Suspect charged with murder in killing of missing Paso Robles woman
The suspect accused of killing a missing Paso Robles woman was charged on Thursday with her murder, two days after her body was found in a remote spot off Highway 58.
The San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office filed a complaint claiming Carlo Alberto Fuentes Flores, 42, of Paso Robles killed Nancy Woodrum, 62, who had been missing for seven months when her body was recovered on Tuesday.
Sheriff’s detectives interviewed Fuentes Flores on Tuesday, and he led investigators to her body — located in a field off Highway 58 — on the same day.
Fuentes Flores also allegedly raped Woodrum and burglarized her rural Paso Robles home, according to the complaint.
The complaint includes two allegations of special circumstances for having allegedly committed murder while engaged in the commission of rape and residential burglary. The allegations mean that prosecutors could seek the death penalty or life in prison without parole.
Woodrum’s family members reported her disappearance to law enforcement on May 5 after they stopped by her home in the 5800 block of El Pharo Drive and were unable to find her.
Neighbors last saw her alive on the afternoon of May 4, according to the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office.
A search-and-rescue team on May 6 combed the area around Woodrum’s property but couldn’t locate her.
Woodrum was known to the North County community as a hair stylist. She and her daughter owned The Strand Salon in downtown Paso Robles, and she had worked in the beauty industry since the late 1990s, according to a May Tribune story.
Fuentes Flores knew Woodrum through painting work he did on her property,Sheriff Ian Parkinson said at a Wednesday news conference.
Parkinson declined to answer questions about Woodrum’s cause of death at the news conference.
Fuentes Flores will be arraigned in San Luis Obispo County Superior Court on Friday morning.
This story was originally published December 20, 2018 at 5:41 PM.
