer. our young women, particular
our beautiful and talented women , are the people we should be defending
the most, and instead we are allowing them by the thousands to be sucked
into a media created world of illusions and fantasies which destroy their
lives, spirutually and physically.
link to the story
[URL="http://www.nbc4i.com/news/5442266/dehttp://www.nbc4i.com/news/5442266/de
tail.html]http://www.nbc4i.com/news/5442266/detail.html[/URL]
****************************
I would like to mention a story here in New York which seems to not have
been picked up by the nationalist community, though I beleive it is of
profound importance. It involves the murder of an aspiring broadway
dancer/ exotic dancer by night named Catherine Woods. It now looks as
though she has been murdered by her estranged mestizo "personal trainer"
whom she befriended at a high end gymnasium where she worked out. It
would be easy to dismiss this case as simply a race mixer making a stupid
decision and winding up dead. the fact is though, is that this girl was
an extremely beautiful, sweet, graceful and classically trained dancer
from a loving and stable family. her father was the head of the famous
ohio state university marching band and his daughter was the pride of her
town. this young woman was just as much a victim of the media as she was
of her murderer. the same media that made it thinkable for her to date a
hispanic also seduced her into leaving her safe enviroment and travelling
to a morally depraved and corrupt place like New York in the first place.
media influence is also apparant from her first white boyfriend, who came
to New York with her from Ohio, and who was a wigger who was described by
papers as an "aspiring rapper". he no doubt lived up to his gangsta
rapper pimp image by allowing her, or maybe even introducing the young
impressionable girl to be an exotic dancer. our young women, particular
our beautiful and talented women , are the people we should be defending
the most, and instead we are allowing them by the thousands to be sucked
into a media created world of illusions and fantasies which destroy their
lives, spirutually and physically.
link to the story
[URL="http://www.nbc4i.com/news/5442266/dehttp://www.nbc4i.com/news/5442266/de
tail.html]http://www.nbc4i.com/news/5442266/detail.html[/URL]
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Boyfriend Questioned In Dancer Murder
The boyfriend of murdered Upper East Side dancer Catherine Woods is being questioned in her slaying after a bloody fingerprint discovered at the scene was matched with his, police say.
According to officials, 25-year-old Paul Cortez is in NYPD custody at a Harlem police precinct, being questioned in the Nov. 27 murder of Woods in her East 86th Street apartment. Authorities matched Cortez's fingerprints to one found in Woods' apartment.
Detectives will obtain a search warrant today to comb Cortez's apartment for more evidence.
Cortez's fingerprints, which were not previously on file, were obtained by detectives after he was arrested on an unrelated sex-assault charge. A former girlfriend told detectives that Cortez forcibly sodomized her during a date last New Year's Eve. She came forward last week after hearing about the murder, according to police.
Cortez was already a prime suspect in Woods' murder because of his obsessive behavior and his past treatment of other women. Several women told detectives they were afraid the East Harlem resident would react violently when they split with him, saying he had a problem with rejection.
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=3743321
The boyfriend of murdered Upper East Side dancer Catherine Woods is being questioned in her slaying after a bloody fingerprint discovered at the scene was matched with his, police say.
According to officials, 25-year-old Paul Cortez is in NYPD custody at a Harlem police precinct, being questioned in the Nov. 27 murder of Woods in her East 86th Street apartment. Authorities matched Cortez's fingerprints to one found in Woods' apartment.
Detectives will obtain a search warrant today to comb Cortez's apartment for more evidence.
Cortez's fingerprints, which were not previously on file, were obtained by detectives after he was arrested on an unrelated sex-assault charge. A former girlfriend told detectives that Cortez forcibly sodomized her during a date last New Year's Eve. She came forward last week after hearing about the murder, according to police.
Cortez was already a prime suspect in Woods' murder because of his obsessive behavior and his past treatment of other women. Several women told detectives they were afraid the East Harlem resident would react violently when they split with him, saying he had a problem with rejection.
http://abclocal.go.com/wabc/story?section=local&id=3743321
cltncblondeeagle
Registered
And as a woman I agree with you White Boy. The skank got what she deserved.
Expose Them All
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Cortez Indicted In Woods' Murder
An indictment has been made in the murder of Catherine Woods, the daughter of OSU Band Director Jon Woods.
Paul Cortez, Woods' ex-boyfriend, was indicted on a second degree murder charge Friday.
Jon Woods says his family is greatly relieved that Paul Cortez has been indicted.
