Nancy Woodrum Murder: Geofence Warrant, Trial, and Appeal

The Nancy Woodrum murder was solved in December 2018, more than seven months after the 62-year-old Paso Robles salon owner vanished from her home, when a geofencing warrant and DNA evidence led investigators to Carlo Alberto Fuentes Flores, a house painter who had been working at her property. He confessed, guided detectives to her remains on the Carrizo Plain, and in 2022 was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.¹

Who Nancy Woodrum Was

Woodrum owned a hair salon in Paso Robles and lived alone in a Victorian-style ranch home she called “Paradise Ranch,” in the 5800 block of El Pharo Drive. She was a devout Jehovah’s Witness who attended a local Bible study group, and friends described her as open, kind, and generous. She had two adult children, Amanda Peel and Chad Woodrum.²

What Happened at Paradise Ranch

On May 5, 2018, Amanda Peel became concerned when her mother did not show up at Bible study. Peel went to the house and found the front door open and the television still on. In the bedroom, blood was spattered on the carpet, the bed, the pillows, and a nightstand. The bedsheets were gone.²

Investigators later found Woodrum’s bedding and clothes dumped along a highway a few miles from the property. The case then stalled. Detectives worked through a long list of guests and contractors who had recently been at the ranch without making an arrest.³

How Investigators Identified the Killer

After more than seven months without a suspect, investigators obtained court-authorized search warrants directing Google to produce location data for devices that had been inside a virtual perimeter around Paradise Ranch during the window when Woodrum disappeared. Prosecutor Chris Peuvrelle later described it as a “virtual fence” that could show which Google accounts, email addresses, or cell phones had entered the area.²

The data pointed to Carlo Alberto Fuentes Flores, born May 27, 1976, a Mexican-born painter who had been part of a crew hired to renovate Woodrum’s deck in the weeks before she vanished.¹

Once he was identified, officers placed him under surveillance and quietly collected a Coca-Cola bottle he discarded at a restaurant. DNA from the bottle matched samples from Woodrum’s bedroom.² A separate DNA swab taken from his maternal brother also matched crime scene samples.³

The Confession and Recovery of Her Remains

Fuentes Flores was brought in for questioning in December 2018. Over a long interview, he confessed to sexually assaulting Woodrum while intoxicated and then suffocating her with a pillow to cover up the attack.² A sheriff’s deputy later testified that he also admitted hitting her in the face during the assault.³

He then offered to show detectives where he had left her. On December 18, 2018, he led them to a grassy area of the Carrizo Plain, about 100 yards off Highway 58 and roughly an hour’s drive from Paso Robles. Her skeletal remains were recovered there, including a mostly intact skull and jaw shown in photos later presented in court.³⁴ The San Luis Obispo County Sheriff’s Office announced the discovery and arrest on December 19, and Fuentes Flores was arraigned two days later.⁵

Charges, Trial, and Sentence

Prosecutors charged Fuentes Flores with first-degree murder with special-circumstance allegations that the killing occurred during the commission of rape and residential burglary. Deputy District Attorney Christopher Peuvrelle handled the case in San Luis Obispo County Superior Court.¹

Fuentes Flores waived his right to a jury and was tried before Superior Court Judge Timothy Covello. His defense sought to invalidate his confession and other admissions on the ground that no Spanish translator was present during his initial police interview, as Spanish was his first language. The court rejected the challenge. Prosecutors also introduced recorded jail phone calls in which he made admissions to his wife, along with an apology letter he had written to Woodrum’s family.²

On January 20, 2022, Judge Covello found him guilty of murder and found the special circumstances true.⁶ On February 28, 2022, the court imposed the mandatory sentence of life without the possibility of parole. District Attorney Dan Dow called it “an appropriate and just punishment for the brutal abuse and murder of Nancy Woodrum.”⁷

The Appeal

Fuentes Flores had entered what is known as a “slow plea,” a procedure that preserved his right to appeal the conviction. He appealed, and the California Court of Appeals denied it in July 2023, leaving the conviction and life sentence in place.²

Where the Case Fits in the Geofence Warrant Debate

The Woodrum investigation is often held up as an example of geofencing solving a stalled case, but the warrant used to identify Fuentes Flores was never itself challenged on constitutional grounds. That matters, because other California courts have since found similar warrants unconstitutional. A trial court in People v. Dawes (2022) suppressed geofence evidence as overbroad under the Fourth Amendment and the California Electronic Communications Privacy Act,⁸ and the California Court of Appeal in People v. Meza (2023) found a geofence warrant lacked Fourth Amendment particularity, though it allowed the evidence to stand under a good-faith exception.⁹ The U.S. Supreme Court agreed in January 2026 to hear Chatrie v. United States, which could set national precedent on the practice, with a decision expected by mid-2026.¹⁰ None of that disturbed the conviction in Woodrum’s case.

1
San Luis Obispo County District Attorney. Carlo Alberto Fuentes Flores Sentenced to Life in Prison
2
ABC News. Nancy Woodrum’s Murder: Geofencing Technology Cracked the Case
3
San Luis Obispo Tribune. Preliminary Hearing in Nancy Woodrum Murder Case
4
San Luis Obispo County District Attorney. Murder Charges Filed Against Carlo Fuentes Flores
5
San Luis Obispo Tribune. Carlo Fuentes Flores Found Guilty
6
San Luis Obispo County District Attorney. Carlo Alberto Fuentes Flores Found Guilty of Murder
7
San Luis Obispo Tribune. Fuentes Flores Sentenced to Life Without Parole
8
Electronic Frontier Foundation. California Court Suppresses Evidence From Overbroad Geofence Warrant
9
Criminal Legal News. California Court of Appeal: Geofence Warrant Violates Particularity Requirement
10
SCOTUSblog. Court to Hear Argument on Law Enforcement’s Use of Geofence Warrants