Chapter 1: What circumstances led to Nancy Woodrum's disappearance?
It's the middle of the night in a small town on the Jersey Shore. Someone reports an abandoned car on a bridge. A search gets underway for the missing driver, 19-year-old Sarah Stern. Is it a missing person? Is it a suicide? At this point, nobody knows. Old friendships, buried cash, and a sinister plot that was once pitched as a movie plays out in real life.
i'm juju chang from 2020 and abc audio listen now to bridge of lies wherever you get your podcasts it's hard to talk about that day because when i look back i just think about the tragedy 911, address of your emergency? Yeah, we have a missing person. The woman who owns the property where the wedding guests are staying is nowhere to be found. I had her neighbor go over there to check on her.
She said, the door's wide open, the TV's blaring, and you better come over here. It is haunting and chilling in a way that I'll never forget. Did you see anything else strange when you went in the home? Yes. There seems to be blood all over her pillow. There's 20-plus guests staying in the big house, and there's a wedding party. The house turned into a crime scene. It's taped off.
The police are there. There's helicopters. There's dogs. All of my friends don't know how they're getting back to that house. These are all potential suspects in the case. I mean, this is like an Agatha Christie novel, like a classic whodunit. I knew that something really bad had happened and it wasn't going to be good. The draw for Paso Robles is, of course, the scenery, the layout of the land.
The real name of Paso Robles is called El Paso de Robles, which is the Pass of the Oaks. Oak trees, horses, cattle, and then there's the vineyards. The Paso Robles area, it is very much the hotspot of wineries in the county. Just, it's honestly like a fairytale place to go. I was born and raised in California. I have close family and friends who lived and grew up not far from here.
I've always loved this area. Paso Robles, nestled halfway between San Francisco and Los Angeles, a getaway town, scenic and quiet. But down El Faro Road, in the middle of all this beauty, something ugly took place, right here at this secluded vacation home. The owner of this ranch-style property was 62-year-old Nancy Woodrum. She lived alone after her husband passed away a few years before.
And she was really a fixture in the Paso Robles community and ran a popular salon downtown. We are at Nancy's salon. This is the Strand. This is where I come every three weeks to have her do her magic. Nancy clicked with everybody. She just had that amazing gift of just Openness, kindness, just generous. And she passed on her amazing gift to her daughter, Amanda, who now is my stylist.
Do you have a favorite photograph? This one of my mom and I. What makes this photograph so special? We had a special bond. I was her firstborn, and it just really shows that relationship that we had sums it all up. How would you describe your mom? What was she like? She liked to have fun. She liked to do things. She was active. We were always doing stuff.
Going here, going there with the horses, the animals. She loved riding. It was calming to her. And she loved being out in nature with the horses. You and your mother, you shared this talent for hairdressing, passion for horseback riding, but also a belief in a particular faith. Well, she raised me as one of Jehovah's Witnesses and she had very strong morals and raised me to be a good person.
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Chapter 2: What evidence was found at the vacation rental?
They were going to have this project and make it their home. But eventually, they decided to turn this property into a vacation rental. My dad was a contractor, and they made it beautiful. They remodeled it and worked really hard on it. So you'd come in, you'd see this two-story Victorian home wrapped around porches and this willow tree that you parked under. What did Nancy name the property?
It was called Paradise Ranch because she had the hope of being in paradise, the hope that the Bible gives us. On Friday, May 4th, this big group of wedding guests check into Paradise Ranch for a weekend wedding at a local winery. The bride who found the place online is staying there with her bridesmaids and some close friends. She asks us not to show her face or reveal her name.
We wanted to do a vineyard wedding in Paso Robles. It was a special place to us. Paradise Ranch seemed perfect when we saw the pictures. The main house was very large and welcoming and just charming. And then the guest house was where I was staying. And that was also just very quaint and cute. Nancy came by the guest house and introduced herself.
She was very warm and welcoming and gave me a hug. And she was so kind. And she mentioned that she was staying close by on the property. And then on Saturday, May 5th, you received a phone call that concerned you. What did you learn on that call? My mom had not shown up for a Bible study, and that was very unusual. I had her neighbor go over there to check on her.
She said, the door's wide open, the TV's blaring, and you better come over here. What did you see when you first approached your mother's apartment? Everything was there as she left it, but she wasn't there. There was a stain on the carpet. Her sheets and her bedding were missing.
