The
Last Dance
A Killer Shatters A Young Dancer's Dreams Of
Broadway
(Page 1 of 6)NEW YORK, May 6, 2006
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Catherine Woods
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(CBS) In July 2002, 18-year-old Catherine
Woods left her home in Columbus, Ohio, to find fame in
the footlights of Broadway. But three and a half years
later, Catherine tragically made her name in New York as
a murder victim.
Correspondent Erin Moriarty reports.
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Catherine's parents, Jon and Donna Woods, still remember
driving their daughter to New York. "So it wasn't easy
for us to drop her off there and put her on her own. But
we did, and she loved it," Jon remembers.
After the killing, her parents faced the difficult task
of returning to Catherine's apartment to pick up their
daughter's belongings. "Probably the toughest thing I've
ever done. We talked about Catherine coming to New York
with a dream," Jon says.
One of Catherine's closest friends, Emily Pettigrew,
says Catherine was the most beautiful person inside and
out, with a love for dance. "It was always what I knew
her as, as Catherine the dancer," says Emily.
Catherine's first ballet teacher, Mary Rose Bushroe,
says that even at an early age, Catherine had all the
right moves. "She knew she was going to be a ballerina,"
Mary Rose recalls.
Catherine grew up in the spotlight. In Columbus, where
Ohio State Football is sacred, her dad is a revered
figure, as the director of the OSU marching band.
Jon Woods admits he expected Catherine, the oldest of
his three children, to follow him into music. "She
accommodated us by playing the baritone horn in sixth,
seventh, eighth grade but when we hit ninth grade, that
was the end of the baritone horn and she decided dance
was it," he says.
Neither Jon nor Donna was happy when Catherine announced
at the end of high school that she was going to New York
instead of college. "She told me that if she didn't
leave now, she never would," Donna remembers.
In New York, Catherine was just another talented
aspiring dancer, willing to do anything to get that one
big break on Broadway. The city was far more expensive
and lonelier than she expected.
Catherine would go home often and on one of those trips,
met David Haughn at a pool hall. David, then a
20-year-old Columbus rap musician, was selling his CDs
in the pool hall parking lot and within months moved to
New York and into Catherine's apartment.
"I remember the phone conversation. She was like 'He's
going to live with me. He's moving. He's giving up
everything. I'm so excited,' " explains childhood friend
Megan Wilkins.
Megan says she loved David. "He's a very nice guy. I
love David. I think of him as my brother."
But David and Catherine were, in some ways, an unlikely
couple. She was raised in middle class comfort by a
loving family, while David's mother struggled with drugs
and he grew up in foster homes.
David says being with Catherine made him feel as though
he had a family again. "She made me feel confident about
myself. I looked up to her so much, almost in a way as a
parent," he says.
David got a job as a doorman working nights, while
Catherine worked various part-time jobs to pay for her
voice, acting and dance lessons.
David says he and Catherine's relationship was "real
serious" and that the topic of marriage had surfaced.
"I'd say we thought about it. I don't think it was
anytime soon. She asked me numerous times 'Are you gonna
marry me?' " he recalls.
"It was off and on at first. I knew they were very
serious. And then the last little while it was 'Well, I
don't know, yes, no, maybe so,' " says Katie Miller, who
met Catherine at the dance studio and took lessons with
her throughout their childhood.
Finally last fall, Catherine broke off the relationship.
Still, David and Catherine remained friends and he was
still living with her on Thanksgiving weekend of 2005.
The Last Dance
A Killer Shatters A Young Dancer's Dreams Of Broadway
(Page 2 of 6)NEW YORK, May 6, 2006
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Catherine Woods
On that Sunday night, as she was preparing to go to
work, Catherine called her friend Megan. "I spoke to her
until like 6:25 (p.m.). She seemed really happy. She was
excited," Megan recalls.
Shortly afterwards, around 6:40 p.m., David says he left
the apartment to run some errands and get his car to
drive Catherine to work.
David says he left the apartment for maybe 20 or 30
minutes. When he returned, he says he pulled his car in
front of their building and called Catherine. When she
didn't answer, David buzzed their apartment. When there
was still no response, he says he went in and found her.