Catherine Woods was found by her ex-boyfriend David Haughn in their New York apartment with her throat slashed. Police did find a bloody fingerprint in her apartment, which was later matched to Cortez.
After the murder, Haughn told police he left the apartment for just 20 minutes to move his car, and returned to find Woods dead. He was questioned for hours by police before being let go.
Police say Cortez made seven calls in a row to Woods' cell phone just before she was murdered.
A surveillance camera from a nearby bank may have caught Cortez standing outside Woods' apartment even though he told police he made those calls from his apartment more than 20-blocks away.
http://www.wbns10tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4282960&nav=LUES
An indictment has been made in the murder of Catherine Woods, the daughter of OSU Band Director Jon Woods.
Paul Cortez, Woods' ex-boyfriend, was indicted on a second degree murder charge Friday.
Jon Woods says his family is greatly relieved that Paul Cortez has been indicted.
Catherine Woods was found by her ex-boyfriend David Haughn in their New York apartment with her throat slashed. Police did find a bloody fingerprint in her apartment, which was later matched to Cortez.
After the murder, Haughn told police he left the apartment for just 20 minutes to move his car, and returned to find Woods dead. He was questioned for hours by police before being let go.
Police say Cortez made seven calls in a row to Woods' cell phone just before she was murdered.
A surveillance camera from a nearby bank may have caught Cortez standing outside Woods' apartment even though he told police he made those calls from his apartment more than 20-blocks away.
http://www.wbns10tv.com/Global/story.asp?S=4282960&nav=LUES
Expose Them All
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Ex-Boyfriend Charged In Dancer's Slaying - Cortez Pleads Not Guilty
Cortez appeared in court Friday morning, where he pleaded not guilty. During the brief arraignment, the prosecutor said that Cortez made statements, and there are witnesses that tie him to the slaying. A district attorney also said "there's a bloody fingerprint found at the scene which has been matched to this defendant."
http://www.nbc4i.com/news/5628484/detail.html
Cortez appeared in court Friday morning, where he pleaded not guilty. During the brief arraignment, the prosecutor said that Cortez made statements, and there are witnesses that tie him to the slaying. A district attorney also said "there's a bloody fingerprint found at the scene which has been matched to this defendant."
http://www.nbc4i.com/news/5628484/detail.html
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21
Catherine Woods, seen in 2001, told her family she was working in off-Broadway shows.
A dancer's secret life and savage murder
How did a young, aspiring Broadway dancer from Ohio end up murdered in her Upper East Side apartment?
There is, in all the world, only one Broadway.
Its whose tantalizing promise is so irresistible to countless thousands, including -- in this harsh tale of the city --a hopeful young woman from Ohio, named Catherine.
Catherine Woods wanted it so badly. She became, herself, a Broadway tragedy.
Her story begins as well as anyone's could, accompanied by the rousing presence of the Ohio State marching band.
Catherine's father is Dr. Jon Woods. He is the director, and symbol of the beloved Ohio State University marching band.
Holly Hollingsworth, local reporter with WCMH-TV, Columbus: Dr. Woods means a lot to the community. Her dad is such a great artist and musician. And she was just pursuing the same dream.
Her dream was dance.
Tracy Wholf, dance classmate: She was wonderful.
Wholf shared dance lessons with Catherine for 10 years.
Wholf: She was diligent. She always had a drive and a focus.
So much so, that when Catherine finished high school, she decided she would take on Broadway. She moved to New York in 2002, and launched into an endless round of auditions, dance classes, workouts at the gym, odd jobs to pay for it all.
Wholf: That was a really risky step for her to take, to go straight from high school and come to New York.
She wasn't entirely alone. She lived with her Ohio boyfriend, David Haughn. And even after they broke up, they remained roommates. Their apartment was modest, but in one of the safest areas in town, the Upper East side. Crime in that neighborhood makes news.
And this crime was horrible.
Catherine's brutal death
It was Thanksgiving weekend. Catherine's throat had been slashed. The attack particularly savage.
In his fog of grief, Dr. Jon Woods came from Ohio to claim her body.
But who would want to extinguish this beautiful young life? And why? The clues
There were some clues: Someone on a cell phone had made seven calls to Catherine in rapid succession just before she was killed. And a bloody fingerprint was left in the apartment.
Police focused their attention on Haughn, the roommate and ex-boyfriend.
He claimed he'd gone to get his car to drive Catherine to work, and returned some 20 minutes later to find her dead.
The story sounded, frankly, suspicious, but Haughn was surprisingly cooperative.
