Moab police solve 51-year-old cold case homicide of local bar owner

MOAB — A 51-year-old cold case homicide in Moab has been solved, thanks in part to evidence collected at the scene but couldn’t be properly tested at the time.

It sat in two boxes at the back of a storage shed in Grand County for 50 years, until it was discovered by a detective who was working the recently reopened case. In one of the boxes were the clothes that 46-year-old Ann Woodward was wearing the night she was murdered, including the pants she was wearing that the killer used to strangle her with.

"That pair of pants is what led us to her killer," Moab Police Chief Lex Bell said Friday, while announcing Woodward's case had been solved.

"It's an emotional day for a lot of people in this room," Bell said, noting that members of Woodward's family, as well as retired law enforcers who had worked the case decades ago, were in attendance for Friday's announcement.

Woodward was found strangled to death in her bar, Woody's, on March 2, 1973.

Based on DNA evidence, police and prosecutors believe a man who worked as a miner in the area and often went to Woody's after work, Douglas K. Chudomelka, strangled, sexually assaulted and robbed Woodward. Police say they would issue an arrest warrant for Chudomelka for murder if he were still alive.

Chudomelka, however, died in 2002 in Nebraska at age 65.

The cold case homicide was reopened in 2006 . Moab police hoped advances in DNA technology at that time would help lead them to the killer. The case was reopened after Suzan Woodward, who was 16 when her mom was killed, sent a letter to former Moab Police Chief Mike Navarre.

According to stories published at the time in the Deseret News, Woodward was found on the morning of March 2, 1973, lying between a set of pool tables inside Woody's Bar. Woodward's husband, Leslie, found her body after she did not return home from work. The couple owned the bar.

Woodward was beaten, raped and strangled with her own slacks.

Police admitted at the time, the crime scene was not handled well and a lot of evidence was lost. But there was still enough evidence preserved that would provide a break in the case 50 years later.

When Moab officer Jeremy Drexler took over the investigation in 2022, he said he was not going to stop until he solved it. On Sept. 14, 2023, Drexler found two cardboard boxes in the back of a storage unit for Grand County with evidence collected from the original 1973 investigation. In November, evidence was sent to the Utah State Crime Lab for analysis. In May, that DNA evidence was returned and pointed to Chudomelka.

Drexler said all the buttons on Woodward's shirt and the inside back right portion of her pants had Chudomelka's DNA on them.

Police say Chudomelka, who was 37 at the time of the murder, has a criminal record in several other states. And after living in Moab he became a truck driver. Bell says his department is still testing other items found at Woody’s and detectives will eventually enter Chudomelka’s DNA into a national database to determine if he can be linked to any other unsolved crimes in the Moab area or in another state.