David says when he entered, there was blood everywhere.
Catherine was on the bedroom floor, her throat cut, face
down in a pool of blood.
"I didn't know if it was an accident or what it was. I
really didn't know. I was really in shock. My first
instinct is to call 911," says David.
Later that night, Catherine's parents were home when
three Columbus police officers arrived and asked them to
call a detective in New York.
"I called and could not get through and so one Columbus
policeman said 'Well, OK, I know. They told me.' And he
said is 'Is your husband here?' and, so, as I turned to
get Jon I said 'How bad is it?' And he said 'It's bad.'
And I said 'Is she dead?' and he said 'Yes,' " Donna
remembers.
"Once I heard she was dead. I was gone. In shock," Jon
says.
Just as shocking was the identity of the main suspect:
David. He says police first accused him. "I just
couldn't believe it was happening."
Hours after Catherine was found brutally murdered,
David, her roommate and former boyfriend, was in police
custody. "I told them 'No, you have the wrong person.
You have the wrong person.' I would never, never hit
that girl. Not at all. Not at all. I loved her. I would
have done anything for her," says David.
Investigators were looking at David, in part because of
the timeline of the murder. Catherine was alive at 6:25
p.m. when she spoke to her friend Megan on the phone.
She was already dead by 6:59 p.m. when David called 911.
That left a half hour or less for the killer to get into
the apartment, slash Catherine so viciously that she was
nearly decapitated and walk out undetected.
David admits his apparent lack of emotion gave
detectives even more reason to suspect him. "Couldn't
even cry, even afterwards," he recalls. "The detectives
are asking me, 'If you love this girl why aren't you
crying?' I look at them, 'I don't know. I really don't
know.' "
After more than 35 hours of police interrogation, David
himself says he began to accept that he would soon be
charged with Catherine's murder. "At one point, I said,
'Well, maybe this is the way it's supposed to go down.'
I really felt that at one point I was gonna take this."
But police didn't arrest David, and in the following
days, Catherine's parents got more disturbing news. Jon
Woods had told reporters that Catherine got a job as an
understudy in an off-Broadway play called "Privilege."
But as it turns out, the play "Privilege" had been
closed for months. Catherine had in fact been performing
at a very different "Privilege" — a topless bar.
Suddenly, reporters weren't just interested in how
Catherine died but how she lived.
"I was thinking, 'Oh my God. What did I miss?' " says
Donna.
Chloe calls herself the club's house mother and hires
dancers for Privilege and manages them. "I looked at
her. And I'm like ‘What is this girl doing here?'
Because she looks like the girl next door," she recalls.
Last spring, Chloe gave Catherine a job after an
audition. "Probably the sweetest girl that ever walked
in here or the most innocent. Seemed that way,
definitely," Chloe remembers. "I said, 'What made you
want to start dancing?' And she just said, 'Because I
want to try and work on Broadway.' "
Catherine danced a couple of nights a week at Privilege
from April to July 2005, dancing under the stage name
"Ava."
Asked whether Catherine talked about money or had
trouble making ends meet in New York, Donna says: "Not
that we knew. In fact, I said something about do you
have money and she said, 'Yes, mom. I have money, don't
worry about it.' "
But Catherine did tell friends such as Katie Miller
about her job. Katie says she tried to talk her out of
it. "I was just like, 'You know, this isn't you.' She's
like, 'I know. I know.' "
"In the stripping industry, you get a lot of egos and
snotty girls. She came in just very bright and open and
wanted to talk to everybody," says Jennifer Caron, 27,
who also danced at Privilege and met Catherine there.
Jennifer, who moved to New York from New Hampshire with
dreams of working as a film actress, says the money she
made dancing topless was very seductive.
"I think we're all very uncomfortable being there deep
down. I don't think any of us really want to be there.
We just want the money. And it's good money," Jennifer
explains. "You know you can make anywhere from $1,000 to
$2,000 a night on a good night."
But most nights, Catherine made much, much less. And
although she worked at other clubs, her friends say she
planned to quit exotic dancing altogether.
