Paul LaRosa - Death of a Dream

This book would not have been possible without the assistance, goodwill, and reporting and producing skills of CBS News producer Patti Aronofsky. She played an integral role in securing interviews, reporting, producing, and helping to write the two broadcast hours aired by 48 Hours Mystery. She was a tremendous help in making sure that this book was accurate and fair to all concerned.

As always, a word of thanks to executive producer Susan Zirinsky for representing the very essence of the broadcast and for being a strong supporter of the book series. Special thanks also to executive editor Al Briganti for his help and advice in shepherding this book along.

Thanks also to Elena DiFiore, Stephen McCain, and Jonathan Leach for their help in researching and reporting the hours aired by 48 Hours Mystery .

Finally, Paul would like to thank his wife, Susan, and his children, Alexandra and Peter, for their love and support.

PART I
THE MURDER

PART II
THE INVESTIGATION

PART III
THE TRIAL

PART IV
AFTER THE VERDICT

New York and, I suppose, Los Angeles are cities where people come to fulfill their dreams. People come here from other nearby cities. They come from rural America. They even come from foreign countries: all for the purposes of success, whether it be in the arts as actors, as musicians, as painters, as businessmen. They come to Manhattan because this is one of those places where you can find wealth and success and fame.

The evidence will show that Catherine Woods was one such dreamer.

Manhattan Assistant DA
Peter Casolaro

Megan Wilkins will never forget the time of that last phone call. Cell phones are like that. They make it easy to go back and see exactly when you spoke to someone and for how long. On that night, November 27, 2005, Megan, a pretty blonde with long, straight hair, was in a coffee shop in Columbus, Ohio, when her best friend, Catherine Woods, called.

It was 5:41 p.m., and neither woman knew it, but twenty-one-year-old Catherine Woods had barely an hour left to live.

Catherine was one of Megans friends from high school. Theyd both graduated in January 2002, six months early. But while Megan and her classmates from Worthington Kilbourne High School were still making post-graduation plans, Catherine was already off and running, to New York City, determined to become a professional dancer, a dream her parents said shed had since the age of three. She wanted to dance on the Broadway stageor as close as she could get to it.

She just wanted to be a star, the light on the stage, Megan said. She wasnt the background person or the second person. She wanted to be the person that everybody went to see.

No doubt, Catherine looked like a star. She was five feet, seven inches tall and was obviously in tip-top shape. But it was not her body that made all the men stareit was her gorgeous face. She was the epitome of the Girl Next Door, if only the girl next door was a stunning brunette. Catherine didnt really look as exotic as Angelina Jolie, her favorite actress, but she loved when people said she reminded them of Jolie. Katie Miller, another longtime friend from Columbus, had been in Ohio dance productions with Catherine and had noticed the effect Catherine had on those who watched her perform. All eyes were drawn to her, so much so that the other dancers onstage felt they were fading into the scenery. Katie, a pretty, clean-cut midwesterner, admitted to being envious but not in a mean-spirited way. I wanted to say, Hey, Im here, too, she joked.

Catherines clear blue eyes were almond shaped, giving her that doe-eyed, sexy-but-innocent look that cannot be manufactured with all the makeup in the world. And her lips, Catherines lips were something else: curvy and full and, as the expression goes, just waiting to be kissed. She had it all going on and she knew it.

Youre talking about somebody who was very comfortable in her own skin, Megan said. She knew she was pretty. Every time she passed by a mirrorand she was always looking in a mirrorshed be like, Oh, Im so cute.

It was not unusual for Megan and Catherine to talk on the phone a lot, sometimes several times a day. That Sunday night, the last time Megan spoke to her, Catherine was on a high; happy and cheery was how Megan described her. It was the weekend after Thanksgiving and Catherine had chosen to spend the holiday in New York, with her roommate and on-again, off-again boyfriend David Haughn, who was then twenty-three years old. Theyd been living together for nearly three years.

David, a tall aspiring hip-hop artist, was also from Columbus. On a first meeting, David can come off as a bit strange. He has a sweet-but-dumb nature, bringing to mind Lenny from the John Steinbeck classic Of Mice and Men. David is five-ten but appears bigger, and it was probably no accident that he had recently scored a job as a doorman at an upscale Manhattan apartment building. Its also one of the things Catherine liked about him: He looked like he could provide protection.

Catherines introduction to New York was rough, and maybe subconsciously, she was looking for someone to take care of her. She had just turned eighteen years old, in July 2002, when she moved to the city. She didnt know a lot of people, and after winning acclaim for her dancing in Columbus, her life in the Big Apple was filled with rejection, as it is for any young performer. It was not surprising that for all her talent, she was getting cut at one audition after another. In New York, thousands of young, talented, beautiful dancers were chasing the very same dream as Catherine. It was a wake-up call for sure, said Mary Rose Bushroe, one of Catherines dance teachers from Columbus.