Decades Old Cold Case Solved By University Students | Cold Case Solved!

This is an auto-generated transcript of a YouTube true-crime video about the tragic murder of Roxanne Wood in 1987. Due to the nature of auto-generated text, it lacked all punctuation, capitalization, and paragraph breaks.

I have meticulously edited and formatted the entire transcript for readability, correcting grammar, adding punctuation, and ensuring the flow matches the original narration.

It was mid-February when the cold weather turned Michigan into a snowy paradise. Thirty-year-old Roxanne Lee Wood and her husband, Terry Wood, were enjoying their day at a bowling alley in Niles, without realizing that their day would become a nightmare for both of them.

After a while, when the thick and dense clouds started to scatter in the sky, Roxanne left the bowling alley and headed home first, as they drove separately. It took 45 minutes for Terry to come back home for dinner. Terry entered his home and found Roxanne brutally murdered in their kitchen.

For around 35 years, Terry was a suspect of great suspicion, but the case took a twist in 2021. What happened to Roxanne Lee Wood at her home in Berrien County, Michigan? How was the decades-old cold case solved by students at Western Michigan University? Welcome back to Mysterious Hook, where we shed light on under-the-radar, high-profile cases across the country. I’m Michael, and today we are looking at the story of Western Michigan University students who helped crack a decades-old cold case. So without further ado, let’s dive right in.

Niles is one of a kind. There are many family-friendly events downtown throughout the year, and the city makes an effort by hosting several festivals as well. People enjoy living there and celebrating these events. But unfortunately, the chances of becoming a victim of crime in Niles are high. Compared to the rest of Michigan, Niles has a crime rate that is higher than 95 percent of the state’s cities and towns of all sizes. Based on FBI crime data, Niles is not one of the safest communities in America. It is the town where Roxanne Wood turned into a victim, and her husband Terry was put under a cloud of suspicion.

It was April 15, 1956, when Dale Woods of Niles and Patricia Chadwell of South Bend were blessed with a beautiful baby girl in Niles. They named her Roxanne Lee Wood. Roxanne Wood, lovably known as “Rock” to those in her circle, grew up in Niles with her siblings Janet, Jerry, Bruce, and Rick Woods. Roxanne was a member of Niles Junior Achievement. She graduated from Niles High School in 1974 and then worked in a customer service role for Automated Molded Plastics Company across the state line in South Bend, Indiana.

Years passed, and Roxanne got married. She married Terry Wood, and the couple’s relationship seemed perfect. Roxanne enjoyed cooking, baking, and sharing their family recipes with friends. She also started growing rose bushes around their place because she was very fond of flowers, notably rose bushes. Everything went smoothly for the couple until 1987.

On a snowy day in February, Roxanne and Terry spent a happy day at the bowling alley to celebrate her 31st birthday. After a while, when the thick and dense clouds began to scatter in the sky, Roxanne left the bowling alley. She headed home first, since they both drove separately. Terry told her that he would be coming back in some time, so Roxanne thought of preparing dinner for both.

It took 45 minutes for Terry to go back home for dinner. He never expected that the night would haunt him for the rest of his life. When Terry entered his home, he saw his beloved Roxanne lying in a pool of blood with her throat slashed. Terry felt wholly broken and devastated to see Roxanne in that condition, and he immediately reported the murder to the officials. He was mourning in confusion about the mysterious murder.

Finally, the police and investigators reached the crime scene. Terry told the officers that Roxanne had left home early from the bowling alley and told them about the entire scenario of what happened that day. The police initially suspected Terry, but they found that a back utility door had been forcibly entered. They also noticed a blood drop spilled on the floor that didn’t belong to Terry. So the officials believed that some mysterious murderer was roaming outside.

The droplet of blood on the door and the results of a sexual assault kit were entered into the state’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), but unfortunately, no matches were found. They couldn’t get enough evidence that could produce any leads, since it was a time when forensic technology was in its infancy. With a lack of proper evidence, nobody could stop the case from growing cold.

Cold cases are still a nightmare for most law enforcers, yet people trust their officials to bring closure to the family. But in Roxanne’s case, for 35 years her killer remained elusive, and Terry was living under a massive cloud of suspicion.