The Last Dance
A Killer Shatters A Young Dancer's Dreams Of Broadway
(Page 3 of 6)NEW YORK, May 6, 2006
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Catherine Woods
The revelation that Catherine had been working at
topless bars raised the possibility of other suspects in
her murder. And there was more — there was another man
in Catherine's life, Paul Cortez. What did he know?
Like Catherine, Paul Cortez was determined to be
someone. At 25, he was the lead vocalist in a rock band
called "Monolith."
Iliyah Hamovic on drums, bass player Steve Logan and
guitarist Alex Rude say Paul is both a gifted singer and
a song writer. "So many rock singers are just mediocre
singers with great deal of charisma. He had a great
voice. He's a fantastic singer," says Alex.
"He knew how to write a song basically. He knew to throw
in a lyric, he knew where to throw in … where to put the
'oohs' and the 'aahs.' He knew," adds Steve.
"Paul [is] very intelligent and very well read," Alex
adds. "His lyrics were very much influenced by mythology
and science fiction."
Paul grew up in a tough south Bronx neighborhood in New
York City. But he was singled out at an early age for
his intellect and talent. At age 11 he was granted
admission into one of the most elite private schools in
New York.
Paul's mom, Ivette Cortez, was single, raising three
children, and says she couldn't have afforded to send
Paul to the private school on her own. "I think at the
time it was actually like $30,000 a year," she explains.
Ivette says Paul, her youngest child, got into the
school through his grades. Every day, Paul rose before
dawn to begin his two-hour subway ride to school and
traveled in a different world as his mother Ivette
watched and marveled.
"The first in our family to go to private school, to
learn Latin and French," she explains. "He actually
embraces Shakespeare and the classics and things that,
quite frankly, most of us in our family just don't
understand."
Paul didn't just thrive academically; he starred in the
school plays such as "West Side Story" and "Pippin."
On scholarship at Boston University, Paul majored in
theater and, like Catherine, dreamed of making it on
Broadway. When he moved back to New York, he found
part-time work at a yoga studio and as a private trainer
at a gym.
He met Catherine Woods in the fall of 2004 when she came
to the gym.
Asked what he saw in her, Paul's mother Ivette says, "It
was obvious that she was pursuing a dream. I think that
spirit is what touched him."
By early spring 2005, although Catherine was still
living with David, she was also secretly dating Paul. He
brought her to the Bronx to meet his mother.
"I'll always remember because, although it was a little
chilly, we went to the zoo," she recalls. "She was a
nice girl. He did mention that he loved her."
"I remember him calling me. He was like, ‘Oh, you got to
meet Catherine. You know I really think that she's the
one,' " recalls Jaki Levy, one of Paul's closest
friends. "He said that 'Oh, she's so beautiful. She
makes me feel so good.' "
But Paul didn't feel good about Catherine's job as an
exotic dancer.
"He was very conflicted and he didn't know what to do
because he wanted her to stop because he saw what a
dangerous environment she was in," says Jaki.
Paul became determined to make Catherine stop dancing
after an incident at the club in April. "She set her
drink down, and she shouldn't have went back to pick it
up and drank it. And then later in the evening she
wasn't feeling very well," says Megan, Catherine's
friend. Catherine, Megan says, believed a customer had
slipped drugs into her drink. Feeling ill, she called
Paul.
"He came from the Bronx down to get her," says Ivette.
"Paul thought for her own safety and good, her parents
should know about the incident."
Paul took Catherine to a hospital and then, without her
permission, searched her cell phone until he found her
father's phone number.
Jon Woods was completely unprepared for what he heard
over the phone. He says Paul Cortez didn't just tell him
that his daughter was dancing in a topless club but says
he also told him she was working in prostitution and
using drugs.
The Woods say that at first they were grateful that Paul
had called. "I mean he's very impressive on the phone.
When he told me that as a father I thought 'Wow, you
know, thank you for calling.' I'm going to deal with
this. You know he's a bright, intelligent person.
Sounded, you know, rational and helpful, and caring,"
Jon remembers.
