Moab police solve 51-year-old cold case homicide of local bar owner
Jun 28, 2024, 4:00 PM
Moab police say they have solved the cold case homicide of Ann Woodward, 46, who was found strangled to death in her bar, Woody's, on March 2, 1973. (Utah Bureau of Criminal Identification)
(Utah Bureau of Criminal Identification)
MOAB, Utah — A 51-year-old cold case homicide in Moab has been solved, thanks in part to evidence collected at the scene but couldn’t be properly tested at the time.
It sat in two boxes at the back of a storage shed in Grand County for 50 years, until it was discovered by a detective who was working the recently reopened case. In one of the boxes were the clothes that 46-year-old Ann Woodward was wearing the night she was murdered, including the pants she was wearing that the killer used to strangle her with.
Related: 59-year-old Logan cold case solved
“That pair of pants is what led us to her killer,” Moab Police Chief Lex Bell said Friday, while announcing Woodward’s case had been solved.
“It’s an emotional day for a lot of people in this room,” Bell said, noting that members of Woodward’s family, as well as retired law enforcers who had worked the case decades ago, were in attendance for Friday’s announcement.
Woodward was found strangled to death in her bar, Woody’s, on March 2, 1973.
Based on DNA evidence, police and prosecutors believe a man who worked as a miner in the area and often went to Woody’s after work, Douglas K. Chudomelka, strangled, sexually assaulted and robbed Woodward. Police say they would issue an arrest warrant for Chudomelka for murder if he were still alive.
Chudomelka, however, died in 2002 in Nebraska at age 65.
