A tech executive has been arrested for the third time on suspicion of murdering his roommate’s girlfriend 29 years ago.
Lori Houts, 25, lived in San Jose and worked at Adobe Systems on September 5, 1992. She left work that evening and never came home. She was found by a passerby in the 1300 block of Crittendane Lane in Mountain View — now the site of the Google campus — strangled to death in the front seat of her car. It was parked about two miles from the Adobe offices on Charleston Road. A nylon rope was still around her neck.
Police quickly narrowed their focus on Oracle engineer John Kevin Woodward, then 28. Woodward, who lives with Houts’ boyfriend, has known Houts for about two years. Investigators said they found three of Woodward’s fingerprints on Houts’ car, which led to his arrest for the October 1992 murder.
But the verdict remains elusive for the Hauts. Woodward was tried twice in the 1990s, but both trials ended in hung juries. To bring the case a third time, a judge told prosecutors they would have to present new evidence.
In late 2020, Santa Clara County detectives began looking for this new evidence. The items were sent to the Santa Clara County Crime Lab for DNA testing, and the sheriff’s office took another look at fingerprint evidence collected in 1992. According to Mountain View police, they found a match to Woodward’s DNA at the crime scene and found even more of his fingerprints on the car.
After his two trials. Woodward moved to Holland. Although based in Europe, he was CEO and president of ReadyTech, an Oakland company that provides online learning software. “The news of Kevin’s arrest has come as a shock to all of us,” ReadyTech said in a statement to SFGATE. “Our deepest sympathies go out to the families involved.”
On Saturday, Woodward entered the United States through John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. Law enforcement was waiting for him when he got off the plane.
“We have received information that the suspect will be flying back to the United States,” said Mountain View Police Sgt. David Fisher told KGO. “We learned this a few days before his flight. So we arranged for all the authorities in New York to help us arrest him.”
Woodward was taken into custody when he landed and is being held in New York pending his extradition to the Bay Area on murder charges. Investigators and Houts’ family hope a third trial will lead to a conviction.
Lori Houts, 25, was killed in her car in Mountain View, California, in 1992.
Mountain View Police/Handout
“Although she was only five feet tall, she had a huge heart and her humor and courage were endearing to all,” Houts’ family said in a statement. “The way Lori lived and treated people was a stunning example of what is right in the world. She was a gem to so many, but her bright life was taken from us at the age of 25.
“We are hopeful that justice can finally be served for Lori and are incredibly grateful to law enforcement who never gave up on her.”
SFGATE Associate News Editor Joshua Bothe contributed reporting.
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