The Last Dance
A Killer Shatters A Young Dancer's Dreams Of Broadway
(Page 4 of 6)NEW YORK, May 6, 2006
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Catherine Woods
The first thing Jon did was call Privilege. "I could've
gotten, you know, the cleaning lady, I mean I don't
know. All I know is that I gave the information that he
said and nobody there admitted to knowing her," Jon
recalls.
"Most people didn't know her by her real name," explains
Chloe. "She went by the name Ava here. She didn't go by
Catherine. So if he called and asked for Catherine, I
don't know."
"I called the hospital from here and they wouldn't give
any information out. And so, you know, I got on the
first plane out there," says Jon.
When Jon confronted his daughter, she denied it all.
"She said, 'No, she wasn't doing this. She wasn't doing
that, she wasn't doing that,' " says Donna.
Catherine convinced her parents that Paul was lying. She
said she wasn't dancing topless, there were no drugs and
certainly no prostitution. The Woods believed her.
"She was very angry and said this person, he's, you
know, crazy," Donna recalls.
Paul then began calling the club's housemother, Chloe,
begging her to make Catherine quit.
"I'm like, 'Catherine, what is going on with this
boyfriend of yours?' " Chloe says. "She was like 'Oh,
don't worry about it. He's crazy you know. I'm not with
him anymore. He's an ex-boyfriend.' "
After Catherine broke things off, Ivette says Paul was
upset. "But, by the same token, in his heart he felt
that you know it would just blow over. Which it did."
Catherine and Paul did begin seeing each other again. In
August, she attended one of his concerts. But the true
nature of their relationship is unclear.
Paul's friends insist they were lovers. "They were
kissing very passionately, like you would kiss someone
you've been dating a long time," says Jaki.
Meanwhile, Catherine's friends are just as insistent
that Paul was only a friend. "He may have been in love
with her. She was just his friend," says Megan.
And she may have kept her boyfriends guessing as well.
Paul, who thought she had broken with David Haughn, once
arrived unannounced at her apartment, only to find David
still there.
"He actually had said that he had been seeing Catherine
since August of the year before and I told her and she
denied it so," says David.
What is certain is that on Thanksgiving 2005, Paul hoped
Catherine would spend the day with his family. Instead,
she spent it with David.
Ivette says Paul was sad when he came to the house. "But
it was Thanksgiving. The house was full. There was food,
he was having a grand old time."
On Sunday, three days later, Catherine was dead. Monday
morning, Ivette woke up, turned on the radio and heard
about a murder. When she saw Catherine's picture in the
paper, she recognized her instantly.
"And my greatest fear at that precise moment was the
fact that they just kept on mentioning the boyfriend
being held. And I didn't know what that meant," says
Ivette.
Ivette wasn't sure whether they were referring to her
son. "But I tracked him down. He was at work. He didn't
even realize what was happening."
She says Paul didn't know Catherine had been killed and
collapsed when he heard the news.
Ivette wasn't worried when police called and took her
son to the precinct where Paul spoke with authorities
for six hours. He gave them DNA, and they photographed
his hands. Then they sent him home.
Ivette thought their involvement with the investigation
was over but it wasn't.
"There seemed to be people, in the East, who found
something obscene about her life when I think the
general conviction here in Columbus is that the only
obscenity was her death," says Mike Harden, a columnist
for the Columbus Dispatch.
The lurid stories about Catherine Woods sold plenty of
tabloid newspapers in New York, but in Columbus, Ohio,
they made Harden's blood boil.
"So many of us here would have been proud for her to
have been our daughter," he says.
Harden says there's only one story that really matters:
"She was a beautiful young woman who had a beautiful
dream and had it snuffed out."
The Last Dance
A Killer Shatters A Young Dancer's Dreams Of Broadway
(Page 5 of 6)NEW YORK, May 6, 2006
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Catherine Woods
For Catherine's parents, Jon and Donna, every new
headline brings new pain and a reminder of how little
they knew about their daughter's life in New York.
