- N.Y. v. Paul Cortez
- •March 23, 2007:
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Jury hands down guilty verdict to man accused of slashing stripper's throat - •Feb. 13, 2007:
Lawyers deliver closings in trial of man accused in NYC stripper's stabbing death - •Feb. 9, 2007:
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Roommate recalls grisly crime scene where ex-girlfriend had her throat slashed - •Feb. 1, 2007:
Records show accused killer called his stripper ex-girlfriend 30 minutes before she was slain - •Jan. 31, 2007:
Murder trial opens for ex-boyfriend accused of slashing stripper's throat
Excerpts from
Paul Cortez's journals
'I saved her from rape'
In this excerpt, Cortez writes about picking up Woods from the strip club where she worked after she was allegedly drugged and raped by a customer.- 'I will wait for you'
In a letter to Woods, Cortez expresses his devotion and pleads with Woods to give up stripping. - 'The Killin Machine'
In an entry written one month before Woods' slaying during a rocky period in the relationship, Cortez's writings express themes of murder and death.
NEW YORK — The roommate of a struggling dancer who was viciously murdered in 2005 described for jurors Friday how he discovered her mutilated body an hour after having sex with her.
"There was blood everywhere," David Haughn testified in the second-degree murder trial of Paul Cortez. "I'd never seen so much blood in my life."
Prosecutors claim Cortez, 26, slashed the throat of his ex-girlfriend, Catherine Woods, on Nov. 27, 2005, after she ended their romance.
Haughn, who was Woods' ex-boyfriend and sporadic lover, was the first person to discover her body in their Upper East Side apartment.
Haughn's testimony before a packed audience in Manhattan Superior Court provided some insight into how Woods, a classically trained dancer with Broadway aspirations, took a detour to a much seamier life as a topless dancer.
It also provided some insight into the 21-year-old's complex and often turbulent relationships with men, a point the defense has highlighted to implicate other suspects.
Haughn said he met Woods in 2002 at a pool hall in Columbus, Ohio, their hometown. He joined her in New York City a few months later but had trouble finding a job and struggled to pay bills.
"Money was always tight," Haughn said. "We both didn't like being in that situation. She thought about stripping to get us caught up on bills."
Woods' parents, seated in the gallery, gripped each other as they listened to Haughn list the clubs where Woods worked before settling on Flashdancers in Times Square.
Eventually, the two decided to take a break from their romance, according to Haughn. He said he moved out of their apartment for two weeks before she asked him to return.
"We were still friends," Haughn said, adding that they still had sexual relations once in a while, including the night she was killed.
After they had sex in her bedroom, Haughn said, Woods prepared for work while he went to pick up his car to drive her to work.
When she did not come down to meet him, Haughn went upstairs and found a grim scene.
"I could see Catherine laying on the floor," Haughn said, almost whispering. "I didn't know what to think, if it was an accident. I was really confused."
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