The Paul Cortez and Catherine Woods case is a 2005 New York City murder in which Cortez, a 25-year-old personal trainer, stabbed his 21-year-old ex-girlfriend to death in her Upper East Side apartment. He was convicted of second-degree murder in 2007 and sentenced to 25 years to life. Nearly two decades of appeals have followed, and all have failed, most recently a federal habeas petition denied in August 2024.
Who Catherine Woods Was
Catherine Woods grew up in Columbus, Ohio, the eldest child of Jon and Donna Woods. Her father directed the Ohio State University marching band. She played baritone horn in middle school before committing fully to dance in ninth grade, and in 2002, at 17, she moved to New York to pursue Broadway.
To pay Manhattan rent, Woods worked as an exotic dancer at clubs including one called Privilege, earning between $1,000 and $2,000 a week. She told her family she had a role in an off-Broadway show. Her parents later said they had no idea what she actually did for money.1CBS News. The Last Dance
By late 2005 Woods was entangled with two men. David Haughn, her boyfriend from Ohio, had followed her to New York and still lived with her near First Avenue and East 86th Street, though the romance had cooled. Paul Cortez was a personal trainer at an Equinox gym who also fronted a band and hoped to act. He and Woods had dated on and off through 2004, breaking up and reconciling repeatedly, with Cortez pressing her to quit dancing. By November 2005 they were no longer together, but Cortez was calling her obsessively.2The New York Times. Trial of Paul Cortez
The Murder on November 27, 2005
On the Sunday after Thanksgiving, David Haughn left the apartment shortly after 6:00 p.m. to bring the car around and drive Woods to work. He came back about 20 minutes later to an unlocked door and blood throughout the bedroom. His 911 call went out at 6:59 p.m.3Oxygen. Paul Cortez Kills Aspiring Dancer Catherine Woods in NYC
Woods had been stabbed roughly 20 times and her throat had been cut twice. No weapon was recovered. A mattress had been shoved against a wall. Bloody boot prints from a size 10.5 shoe were scattered around the apartment, including one on Woods’s back. A bloody handprint marked a bedroom wall.4CBS News. Death of a Dream
How the Investigation Turned to Cortez
Detectives first looked hard at Haughn. His story of stepping out and returning drew suspicion, and he wore a size 10.5 shoe. But he gave DNA, fingerprints, and nail scrapings voluntarily, allowed a search without a lawyer, and his movements checked out for the window in which Woods was killed. He was never charged.4CBS News. Death of a Dream
Haughn told police that Cortez had been stalking Woods, and the focus shifted. The break came on December 19, 2005, when Cortez was arrested on an unrelated sexual assault charge brought by a former girlfriend. That arrest produced his first set of fingerprints in any police database, and the bloody handprint from Woods’s bedroom wall matched him.5New York Post. Stripper Slay Break: Bloody Print Matches Beau’s
Cell records placed Cortez’s calls pinging off a tower two blocks from Woods’s building during the relevant window, contradicting his claim that he had been at his own apartment 20 blocks away. Area surveillance video also placed him near the building that night.4CBS News. Death of a Dream
The 2007 Trial and Conviction
Cortez went to trial in February 2007 in New York State Supreme Court, Manhattan, before Justice Carol Berkman. Assistant District Attorney Peter Casolaro tried a largely circumstantial case built on three things: the bloody fingerprint, the cell phone records, and Cortez’s fixation on Woods.
Casolaro told jurors the print was the only one made in blood anywhere in the apartment and had to have been left in fresh blood during the killing itself.6NBC News. Trial Opens in Dancer’s Slaying He argued the motive was possessiveness, telling the jury that “if Mr. Cortez could not possess Ms. Woods, he did not want anyone else to have her.”7The New York Times. Prosecution in Cortez Trial He pointed out that Cortez had phoned Woods constantly in the days before the murder and never called her again after: Cortez “already knows she’s dead and there is nobody to answer the phone.”2The New York Times. Trial of Paul Cortez
Prosecutors also introduced old journal entries in which Cortez had written violent thoughts about former girlfriends, arguing they showed a pattern of rage toward women. A witness, Spencer Liebowitz, testified he had seen Cortez in Skechers boots on the night of the murder, consistent with the boot prints at the scene.4CBS News. Death of a Dream
The defense argued Cortez had been in the apartment many times and could have left the print earlier, and Cortez took the stand to say so. His lawyers noted that unidentified hairs found in Woods’s hand had never been tested. A defense move backfired badly: attorneys played appliance-store surveillance video from hours before the murder to show Cortez in different shoes, but jurors read the footage as Skechers boots, and several later called it a tipping point toward conviction.4CBS News. Death of a Dream
The jury convicted Cortez of second-degree murder.
Sentence
On March 23, 2007, Justice Berkman imposed the maximum sentence: 25 years to life. Casolaro called the killing “savagery for the sake of savagery” and described Cortez as having a “remarkably violent nature” and “malevolence toward women.” Jon Woods told the court, “Our hearts will never be quite the same,” and added, “Most of us have learned that when we make a mistake we should promptly admit it. Clearly, this philosophy was lost on this criminal.” Cortez himself did not speak, on the advice of his appeals lawyer.8The New York Times. Cortez Gets 25 Years to Life in Dancer’s Killing
Where the Appeals Stand
Cortez has run through four rounds of challenges, and all have been denied.
Direct Appeal
On June 2, 2011, the Appellate Division, First Department, affirmed the conviction. Cortez had raised a conflict-of-interest issue tied to one of his trial lawyers, the admission of the journal entries, and prosecutorial misconduct in summation. The court found the conflict waivable and validly waived, called the journal entries’ admission harmless, and acknowledged that some of the prosecutor’s rhetoric had been “excessive” but harmless in light of “overwhelming evidence of guilt.”9NY Courts. People v. Paul Cortez, 2011 NY Slip Op 04595
New York Court of Appeals
The Court of Appeals took the case and issued a unanimous decision. The judges agreed the trial court should not have admitted Cortez’s journal entries, treating them as improper propensity evidence, and also found fault with the trial judge’s inquiry into the conflict waiver. They divided on the legal framework for “bad thought” evidence. Even so, the court held every error harmless because the other evidence “overwhelmingly demonstrated that Cortez was the assailant,” and the conviction stood.10Syracuse Law Review. People v. Cortez
CPL 440.10 Motion
Cortez then filed a post-conviction motion under New York’s CPL 440.10 seeking a new trial on what he framed as new evidence. His team pointed to surveillance video they said showed Haughn leaving the building several minutes after a neighbor heard Woods screaming, a chronology they argued undercut the prosecution’s theory. Attorney Toni Marie Angeli also cited expert analysis suggesting the bloody fingerprint had been left before, not during, the killing. On August 3, 2017, State Supreme Court Justice Patricia Nuñez denied the motion, ruling that the timing question had already been aired at trial and that the new material would not have changed the verdict.11The New York Times. Hearing Denied for Paul Cortez in Catherine Woods Case
Federal Habeas Petition
Cortez next filed a petition for a federal writ of habeas corpus in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, renewing the surveillance-video argument and adding an ineffective-assistance claim over his trial lawyers’ failure to obtain expert fingerprint analysis. On August 8, 2024, District Judge Paul A. Engelmayer adopted a magistrate judge’s recommendation and denied the petition, finding Cortez had not met the high bar for federal habeas relief.12vLex. Cortez v. Griffin
Cortez remains incarcerated, serving 25 years to life. With the federal denial in 2024, the principal routes for challenging his conviction have been exhausted.