Dance instructor Diana Laurenson had a window into
Catherine's life. Diana once danced for celebrated
Broadway choreographer Bob Fosse, who brought the
original "Chicago" to the stage.
Now she teaches up-and-comers such as Catherine Woods.
"I'll say out of, sometimes, a class of 35, my eye will
go to maybe six, six people in my class that I know have
that something special," she explains.
Just days before Catherine was killed, Diana had told
her just how special she was. "I let her know that she
stood out in my class and if Bob Fosse were still alive,
she would have probably been hired very quickly by him,"
Diana recalls.
But, like every dancer in New York City, Catherine faced
the same obstacles.
"You've got high rent to pay, you have to eat. You're
taking classes which are very expensive. Your headshots
and resumes. Extremely expensive to get together," Diana
explains. "You must [do that] or else you're not going
to get ahead."
Catherine never told either Diana or any of her teachers
exactly how she paid for her classes. "If she had
discussed it with me, I probably would have guided her
into another survival job area because it is dangerous.
It is," says Diana.
Dangerous, possibly. But when most theatre auditions end
with rejection, Catherine may have felt like a success
on this stage. And Diana is convinced — despite what
Catherine's boyfriend Paul Cortez may have told her
parents — that she would not have done anything to
jeopardize her dreams.
Diana says she didn't see any signs of drugs use. "Her
skin was clear. Her eyes were bright. She looked
terrific."
If Catherine's friends and family feel she has been
unfairly portrayed in the press, they are not alone.
Those who know Paul Cortez feel the same way.
"In the eyes of the press and the eyes of the public, my
friend is guilty as sin," says Jaki Levy.
He says the press turned the gentle friend he's known
since high school into a monster. Days after Catherine's
murder, it became clear that the main suspect was no
longer David Haughn, Catherine's roommate, but Paul
Cortez. Police leaks to newspapers described Cortez as
obsessed with Catherine and determined to stop her from
dancing in topless bars.
"What I've read in the papers does not match up," says
Jaki. "They're describing another person."
Jaki, who works at a yoga studio, says that he first
learned of Paul's possible involvement when he heard
that a suspect in Catherine's murder worked at the same
studio.
"Out of all the people in the yoga studio, he would
actually be the last person that I would think of," Jaki
says, describing Paul as gentle and caring.
According to police reports, Catherine had defensive
wounds on her hands and arms, indicating that she may
have fought her attacker. Jaki saw Paul three days after
Catherine's murder, and says Paul had no injuries.
"I looked at him and I saw his body was totally clean.
His back was totally clean. His hands were totally
clean," says Jaki. "No scratches, nothing."
The same news stories that are causing Paul's friends so
much distress have caused others, not so friendly, to
come forward. One woman told authorities that a year
earlier, Paul Cortez had sexually assaulted her.
"How did you react when some woman came forward saying
she had been assaulted by him?" Moriarty asked Jaki.
"I was very, very, very shaken," he replied.
Paul was arrested and charged with sexual assault. When
fingerprinted – police got the big break they were
hoping for. Police now say his fingerprints match one
bloody print found in Catherine's apartment. On Dec. 23,
2005, almost one month after Catherine's death, Paul
Cortez was charged with her murder.
"Anyone that knows Paul just knows that it's not in his
nature; it's not in his heart to do what he's been
accused of," says Ivette.
Paul Cortez spent his 26th birthday in the New York City
jail known as "the Tombs," where he has been held since
December, facing sex assault charges in the case of one
woman, murder in another.
His mother Ivette remains convinced of his innocence.
"He did not do it," she says.
But Catherine Wood's mother is just as sure of his
guilt. "I trust the police, that they've done their job
appropriately," Donna says.
Catherine's friends believe Paul may have been driven
into a rage after she finally broke off their
relationship just weeks before her death. "I think he
just let this fantasy that he created run amuck in his
head and maybe he thought, if I can't have her no one
can," Megan says.
Catherine told a friend that Paul had called threatening
to kill himself if he couldn't have her. But Paul denies
he made that call; Paul's friend Maggie says he had
accepted the break-up.
"This was just part of his life. It wasn't like he was
losing sleep over it," she says.