However, the officials were striving hard to bring answers to Roxanne’s mysterious murder. The Michigan State Police reopened the investigation in 2000, but were unsuccessful in finding her killer. The police never gave up. They reopened the case in 2020, but this time the Michigan State Police decided to take a new approach. Detective First Lieutenant Chuck Christensen and Western Michigan University students under program director Dr. Ashlyn Kuersten teamed up in a new partnership to solve Roxanne’s case, which was the first case for the Western Michigan University students.

It was also a part of the school’s Cold Case Program, where students provided a fresh set of eyes to review hundreds of files and evidence. The Michigan State Police provided the Western Michigan University student team with their case files. First, student investigators took those boxes of loose paper files and organized them chronologically into binders, spanning over 3,000 pages. Next, the students scanned the massive case file and converted it into a searchable digital format.

The digital file was game-changing for detectives. They made it searchable and portable, so sifting through the available information was far more practical. Program director Ashlyn Kuersten estimated that the doctoral students Ashleigh Shebick and Carl Huber put in 1,200 hours of work over eight months on Wood’s suit, organizing several boxes of files that had been amassed during the investigation. In addition, students at Western Michigan University reportedly cataloged the 3,000-page case working alongside investigators to solve the mystery.

Student investigators also read through Roxanne’s file in total, familiarizing themselves with the details of the case. They took extensive notes and did follow-up research via internet sources. Meetings with detectives were done for student investigators to bring up any questions or inconsistencies, and for the group to discuss the case.

The Breakthrough

The Michigan State Police also enlisted the help of Identifinders International, Dr. Colleen Fitzpatrick’s California-based genetic genealogy company. They found that the perpetrator had left DNA evidence at Roxanne’s mysterious murder scene, but the sample was degraded. Then, in what would turn out to be a landmark case, Identifinders successfully tested the sample—using the lowest amount of DNA to date—and found a possible family connection. A genealogist named Gabriella Vargas finally gave the Michigan State Police the name of a possible suspect.

The police immediately collected a cigarette butt the defendant had discarded. Gabriella confirmed that the person who left his DNA at Roxanne’s murder scene was 67-year-old Patrick Wayne Gilham.

For around 35 years, Terry was the suspect of great suspicion, but the case took a twist in 2021 when they matched the DNA samples with Patrick. After Patrick was identified as a suspect, undercover units surveilled him extensively, and he was interviewed on two separate occasions.

Patrick was first interviewed by the Michigan State Police at the South Bend Police Department on July 29, 2021. He denied ever going to Michigan except for work in 1987, which was when he was on parole in Indiana. During the second time, Patrick denied knowing the street where the Woods family lived or knowing Roxanne Wood when shown pictures of her. But when Detective Bailey informed Patrick that the woman in the picture had been assaulted, Patrick began to breathe rapidly, and his hands shook as he held them up. At that time, Patrick said he needed to talk to a lawyer, and the interview ended.

Conviction and Closure

Patrick was arrested for Roxanne Wood’s murder on the 17th of February, 2022—almost 35 years from the day of Roxanne’s murder. Investigators did not divulge many details following the arrest of Patrick in February. Police then said that new technology helped link Patrick to the crime.

After pleading no contest to second-degree murder, Patrick was sentenced on the 25th of April, 2022, to a minimum of 23 years in prison. He was also charged with breaking and entering an occupied dwelling. Forcefully breaking into an occupied space carries a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.

Meanwhile, the officials also found that Patrick had previously committed a similar crime in 1980 in which he entered a woman’s home and sexually assaulted her, but did not murder her. The victim survived the attack and was the primary witness against him, and Patrick was incarcerated for that crime. However, he had been released early, just six months before he murdered Roxanne.

The identification of Patrick not only brought Roxanne’s killer to justice, but it cleared Terry Wood’s name after 35 years of suspicion. In Roxanne’s case, telling the world what happened to her took three decades. Thanks to the recent and ongoing advancements in DNA technology and investigative tactics done by genealogist Gabriella Vargas and the Western Michigan University students under Dr. Ashlyn Kuersten, who spent their valuable time to bring closure to the case and peace to the victim’s family.

Mysterious Hook offers our thoughts and prayers to Roxanne’s family and our tremendous respect and support for Western Michigan University students and the team who helped crack a decades-old cold case.