Jonathan Dienst, local reporter with WNBC, New York: He was cooperating fully. "Take my DNA." "Take my fingerprints." "I don't need a lawyer." "I will help you anyway I can."
But if not Haughn, then who?
Secrets uncovered
There's a merciless business to homicide investigations. Secrets, once inviolate, are yanked from the dark where perhaps they should have stayed.
Catherine's secret was what she did to survive in her expensive city of dreams.
Dienst: She took to dancing in topless bars; topless night clubs to earn extra cash to pay her rent. It's not cheap to live in Manhattan.
Anthony Regina is the operations manager at a gentleman's club called "Privilege," one of two places Catherine used her dancing skills.
Anthony Regina, club manager: They can make between a $1,000- $2,000 a week maybe, depending on how hard they work.
But back home in Columbus, her family reportedly believed that Privilege was an off-Broadway show in which she'd landed a role.
Catherine was working on Broadway, but it was hardly the stage that she craved. Still, it did not seem to be connected to her death...
Especially when police focused on Paul Cortez, a trainer at her gym, whom she had dated.
Dienst: He was very popular, very calm very cool.
Or so it seemed on the attractive surface.
But remember those seven phone calls just before she was killed? Records showed they were made by Cortez and placed from Catherine's neighborhood.
Dienst: There are some witnesses at the Equinox club who said they'd seen some heated discussion between the two of them at the club.
And then, a break. Another woman reported Cortez had assaulted her sexually.
It was a charge that allowed police to fingerprint Cortez, a fingerprint which, sure enough, matched that bloody one in Catherine's apartment.
But why? What motive could he have?
Trying to 'save her'
Cortez told police he tried to persuade Catherine to quit her job at Privilege, and that he told her father what she was doing. Police sources say Dr. Woods was so alarmed he flew to New York, but Catherine convinced her father it was a lie.
But it was in Cortez's diary that the truly bizarre dimensions of the sad story emerged. Investigators say he wrote about slashing Catherine Woods' throat to "save her from her life as a stripper."
He denies he's committed either crime.
The whole thing was, for people at home in Ohio, hard to hear.
Hollingsworth, local reporter: Many people in this community thought, "You know what? I just wish I didn't know. It's not something we want to be a part of her memory."
It's a big, hard city, and it grinds down dreams.
This past holiday season the Woods family mourned a beloved daughter, a beautiful girl with a dream who wanted so much just to make it on Broadway.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10868185/
Catherine Woods, seen in 2001, told her family she was working in off-Broadway shows.
A dancer's secret life and savage murder
How did a young, aspiring Broadway dancer from Ohio end up murdered in her Upper East Side apartment?
There is, in all the world, only one Broadway.
Its whose tantalizing promise is so irresistible to countless thousands, including -- in this harsh tale of the city --a hopeful young woman from Ohio, named Catherine.
Catherine Woods wanted it so badly. She became, herself, a Broadway tragedy.
Her story begins as well as anyone's could, accompanied by the rousing presence of the Ohio State marching band.
Catherine's father is Dr. Jon Woods. He is the director, and symbol of the beloved Ohio State University marching band.
Holly Hollingsworth, local reporter with WCMH-TV, Columbus: Dr. Woods means a lot to the community. Her dad is such a great artist and musician. And she was just pursuing the same dream.
Her dream was dance.
Tracy Wholf, dance classmate: She was wonderful.
Wholf shared dance lessons with Catherine for 10 years.
Wholf: She was diligent. She always had a drive and a focus.
So much so, that when Catherine finished high school, she decided she would take on Broadway. She moved to New York in 2002, and launched into an endless round of auditions, dance classes, workouts at the gym, odd jobs to pay for it all.
Wholf: That was a really risky step for her to take, to go straight from high school and come to New York.
She wasn't entirely alone. She lived with her Ohio boyfriend, David Haughn. And even after they broke up, they remained roommates. Their apartment was modest, but in one of the safest areas in town, the Upper East side. Crime in that neighborhood makes news.
And this crime was horrible.
Catherine's brutal death
It was Thanksgiving weekend. Catherine's throat had been slashed. The attack particularly savage.
In his fog of grief, Dr. Jon Woods came from Ohio to claim her body.
But who would want to extinguish this beautiful young life? And why? The clues
There were some clues: Someone on a cell phone had made seven calls to Catherine in rapid succession just before she was killed. And a bloody fingerprint was left in the apartment.
Police focused their attention on Haughn, the roommate and ex-boyfriend.
