Murderer Arrested after Four Decades, Served as Board Prez, Owned Restaurant While Being on the Run – News18

Murder suspect Donald Santini, 65, who appeared thrice on America’s Most Wanted, served as the president of a local water board in California, volunteered with the Rotary Club, owned a Thai restaurant and ran an apartment block while he was on the run for 13 years, was finally arrested this week.

A report by the BBC said that he used 13 aliases to evade arrest since 1984 to avoid being arrested for the 1984 murder of a 33-year-old Florida woman.

When he was arrested he was serving as the president of a local water board in California. He was extradited to Florida where he faces a charge of murder.

Santini was wanted for the murder of Cynthia Wood, who was 33 years old at the time of her killing. Before detectives discovered her dead body in a canal on June 6, 1984, she was last seen with Santini. She was strangled to death.

“The arrest of Donald Santini brings closure to a long-standing cold case and provides justice for the victim and her family after nearly four decades of waiting,” Sheriff Chad Chronister of Hillsborough County, Florida, said in a statement accessed by the BBC.

The authorities said that he was identified as a suspect shortly after the murder and he fled Hillsborough County immediately.

Meanwhile, Santini appeared on television show America’s Most Wanted in 1990 and later reappeared in 2005 and 2013.

Law enforcement, including the FBI, kept working on this ‘cold case’ for years. Investigators went to Texas, California and even Thailand but with no luck.

This year a tip from the Florida/Caribbean Regional Fugitive Task Force led US Marshals to San Diego County.

Santini was charged with first degree murder in San Diego before being extradited to Hillsborough County Jail in Tampa, Florida. At the time of his arrest he was living under the alias Wellman Simmonds and was living in Campo – a small suburb of San Diego.

He also appeared regularly at public board meetings as a president of the local water board, local officials told the BBC.

Santini also penned a letter to a local San Diego news station in which he said he was able to be on the run for so long because he wanted to live a loving, respectful life.

Santini was jailed earlier for raping a woman while stationed in Germany. He was also charged with aggravated robbery for robbing a convenience store in Texas.