Police in Moab hope advances in DNA technology can help solve a 33-year-old murder mystery.
The Moab Police Department confirmed Monday it has reopened a cold case involving the 1973 rape and slaying of Ann Woodward, a bartender at Woody's Bar.
Moab Police Chief Mike Navarre did not return repeated phone calls from the Deseret Morning News, but he told the Moab Times-Independent newspaper that he hoped to use DNA testing to finally track down a murder suspect.
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, 46, had been beaten, raped and strangled with her own slacks. The cash register had been emptied. One news account said about $50 was taken.
Police at the time suspected a customer who was in the bar at closing.
However, former Moab Police Chief Melvin Dalton told the Deseret Morning News a lot of evidence from the slaying may have been lost. When he arrived on the scene back in 1973, Dalton said it was chaotic.
"People were going in and out like they were going to church," he said. "There wasn't a sign up, no tape up, nothing that said 'police line, do not cross."'
Dalton said the Grand County sheriff at the time had taken over the case and Moab police never saw much evidence. He said the case was not handled well.
The former police chief also admitted that he and his officers weren't trained to handle a murder.
"I wasn't really trained in homicide, I always felt if we had a really good trained detective, we'd have been in a lot better shape," he said.
Still, he did what he could. Dalton recalled administering polygraph tests. He said he even developed a couple of potential suspects, but both of them got attorneys and didn't provide any information.
Dalton said he kept Woodward's case on his desk up until he left the department in 1980. He last spoke with her children a few years ago.
"I just hope now that something will come of it," he said.
E-mail: bwinslow@desnews.com