Yaphank man convicted of murdering girlfriend in his semitruck outside Patchogue motel

A long-haul trucker from Yaphank has been convicted of strangling his girlfriend to death in 2023 inside his tractor cab parked near the Shore Motor Inn in Patchogue, Suffolk County prosecutors said.

A Riverhead jury Wednesday convicted Willie Hart, 61, of the second-degree murder of Candace Woodruff, 37, of Texas.

"The defendant behaved cowardly and callously when he took his girlfriend’s life," said Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney. "I am relieved that the jury has held him responsible for his actions."

Hart is due back in court on Dec. 3 for sentencing and faces up to 25 years to life in prison.

"We disagree with but respect the jury's decision," said John Halverson, Hart's Patchogue-based defense attorney. "We will appeal the verdict."

Video surveillance showed Woodruff leave her motel room on May 29, 2023, at 1:25 a.m. with several bags and enter Hart's tractor cab, which was parked in the vicinity of the motel.

At the time, she did not have any visible injuries, prosecutors said.

Approximately nine minutes later, surveillance video showed Hart leaving the motel room and entering the trailer cab. He remained inside the truck with Woodruff for approximately 35 minutes — during which time a struggle between the couple was captured on surveillance, authorities said.

Woodruff's teenage son was sleeping in the motel room at the time, prosecutors said, adding that the couple had been fighting over an allegation of infidelity. Hart was then seen exiting the truck, putting his head in his hands, and casually walking back to the motel room, where he retrieved a bag and waited 15 minutes before calling 911, prosecutors said at trial.

When paramedics arrived, Hart was seen administering CPR outside the truck, officials said. Hart told police that he discovered Woodruff unresponsive on the floor of his tractor cab prosecutors said at trial.

Woodruff was taken to NYU Langone Hospital - Suffolk , where she was pronounced dead.

A medical examiner ruled Woodruff’s cause of death was manual strangulation, blunt force trauma to the head and internal bleeding, authorities said. But Hart's defense attorneys at trial argued that Woodruff's death was caused by an accidental drug overdose.

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.

Police photographed several scratches on Hart's face, which were actively bleeding at the time, and found DNA under Woodruff's fingernails, prosecutors said. Woodruff's body, meanwhile, had cuts and bruises to her neck and face, soft tissue hemorrhage and bruising to her extremities, prosecutors said.

The truck was left covered in food, including ramen, which was also recovered from Woodruff’s mouth. Detectives said they also recovered a clump of hair on a bed in the truck and Hart's broken chain necklace from the floor of the cab, officials said.