Trial underway for Willie Hart, accused of strangling girlfriend Candice Woodruff in Patchogue

A Suffolk jury soon will decide the fate of a Yaphank man accused in the 2023 strangulation death of his girlfriend, in a Riverhead trial where the defense has suggested the woman may have instead overdosed on drugs.

Willie Hart, 61, is charged with second-degree murder in the May 29 killing of Candice Woodruff, 37, of Katy, Texas, who was discovered dead on the ground outside the cab of Hart's semitruck  parked outside of Shore Motor Inn in Patchogue.

Woodruff was spotted leaving a motel room at 1:25 a.m., with Hart following behind 10 minutes later, prosecutors said. They both entered the truck, but only Hart exited 35 minutes later, Assistant District Attorney Sheetal Shetty told the jury seated in Suffolk Supreme Court Justice Richard Ambro's courtroom. Woodruff's teenage son was sleeping in the room at the time, the prosecutor said.

"He murdered a mom and a daughter,” said Shetty, who is trying the case with fellow homicide prosecutor Eric Aboulafia. “Her life taken from her not by a stranger, not some random encounter, but by her boyfriend. Willie Hart was in the truck during her final moments … confined in the dark, where there was no one to help her or hear her.”

Prosecutors said the couple had been fighting over an allegation of infidelity.

Hart was seen exiting the truck, putting his head in his hands, looking at his phone and waiting 15 minutes before calling 911, Shetty told the jury. When paramedics arrived, he was administering CPR outside the truck, Shetty said.. 

Woodruff was transported to Long Island Community Hospital, where she was pronounced dead, prosecutors previously said.

Prosecutors said they plan to point to DNA under Woodruff's fingernails and blood and scratches on her face during the trial, which is expected to continue through next week. The truck was also left covered in food, with a clump of hair on a bed in the truck and Hart's broken chain necklace recovered by detectives, prosecutors said.

A medical examiner ruled Woodruff’s cause of death as manual strangulation, blunt force trauma to the head and internal bleeding, Shetty said.

But Hart's defense attorneys, Tara Laterza of East Moriches and John Halverson of Patchogue, argued that was not the medical examiner's initial determination.

In July 2023, her cause of death was undetermined, Laterza told the jury, noting a neck injury but not a fracture consistent with strangulation.

Laterza said EMTs “could not rule out a subsequent alcohol- and drug-related death.” EMTs administered six doses of Narcan and three adrenaline EPI pens, Laterza said.

“The facts and evidence tell a different story. This was an accidental overdose,” Laterza said. “The evidence was twisted and a narrative was crafted to fit a charge rather than the truth.”

Prosecutors said in court that Woodruff had been drinking and an autopsy found a "trace" amount of drugs in her system that were not lethal.

A homicide investigation revealed that when Woodruff left the motel room she was crying and carrying bags as she headed to the tractor cab, prosecutors previously said. She did not have visible injuries when she left the room, and the struggle inside the cab was captured on video surveillance, according to prosecutors.