A 20 year old's body is found in the hills near Lemmon Valley In the early spring of 1979, the life of a young Caucasian woman named Julia Woodward, age 20, was tragically cut short. Having recently moved to Nevada from San Rafael, California, with hopes of finding work in the Reno or Lake Tahoe area, her new chapter ended almost before it began. She was last seen by a friend on February 1, 1979, at the San Francisco International Airport as she headed towards her new life.
Less than two months later, on March 25, 1979, her body was discovered in a shallow grave in a remote area of Hungry Valley, about 15 miles north of Reno. The scene was grim; she had been killed by a blow to the back of her head, her eyes were covered with Band-Aids, and a zip tie was fastened around one of her ankles. For decades, the question of who was responsible for her death remained unanswered, her case growing cold as the years turned into decades.
For forty years, the investigation into Julia's murder yielded few leads, leaving her family with unanswered questions and a sense of unresolved justice. The case lay dormant, one of many unsolved homicides in Washoe County. However, with the advancement of forensic science, a glimmer of hope emerged. In 2015, detectives with the Washoe County Sheriff's Office revisited the cold case, submitting biological evidence from the scene for further analysis. This renewed effort, utilizing modern DNA technology, finally provided the breakthrough investigators had been waiting for. The evidence pointed to a single suspect: Charles Gary Sullivan.
In August 2019, four decades after Julia Woodward's death, 73-year-old Charles Gary Sullivan was arrested in Arizona. The DNA evidence that linked him to the crime was found on Julia's jeans. Sullivan, a registered sex offender with a prior conviction for an attempted sexual assault in 2007, was extradited to Reno to face a murder charge. Prosecutors also revealed that Sullivan was a suspect in the disappearances and deaths of other young women in the Reno area around the same time, suggesting he could be a serial killer. Though he initially pleaded not guilty, Sullivan eventually entered a plea of no contest. In June 2023, he was sentenced to up to 15 years in prison for the killing of Julia Woodward, bringing a long-awaited, albeit partial, sense of closure to her surviving family.