He claimed he'd gone to get his car to drive Catherine to work, and returned some 20 minutes later to find her dead.
The story sounded, frankly, suspicious, but Haughn was surprisingly cooperative.
Jonathan Dienst, local reporter with WNBC, New York: He was cooperating fully. "Take my DNA." "Take my fingerprints." "I don't need a lawyer." "I will help you anyway I can."
But if not Haughn, then who?
Secrets uncovered
There's a merciless business to homicide investigations. Secrets, once inviolate, are yanked from the dark where perhaps they should have stayed.
Catherine's secret was what she did to survive in her expensive city of dreams.
Dienst: She took to dancing in topless bars; topless night clubs to earn extra cash to pay her rent. It's not cheap to live in Manhattan.
Anthony Regina is the operations manager at a gentleman's club called "Privilege," one of two places Catherine used her dancing skills.
Anthony Regina, club manager: They can make between a $1,000- $2,000 a week maybe, depending on how hard they work.
But back home in Columbus, her family reportedly believed that Privilege was an off-Broadway show in which she'd landed a role.
Catherine was working on Broadway, but it was hardly the stage that she craved. Still, it did not seem to be connected to her death...
Especially when police focused on Paul Cortez, a trainer at her gym, whom she had dated.
Dienst: He was very popular, very calm very cool.
Or so it seemed on the attractive surface.
But remember those seven phone calls just before she was killed? Records showed they were made by Cortez and placed from Catherine's neighborhood.
Dienst: There are some witnesses at the Equinox club who said they'd seen some heated discussion between the two of them at the club.
And then, a break. Another woman reported Cortez had assaulted her sexually.
It was a charge that allowed police to fingerprint Cortez, a fingerprint which, sure enough, matched that bloody one in Catherine's apartment.
But why? What motive could he have?
Trying to 'save her'
Cortez told police he tried to persuade Catherine to quit her job at Privilege, and that he told her father what she was doing. Police sources say Dr. Woods was so alarmed he flew to New York, but Catherine convinced her father it was a lie.
But it was in Cortez's diary that the truly bizarre dimensions of the sad story emerged. Investigators say he wrote about slashing Catherine Woods' throat to "save her from her life as a stripper."
He denies he's committed either crime.
The whole thing was, for people at home in Ohio, hard to hear.
Hollingsworth, local reporter: Many people in this community thought, "You know what? I just wish I didn't know. It's not something we want to be a part of her memory."
It's a big, hard city, and it grinds down dreams.
This past holiday season the Woods family mourned a beloved daughter, a beautiful girl with a dream who wanted so much just to make it on Broadway.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10868185/
Expose Them All
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Many images concerning this story in this link
This has been in the "race/ethnicity unconfirmed" category for awhile now, even though we've known for some time who the sadistic killer was. This Cortez fool looks white but is probably of mixed race. I tried to find a link somewhere that would state his ethnicity or if he immigrated to the US from somewhere or anything that would show he wasn't 100% white - no luck. Might be time to clean-up some of this stuff. I don't know what to do with it. Sending it out of public view.
This has been in the "race/ethnicity unconfirmed" category for awhile now, even though we've known for some time who the sadistic killer was. This Cortez fool looks white but is probably of mixed race. I tried to find a link somewhere that would state his ethnicity or if he immigrated to the US from somewhere or anything that would show he wasn't 100% white - no luck. Might be time to clean-up some of this stuff. I don't know what to do with it. Sending it out of public view.
Rasp
Senior Editor
Trial opens soon for man accused of killing NYC stripper
Trial opens soon for man accused of killing NYC stripper
NEW YORK (AP) - The former boyfriend charged with killing a classically trained and aspiring dancer who came to New York to be on Broadway but instead became a stripper has said that he is innocent and was trying to save the woman he loved from a dangerous job.
Paul Cortez, the yoga instructor and rock musician who police say slashed Catherine Woods' throat and left her dead in her apartment, is expected to appear in court this week as his trial opens in Manhattan. Cortez, who has been jailed since his arrest for the 2005 slaying of Woods, faces a second-degree murder charge.
Jury selection had been scheduled for Monday morning, but was postponed and could be adjourned until another day.
Woods, 21, was found dead Nov. 27, 2005, by another former boyfriend, David Haughn, who she lived with at an East 86th Street apartment. Investigators first turned their attention toward Haughn as a potential suspect in the slaying, but later took Cortez into custody.
Prosecutors said that a bloody fingerprint discovered in Woods' apartment led to Cortez' arrest and that witnesses reported seeing the two together at various times before her death.
