RENO, Nev. — After the case was dropped against a Nevada woman who spent 35 years in prison for a 1976 murder she did not commit, both sides agreed on one point: Justice was finally served thanks to new technology in DNA testing.
Cathy Woods became the latest person in the country to be cleared by DNA evidence after prosecutors announced Friday there will be no retrial of her in the fatal stabbing of 19-year-old Michelle Mitchell on the edge of the University of Nevada, Reno campus.
A judge tossed Woods’ conviction in September after new DNA tests linked the Reno crime to a former Oregon inmate who now faces charges for a string of murders near San Francisco.
Washoe County District Attorney Chris Hicks said he didn’t fault earlier police, prosecutors and juries for sending Woods to prison because they didn’t have “the incredible tool of DNA.”
Woods’ public defender, Maizie Pusich, agreed, saying earlier authorities and juries lacked DNA evidence.
Woods, 64, didn’t respond to a request for comment. She was convicted in 1980 and again five years later. The convictions were based largely on the confession she made in 1979 at a psychiatric hospital in Shreveport, La., where her mother committed her months earlier.
The former Reno resident does not remember acknowledging the killing, Pusich said.
