Donald Michael Santini is escorted into the Orient Road Jail early June 28, 2023. Deputies said he strangled Cynthia Ruth Wood and abandoned her corpse in a drainage ditch sometime in June 1984. (Images: Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office)
After 39 years, the man who allegedly strangled a woman and abandoned her body in a water-filled drainage ditch is in the hands of the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in Florida. Donald Michael Santini, 65, was arrested on June 7 across the country in California, where authorities said he lived under the assumed name of Wellman Simmons. Hillsborough deputies announced that he arrived Wednesday at 3:03 a.m. to the Orient Road Jail. Online records show that he is now held without bond at the Falkenburg Road Jail for a single count of murder in the first degree.
Prosecutors want him staying put until he stands trial for allegedly murdering Cynthia Ruth Wood, 33, in 1984. According to a Thursday morning for pretrial detention, Santini had initially been wanted in Galveston County, Texas, for robbing a convenience store clerk at knifepoint of $270 in May 1983. Investigators tracked him down because the victim got his license plate number, and though he gave authorities the knife, handed back $219, and showed them the getaway vehicle, he fled the Lone Star State while out on bond, authorities said.
He allegedly wound up in Florida by June 1984. Wood was last seen leaving her Manatee County home with a man on the night of June 5 of that year. She was later found dead on June 9 in the Hillsborough County community of Riverview, south of Tampa. A woman who knew the suspect identified him as Charles Michael Stevens and said he admitted to her on June 6, 1984, to killing Wood, but investigators later determined he was actually Santini, documents said.
Deputies said he soon fled Hillsborough. This prompted the almost four-decade search, taking investigators to places like Texas, California, and even Thailand. “America’s Most Wanted” profiled him in 1990, 2005, and 2013. This was something Santini acknowledged to a Hillsborough County detective in early June after federal agents caught him in California for committing identity fraud to illegally obtain a passport, according to documents.
“In addition, the defendant stated that he saw the story of himself on America’s Most Wanted,” authorities stated. “The defendant has been eluded law enforcement authorities in two states for almost four (4) decades by living under aliases. The defendant further stated that he stopped using fake driver’s licenses when he became aware of facial recognition.”
Documents indicated that Simmons has also gone under the names Donald Chapman and John Trimble.
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With all those facts as evidence, prosecutors want him held without bond.
“The defendant has previously violated conditions of release and no further conditions of release are reasonably likely to assure the defendant’s appearance at subsequent proceedings,” said a motion for pretrial detention dated Thursday. “The defendant has committed two violent dangerous crimes, and has demonstrated the skill and wherewithal to deviously and adeptly evade justice by hiding his true identity and living under multiple fake names and identities for over 39 years. There are no further conditions of release reasonably likely to assure the defendant’s appearance at subsequent proceedings. In addition, the defendant also meets the criteria for pretrial detention because he was on pretrial release for a dangerous crime when he committed this current offense. Pursuant to either subsection of the pretrial detention statute, the defendant should be denied bond and detained for the duration of the proceedings.”
Deputies said his criminal history includes prison time for raping a woman while stationed in Germany.
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