Woods had come from Columbus, Ohio, in 2002 with the dream of becoming a dancer on Broadway. But the expense of the city and the competitiveness of her chosen career forced her to take a job in a topless bar, Privilege, working under the stage name Ava.
Her father, Jon Woods, is the director of the Ohio State University marching band.
Cortez and Catherine Woods met in 2004 and dated for a number of months. But Cortez was concerned about Woods working as an exotic dancer, especially after she appeared to have been drugged while on the job, and blacked out in 2005. He told police in a written statement that he believed she may have been raped.
In the same statement, Cortez said he took Woods to the hospital and called her father to tell him about her working as a stripper. Her father later flew from Ohio to New York to confront her, but his daughter denied working as an exotic dancer.
"I believe she told him that I made up the whole thing," Cortez wrote.
Cortez and Woods appear to have split after the incident, but he continued to pursue her, according to police. It was not clear what their relationship was when Woods was killed.
Trial opens soon for man accused of killing NYC stripper
NEW YORK (AP) - The former boyfriend charged with killing a classically trained and aspiring dancer who came to New York to be on Broadway but instead became a stripper has said that he is innocent and was trying to save the woman he loved from a dangerous job.
Paul Cortez, the yoga instructor and rock musician who police say slashed Catherine Woods' throat and left her dead in her apartment, is expected to appear in court this week as his trial opens in Manhattan. Cortez, who has been jailed since his arrest for the 2005 slaying of Woods, faces a second-degree murder charge.
Jury selection had been scheduled for Monday morning, but was postponed and could be adjourned until another day.
Woods, 21, was found dead Nov. 27, 2005, by another former boyfriend, David Haughn, who she lived with at an East 86th Street apartment. Investigators first turned their attention toward Haughn as a potential suspect in the slaying, but later took Cortez into custody.
Prosecutors said that a bloody fingerprint discovered in Woods' apartment led to Cortez' arrest and that witnesses reported seeing the two together at various times before her death.
Woods had come from Columbus, Ohio, in 2002 with the dream of becoming a dancer on Broadway. But the expense of the city and the competitiveness of her chosen career forced her to take a job in a topless bar, Privilege, working under the stage name Ava.
Her father, Jon Woods, is the director of the Ohio State University marching band.
Cortez and Catherine Woods met in 2004 and dated for a number of months. But Cortez was concerned about Woods working as an exotic dancer, especially after she appeared to have been drugged while on the job, and blacked out in 2005. He told police in a written statement that he believed she may have been raped.
In the same statement, Cortez said he took Woods to the hospital and called her father to tell him about her working as a stripper. Her father later flew from Ohio to New York to confront her, but his daughter denied working as an exotic dancer.
"I believe she told him that I made up the whole thing," Cortez wrote.
Cortez and Woods appear to have split after the incident, but he continued to pursue her, according to police. It was not clear what their relationship was when Woods was killed.
The Bobster
Senior News Editor since 2004
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/storie...-?SITE=NYNYD&SECTION=MIDEAST&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Murder conviction in throat-slash slaying of NYC topless dancer
By SAMUEL MAULL
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- A personal trainer was convicted Thursday of murdering a classically schooled dancer who chased her dream of stardom from Ohio to Broadway but wound up performing in a strip club.
Paul Cortez, 26, was found guilty for slashing the throat of his ex-girlfriend, 21-year-old Catherine Woods, on Nov. 27, 2005, in her Manhattan apartment. The jurors deliberated over three days following a two-week trial in state Supreme Court.
He faces 25 years to life in prison at his March 23 sentencing on the second-degree murder conviction. His mother wept openly in the courtroom as the verdict was read, but Cortez showed no emotion.
Defense attorney Dawn Florio promised an appeal, and predicted that her client would prevail - most likely by claiming prosecutors had no right to introduce Cortez's diaries, which detailed his tortured feelings over Woods' refusal to love him.
Cortez "was very calm" after hearing the verdict, she said. "He was calmer than we were. He was very peaceful."
During closing arguments, prosecutor Peter Casolaro cited the key piece of evidence against Cortez - the bloody print of a left index finger that was a match with the defendant. Casolaro said the print "actually puts Cortez in the apartment committing the murder." He showed the jury the print on a chunk of plaster that was cut out of the wall.
He also submitted Cortez's phone records as evidence. On the day of the slaying, the aspiring rock star repeatedly called Woods with an interval of only minutes between each phone call.
