America's Most Wanted fugitive Donald Santini to die in prison following plea ... trends now
America's Most Wanted fugitive, who was caught after 40 years on the run, has entered a plea deal for a 1994 murder that will likely see him die in prison.
Donald Santini, 65, was arrested in June in Southern California for strangling to death Cynthia 'Cindy' Ruth Wood, 33, in Bradenton, Florida in 1984.
He appeared on America's Most Wanted three times - in 1990, 2005 and 2013 - and remained on the list until cops received a tip-off in June when he applied for a passport.
Santini was remanded in custody without bail and called the 'definition of a flight risk' by a judge in Tampa.
On November 16, Santini was entered into a plea deal with the State Attorney's Office and was sentenced to 50 years in Florida State Prison followed by 15 years of probation.
Pillar of the community... and a fugitive on America's Most Wanted list: Santini and his wife pictured together in 2013
Santini was the last person seen with Wood, 33, before her body was discovered strangled and left in a canal. The arrest warrant said a medical examiner determined she had been strangled and Santini's fingerprints were found on her body
'The man who spent nearly four decades on the run...accepted responsibility for the crime in court today,' Florida's Office of the State Attorney, 13th Judicial Circuit said in a statement on Thursday.
After his arrest in the summer Santini wrote a letter to a local news station where he said: 'The reason I have been able to run so long is to live a loving respectful life.
'Things are not as they seem. I need a lawyer that doesn't try to push me through the system to keep me quiet. The problem is I have no money.'
In the the nearly four decades before his arrest, Santini lived just outside of San Diego in the small town of Campo - which has a population of 3,000 - under the name Wellman Simmonds.
Records show that he married a woman in Nevada in March 1990, and the couple had a daughter shortly afterward.
In the wake of Santini's arrest, his daughter has made several posts online protesting his innocence.
In one, she said: 'My dad didn't do it.'
In another she posted alongside a video of him being perp walked into a police station, and wrote: 'I miss you papa. Stay strong.'
Cynthia Wood met Santini as the suspect's girlfriend's children were attending the day care where the victim worked
Santini was caught in San Diego in early June, after evading arrest for 39 years
Santini pictured during his first court appearance in San Diego in June
Santini's daughter, who goes by Whitney, has maintained her father's innocence in a series of social media posts
In 2018, Santini was interviewed by ABC San Diego after the deaths of two people who lived in an apartment building that he managed
Santini - who told local residents he was 80 years old despite only being 65 - lived in a rural home where he'd installed surveillance cameras and barbed wire while serving as the president of the Lake Morena Views Mutual Water Company, according to a local news report.
He often appeared at public meetings and was considered a 'pillar of the community' by neighbors who said they were stunned by the news.
A colleague who witnessed his arrest said that Santini was 'very involved with his granddaughter in gymkhana (an equestrian sport).' She added that the child lives with him and his wife, and is enrolled in a local school.
In Santini's letter protesting his innocence while in jail awaiting extradition in San Diego, he claimed he was active in the local Rotary Club and owned a Thai restaurant.
Santini went on to write in the letter to ABC San Diego that he was abused as a child and that he would kill animals in his youth.
He apologized for his past mistakes but made no reference to Wood's murder.
Officials say Wood's murder wasn't Santini's first foray into violent crime.
In 1978, he was convicted on rape charges while serving in the US Army in Frankfurt, Germany. The suspect's birth announcement shows that he was born into a military family on Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas.
Santini has appeared multiple times on America's Most Wanted
The area where Cynthia Wood's body was found in 1984
Cynthia Wood's stepdaughter, Denise Kozer, was 20 years old when the murder occurred, she says her entire family have suffered the after effects of the awful crime
After his discharge from the service, Santini was arrested on aggravated robbery charges in his home state, he was accused of holding up a convenience store with a knife. Following a confession, he fled for the Sunshine State while out on bail.
He left behind another wife and and daughter in Texas, his estranged wife Marla Santini told WFLA this week.
Marla, who has since kept the last name Santini, told the station that one of her daughters saw the suspect on the news and recognized.
'I hadn't seen him in 40 years. I haven't heard nothing. I have not talked to anybody. Everybody, his family, no one's heard anything from him,' she told the station, adding that she thought he was dead.
After confirming his identity, Marla said that she set up a video call with her estranged husband. The pair are still legally married.
'He got on the first video. He says, 'I'm sorry, but I don't think I know you. Do I?' I went, 'Really? Really? I have your daughter.''
Marla described her interactions with Santini as 'pleasant.'
A Facebook post made by Santini's daughter shortly after his arrest
'He don't act like he's the same person,' she said.
Marla said that he told her he left her and his child because of 'demons' and that it was nothing personal.
Once in Florida, Santini began working as a janitor in a hotel under the name Charles Michael Stevens. During this time, he started a relationship with a woman named Pamela Kincaid, and eventually moved in with her and her two children.
Wood was the manager of a daycare center which Kincaid's children attended, and police allege that Santini had tried to date her.
He's accused of killing her on June 6, 1984 after arranging to meet up with her with