And what about the sexual assault charge that Paul
Cortez was also facing? Just last month, the prosecutors
shocked everyone by suddenly asking the judge to drop
those charges. Reportedly, that woman was no longer
willing to go to trial but Paul is still facing the most
important trial of his life, the murder of Catherine
Woods. And the big question — where was he when
Catherine was murdered?
The Last Dance
A Killer Shatters A Young Dancer's Dreams Of Broadway
(Page 6 of 6)NEW YORK, May 6, 2006
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Catherine Woods
"We had rehearsal scheduled for 6 p.m. that night and
Paul didn't show up," says guitarists and fellow band
member Alex Rude.
Asked if that was normal, Alex said, "No, he normally
showed up."
Catherine was killed sometime between 6:40 and 7 p.m.
When Alex later called Paul around 8 p.m. that same
night, Paul claimed he was sleeping. "He said he was at
home," Alex recalls and says he sounded normal.
But Alex says Paul was acting very strange just days
before the Catherine's murder — at a band performance,
Paul appeared to be stoned. How could he tell?
"How could you not? Slurring, dilated eyes," says Alex.
"And that final show we did, he called three of us,
introducing us by completely wrong names."
Still, none of the band members can imagine Paul killing
anyone.
"He's always been a very laid back person — very Zen
like," says Alex.
What's more, the band members have doubts about some
evidence they've read about. One is a diary found in
Paul's apartment that reportedly contains incriminating
passages about throat slashing.
"That diary, his journal is a red satin journal is where
he wrote his lyrics. It’s not a diary, it’s where he
wrote his lyrics,” says Alex Rude. "Lyrics are fiction,"
says Iliyah.
"I know more about that journal than police," says Alex.
He added that police hadn't talked to any of the band
members.
But was Paul really where he said he was when Catherine
was killed? In his statement to police, again, Paul says
he was home, making phone calls. His apartment is a mile
and half from Catherine's.
But a police source says cell phone records tell a
different story — Paul called Catherine several times
that night. If Paul was home, those calls would normally
go through a cell tower in his neighborhood, but
according to a police source, some of his calls were
handled by a tower just two blocks from Catherine's
apartment, putting him in the vicinity of the crime.
While Paul may not have a solid alibi for the time of
Catherine's murder, many people saw him or talked to him
an hour later.
"When I spoke to him at 8 o'clock, I remember him being
just grounded and peaceful," says Jaki Levy.
"When you think back at the conversation, did it sound
like a man who had just killed someone the hour before?"
Moriarty asks.
"No, absolutely not," he replies.
Asked if Paul could be a good actor, Jaki said: "I wish
I could say that about him but I don't think he's that
good. I don't think anybody is that good of an actor to
be able to go from a murder, a grisly murder of someone
you love, and then just be blasé to your friends?"
The most damaging evidence against Paul may be that one
bloody fingerprint found in Catherine Wood's apartment
that police sources say matches Paul's.
Paul Cortez' attorney, Laura Miranda, has her doubts and
says they need to hire experts to look at the
fingerprint print. And she wonders why there appears to
be so little physical evidence linking Paul to
Catherine's death.
"You would think something that brutal and bloody, there
would be more evidence," says Miranda. "It's uncanny how
professional a job it seems to have been. Unfortunately,
there are many people out there, especially in the work
she was doing, that might have stalked her and been
obsessed with her."
At trial, Paul Cortez' lawyer is likely to point the
finger at others, including David Haughn, who found
Catherine's body and was a suspect himself early in the
investigation until police verified his alibi.
Ivette Cortez is hoping her son will be vindicated and
freed.
The ordeal has been very tough on Catherine's parents,
who are steeling themselves for Paul Cortez' trial. Even
if his defense raises questions about their daughter and
her lifestyle, Jon and Donna say they no longer have any
questions at all.
"I feel in my heart that my daughter was a wonderful
woman. And no matter what the defense might say in terms
of these allegations, I can sit here and, in my heart
know, I don't believe this," he says. "That she was a
wonderful person. And I feel she's with the angels."
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