A Paso Robles man convicted of a 2018 murder has been sentenced to life in prison without parole, the District Attorney’s Office said.
District Attorney Dan Dow recently announced that Carlo Alberto Fuentes Flores, 45, was given the life/death sentence for the May 2018 murder of Nancy Woodrum, which was “committed during the commission of rape and residential burglary.”
The case started May 5, 2018 when Woodrum, a Paso Robles business owner, went missing from her Paso Robles home. An extensive search and investigation into her disappearance was undertaken by the County Sheriff’s Office and 6-months later, the case broke.
“In November 2018,” the D.A. said, “Fuentes Flores was identified as a suspect and brought in for questioning. He had been hired to paint Ms. Woodrum’s deck in the weeks leading up to her disappearance. After a lengthy interview, Fuentes Flores led investigators to the victim’s remains in a secluded area off Highway 58 in a rural eastern part of the county.”
Fuentes Flores waived his right to a jury trial and in a trial presided over by Superior Court Judge Timothy Covello, on Jan. 20, found him guilty of first-degree murder with special circumstances of the killing being committed during the commission of other felonies, in this case rape and burglary. And it was those special circumstances that earned him life without parole.
“Life in prison without the possibility of parole,” D.A. Dow said in a news release, “is an appropriate and just punishment for the brutal abuse and murder of Nancy Woodrum. Our hearts remain with the Woodrum Family and her loved ones who will always suffer the pain of her loss.”
The case was investigated by the County Sheriff’s Office with help from the District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigation and was prosecuted by Deputy D.A. Christopher Peuvrelle.