I looked closer at the walls, and when I saw what looked to be splatter on the walls, that's when I grabbed the phone and called 911. 911, address of your emergency? Yeah, we have a missing person. My mother-in-law has not been heard of or seen today. Did you see anything else strange when you went in the house? Yes. What? There seems to be blood all over her pillow. Okay.
There's 20-plus guests staying in the big house, and there's a wedding party. There's a wedding party that was there this weekend? Yes. I was so excited, getting ready for my wedding day, and a couple family members came by, and I just remember, have you seen my mom? Have you seen our mom? And something about blood, and I freaked out.
I just asked if they had seen my mom today, and no one had seen her. And what's your state of mind at this point, Panic? Shaky and frantic.
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Chapter 3: How did the police begin their investigation into Nancy's case?
Amanda is frantically looking for her mother. The cops are on the property looking for clues. But at the same time that this is going on, down the road, an eagle-eyed officer makes a discovery that could break the case open. What was extremely suspicious, in my mind, just really quadrupled. My name is Clinton Cole. I'm a reserve detective with the San Luis Obispo County Sheriff's Office.
I live in a house with my girlfriend and three dogs and two birds. Hi little bird. I usually get up pretty early. I have coffee. I get the dogs outside. I feed them and then just kind of just relax. In 2018, I was a senior deputy with the sheriff's office.
That Saturday, it was May, so it was a pretty nice day when I received a phone call from my sergeant at the time asking if I was available for a suspicious missing persons case. I got in my truck and was told that I needed to start heading to Alfaro Road. So that's what I did is I started towards that location. What did you first see as you pulled up to the property?
I saw this very large White House. I met with the first responding deputy and the on-call detective sergeant. Senior Deputy Degnan came over. He said, this is very suspicious. Something's very wrong here. I could sense by his demeanor, his voice, that this was not good. You're making your way around the property and then finally you approach Nancy's cottage right here.
What's the first thing you see? I see this door is open as it is now. No signs of a forced entry. So this is inside Nancy's cottage here. What were the first red flags that you saw as you walked in? Well, when I first walked in, right here below me was two large blood spots. Blood stains right here? Right here on the floor. And then over here, there was a bench.
And on that bench was Nancy's purse, car keys, her cell phone, her iPad. Her two vehicles were parked out there. There was a pillow sitting here, a beige pillow that had blood on it. And there was blood spatter on that cabinet, as well as on Nancy's headboard and against the back wall. What are all these signals telling you about what happened in this cottage?
I felt immediately that she was taken against her will. You thought this was a crime scene? Absolutely. Right away. While investigators are on the property looking for any clues they can find, down the road that evening, a huge discovery is made that changes the entire case's direction.
We received a phone call from an officer with the California Highway Patrol who had located some bedding and clothing about six or seven miles from Nancy's house on LaPonza Road. So this area here is where items were located by the California Highway Patrol. Those items consisted of bedding, a pillow, a dress, a woman's dress, a pair of shorts, and a shirt.
We obviously wanted to find out if they were related. All of the evidence is brought back and secured in the crime lab annex. When I opened everything up, we looked at all of the evidence more thoroughly. What struck me with this bedding was that there were stains that appeared to be blood stains. the gingham-type print was consistent with the remaining bedding that was at El Faro.
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Chapter 4: What role did the wedding guests play in the investigation?
So that's why you only see four. And just to be clear, this number, this is not a phone number, correct? Correct. Google assigns each cell phone its own device number. The device number is right here, and that is specific to whoever owns that phone. It's like a fingerprint. By now, all the wedding guests have been cleared, so those numbers are not really the major focus of detectives.
What is the major focus is what they see when they examine Nancy's cottage. As we get here, that is actually Nancy's studio. And we see a cell phone, what we call pinging, basically right in the wall of Nancy's studio. It pings here at 1.33 in the morning and at 01.52 hours. And that's the time when you believe Nancy disappeared? That is 100% when we believe Nancy disappeared.
I can tell you from my perspective, I'm excited. We've got something. We've got something to go on now. Could it have been Nancy's phone? We don't know. But what we do know is it's at strange, odd hours, and it's inside her studio. So this is a potentially huge moment in the investigation.
Either that phone belongs to Nancy and it's another dead end, or it belongs to someone else, you get a name, and that person becomes your most likely killer? 100%. Either that device leads us to a suspect, or we are back to absolutely nothing. Square one. Yes. For months, it's been a daunting mystery.