The calls stopped during the time the aspiring dancer was killed, and Cortez never placed another phone call to the victim, Casolaro said.
"He already knows she's dead and there is nobody to answer the phone," Casolaro told the jury.
Woods, a classically trained dancer, moved to Manhattan from Ohio, hoping to make it as a dancer on Broadway but instead wound up working in topless bars to cover her living expenses. Her father, Jon Woods, is director of the Ohio State University marching band.
The slain woman's father fought back tears when he took the stand as the trial's first witness and detailed his 2005 trip to New York, where he identified his daughter's mutilated body. Woods said his daughter's killer had called him seven months before the slaying to say Catherine was abusing drugs and alcohol while dancing naked in strip clubs.
Jon Woods testified that his daughter denied Cortez's accusations.
Defense lawyer Laura Miranda struggled to overcome the strength of the fingerprint evidence, saying it was possible that Cortez, a former boyfriend of Woods, had touched the wall while the victim's menstrual blood was on his hand.
Miranda also suggested another suspect, David Haughn, Woods' former boyfriend from Columbus, Ohio, who was living with the victim at the time of her death.
The defense lawyer said Haughn, 25, was enraged by jealousy over Woods' seeing Cortez and other men. But during the trial, Miranda never offered proof that Woods was intimate with anyone but Cortez and Haughn.
The prosecutor charged the killer stabbed and slashed Woods furiously, his angry response to failed relationships with several women before he met the Ohio native. Cortez became a "violent, narcissistic misogynist (who) couldn't handle rejection," the prosecutor said.
Murder conviction in throat-slash slaying of NYC topless dancer
By SAMUEL MAULL
Associated Press Writer
NEW YORK (AP) -- A personal trainer was convicted Thursday of murdering a classically schooled dancer who chased her dream of stardom from Ohio to Broadway but wound up performing in a strip club.
Paul Cortez, 26, was found guilty for slashing the throat of his ex-girlfriend, 21-year-old Catherine Woods, on Nov. 27, 2005, in her Manhattan apartment. The jurors deliberated over three days following a two-week trial in state Supreme Court.
He faces 25 years to life in prison at his March 23 sentencing on the second-degree murder conviction. His mother wept openly in the courtroom as the verdict was read, but Cortez showed no emotion.
Defense attorney Dawn Florio promised an appeal, and predicted that her client would prevail - most likely by claiming prosecutors had no right to introduce Cortez's diaries, which detailed his tortured feelings over Woods' refusal to love him.
Cortez "was very calm" after hearing the verdict, she said. "He was calmer than we were. He was very peaceful."
During closing arguments, prosecutor Peter Casolaro cited the key piece of evidence against Cortez - the bloody print of a left index finger that was a match with the defendant. Casolaro said the print "actually puts Cortez in the apartment committing the murder." He showed the jury the print on a chunk of plaster that was cut out of the wall.
He also submitted Cortez's phone records as evidence. On the day of the slaying, the aspiring rock star repeatedly called Woods with an interval of only minutes between each phone call.
The calls stopped during the time the aspiring dancer was killed, and Cortez never placed another phone call to the victim, Casolaro said.
"He already knows she's dead and there is nobody to answer the phone," Casolaro told the jury.
Woods, a classically trained dancer, moved to Manhattan from Ohio, hoping to make it as a dancer on Broadway but instead wound up working in topless bars to cover her living expenses. Her father, Jon Woods, is director of the Ohio State University marching band.
The slain woman's father fought back tears when he took the stand as the trial's first witness and detailed his 2005 trip to New York, where he identified his daughter's mutilated body. Woods said his daughter's killer had called him seven months before the slaying to say Catherine was abusing drugs and alcohol while dancing naked in strip clubs.
Jon Woods testified that his daughter denied Cortez's accusations.
Defense lawyer Laura Miranda struggled to overcome the strength of the fingerprint evidence, saying it was possible that Cortez, a former boyfriend of Woods, had touched the wall while the victim's menstrual blood was on his hand.
Miranda also suggested another suspect, David Haughn, Woods' former boyfriend from Columbus, Ohio, who was living with the victim at the time of her death.
The defense lawyer said Haughn, 25, was enraged by jealousy over Woods' seeing Cortez and other men. But during the trial, Miranda never offered proof that Woods was intimate with anyone but Cortez and Haughn.
The prosecutor charged the killer stabbed and slashed Woods furiously, his angry response to failed relationships with several women before he met the Ohio native. Cortez became a "violent, narcissistic misogynist (who) couldn't handle rejection," the prosecutor said.