A 58-year-old American man who now lives in the Netherlands was arrested for the strangulation murder of a woman 30 years ago after authorities allegedly linked him to the crime through new DNA technology.
John Kevin Woodward was taken into custody last week at JFK International Airport after his flight arrived in New York City from Amsterdam.
Prosecutors have long suspected Woodward in the case, alleging that he was “openly jealous” of the victim, 25-year-old Laurie Houts, because he had “developed an unrequited romantic attachment to his roommate,” who was Houts’ boyfriend.
Houts, a computer engineer at Adobe Systems, was found strangled to death in her car after she left work on September 5, 1992.
Woodward was tried twice for the crime in the 1990s, but both trials resulted in a hung jury. A judge dismissed the case after the second attempt, saying that new evidence would need to be presented to try him again for the same crime.