Who could have taken Nancy Woodrum from her beautiful Paso Robles property in California and in the middle of a wedding where more than 20 guests were staying? But thanks to geofencing, this cell phone tracking technology, investigators finally have their first big clue. So this is a key moment in the investigation. You have this huge piece of evidence, a cell phone inside Nancy's cottage.
You have to figure out who it belongs to. What's next? We have to write another set of warrant for the subscriber information. So it starts the ball rolling, but there's still a fair amount of waiting, you know, wait for the data. Sometimes it could take a few weeks. It's in November. I'm in the courthouse and my phone rings. It's my partner and they said, you're not gonna believe this.
We got a name of who owned that device and it is Carlo Fuentes. A name you recognize, the painter. Yes, Carlo Fuentes was painting at Nancy's residence numerous times prior to her going missing. Wait a minute. The painter? Well, this is a shock to investigators, because remember, they had already interviewed Carlo Fuentes Flores earlier.
This guy was cooperative and mild mannered, and there was no reason to suspect him then. But now there's a reason. We know it's his phone. We know he's there. We know he had that opportunity because he's familiar with the property. He was familiar with Nancy's habits. All those things added up. There's not a reasonable explanation why anybody would be out doing painting at that time of night.
It's looking like he's at least somebody that needs to be talked to again. So once we get Carlo identified, we need to know as much as we can about him. What did you find? We spoke to people that he painted for and friends. Seemed like a normal, just a normal guy who had come here from Mexico. He was one of those guys that you'd want on your team. Worked on and off for me for 20 years.
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Chapter 5: What critical evidence was discovered during the search?
What was that like? It was a huge relief. This clip brings back, you know, a lot of memories of, at that moment, justice is going to be served for Nancy Woodrum. I could still see the emotion in your eyes. This was just a really sad case. This case was just a little more personal for me. Detective Cole presents to you a photograph and a name, Carlo Fuentes Flores. Okay. I was like, who?
Like who? Who? Who's this? We had no idea who it was. How could it possibly be the painter? Right. It kind of just opened up more questions. Like Aaron said, why? Just why? They found her body. What is going through your mind? I think there was relief. I just wanted to find her. We needed to have some closure. There's a lot of people who never get answers.
And I was just thankful that we had answers. I mean, it's the worst case scenario, but knowing that we found her and she's not suffering anymore, that was a comfort. But it's still something that's really, it's a hard pill to swallow. It was one of those quiet moments where you start to cry and just, what a, she just got so cheated.
Finally got a chance to relax and do what she wants and retire, and then this happens to her. I just thought, How very, very unfair. Now, all that remains is a trial. Prosecutors decide not to go for the death penalty, but they're confident they've got a winning case. Now, the defense has something in store, and if the judge buys it, everything could totally unravel. It's the Paradise Podcast.
I am your host, Ryan Michelle BathƩ, with my husband, Sterling. What's up? Join us here on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+, where we'll discuss each episode with the cast and crew of Paradise. I'll be getting all the secrets from Dan Fogelman, James Marsden, Shailene Woodley, Julianne Nicholson, and Sterling Kelby-Brown. Paradise, the official podcast, is now streaming.
And stream Paradise on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+, for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. An all-new season of The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives is now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+. Mom talk has just been blowing up. Whitney and Jen are on Dancing with the Stars. Taylor is a bachelorette. Saying that out loud is crazy. Like, that is huge. But all the cool opportunities could pull us apart.
It's causing issues in everyone's marriage. My whole world is falling apart right now. It's chaos. Watch the Hulu original series, The Secret Lives of Mormon Wives, now streaming on Hulu and Hulu on Disney+, for bundle subscribers. Terms apply. Hello, this is a prepaid call from... Carlo. An inmate at the San Luis Obispo jail. Hello? Hello, Crystal? Carlo? Yes.
I was responsible for monitoring any jail phone calls that took place involving Carlo Fuentes Flores. The ones that were of particular interest would have been the phone calls with his wife, Crystal. Did you do this, Carlo? Yes, honey, I'm so sorry. Why? I don't know. I don't know why that day, that wasn't even me. I was, like, drunk.
Yeah, I know, Carlo, but you did, like, the worst thing in the whole world. I know. You did a couple of bad things mixed together, which is just crazy. Crazy. Crazy. Despite the compelling evidence from the confession in Fuentes Flores' police interview and admissions to his wife in recorded jail calls, he pleads not guilty. And his defense attorney has a strategy that could upend the case.
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