SAN JOSE — A tech CEO who was prosecuted twice in the 1990s for the death of South Bay computer engineer Laurie Houts — with trials that both ended in hung juries — is back in the Bay Area facing a third set of charges based on updated DNA analysis and a new review of the case that authorities said more firmly linked him to the killing.
John Kevin Woodward, 58, was extradited from New York to Santa Clara County this week following his July 9 arrest at John F. Kennedy International Airport upon his arrival from the Netherlands, where he now lives and runs an online training company that has a stateside office in Oakland.
He was booked into the Santa Clara County Main Jail on Wednesday, and made his first court appearance Thursday at the Hall of Justice in San Jose.
Woodward did not speak at the brief hearing, and defense attorney Dan Barton asked Judge Nahal Iravani-Sani to push Woodward’s arraignment to Aug. 10 so that his firm can investigate the allegations contained in the new murder charge. He will be held in jail without bail until then.
The court gallery was filled with family and friends of Houts, but they did not offer comment.
Houts died after leaving work at Adobe Systems on Charleston Road in Mountain View on Sept. 5, 1992. Her body was found in her car about two miles away on Crittenden Lane. The inside of the car showed signs of a physical struggle, and police recovered her unopened pocketbook nearby.
Woodward was prosecuted unsuccessfully in 1995 and 1996 in the killing of 25-year-old Houts, with juries hanging 8-4 and 7-5 in favor of acquittal. During those trials, the evidence was deemed by jurors and defense attorneys as being mostly circumstantial, and prosecutors could not prove at the time that Woodward was ever inside the car.
The first trial drew controversy on the prosecution’s theory that Woodward, who is gay, was jealous of Houts’ relationship with Woodward’s male roommate, a premise criticized as homophobic. A judge ruled the romantic jealousy motive was inadmissible in the second trial after doubting its credibility.
After the second hung jury, a judge dismissed the case against Woodward, though it was eligible to be re-filed because there is no statute of limitations on murder.
Earlier this month, the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office and Mountain View Police Department announced that DNA from the crime scene, Houts’ car, was reexamined, including the rope found around Houts’ neck.
In a police investigative summary, Mountain View Police Sgt. David Fisher wrote that a DNA sample collected from the rope in 2005 — the case had been periodically revisited by cold-case detectives — was analyzed by the county Crime Lab using Y-STR analysis of paternal male chromosomes. That reportedly yielded a match to Woodward, and also excluded Houts’ boyfriend.
Additionally, police wrote that the lab determined in a new examination “that fibers from sweatpants inside Woodward’s car were virtually indistinguishable from fibers found on the murder weapon (rope) around Houts’ neck.” They also described finding more of Woodward’s fingerprints on Houts’ car.
When Woodward initially came under police suspicion, he participated in a monitored call with Houts’ boyfriend, and “did not deny” killing Houts, according to the police summary, which said he asked “what evidence the police had against him and suggested they meet in a parking lot to discuss the matter,”
The new investigation resulted in a murder charge filed in January, but because Woodward lived in the Netherlands, it was not clear when authorities would be able to take him into custody. On July 9, after being alerted by the Department of Homeland Security, DA investigators traveled to New York and along with local authorities arrested Woodward as he arrived. Within 24 hours, Dutch authorities, working with the Justice Department, served a search warrant at his home and business in the Netherlands.
Outside the courthouse, Assistant District Attorney Brian Welch said he believes his office can secure a conviction on a third try, given the new evidence uncovered by investigators.
“I think we have very high confidence because of the additional evidence, the DNA testing and fingerprint identification,” Welch said. “It bolsters the case to where can prove the case, without difficulty, beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Barton declined to comment to a reporter after Thursday’s hearing. An attorney who Woodward retained at the time of his arrest told The New York Times earlier this month that Woodward was “anxious to get to the California courts to answer these charges, which he adamantly denies.”
The new development in the case gave Houts’ family and friends a chance to revive her memory 26 years after they last saw Woodward walk out of a courtroom. In an interview with the Bay Area News Group, they talked about the lost possibilities with Houts being a pioneering UC Davis-educated female computer engineer just as the historic Silicon Valley boom was taking shape.
They are also renewing attention to her legacy through the Houts Memorial Girls Athletic Scholarship at San Jose’s Gunderson High School, where she graduated from in 1985 as a three-sport athlete. The scholarship benefits graduating female seniors who participated in sports all four years and plan to pursue a degree in science, technology, engineering or mathematics.
Welch said investigators and prosecutors “owed it” to Houts’ family and supporters to keep working the case, despite the outcomes of the two previous trials.
“Justice has been delayed for 30 years,” he said. “We’re going to do everything on our part to make sure justice is not denied.”
