A man wanted in the 1984 killing of a Florida woman has been arrested in California nearly four decades later, authorities said Thursday.
Detectives from the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office were traveling to San Diego County to interview Donald Michael Santini, who was being held in jail following his arrest Wednesday, the sheriff's office said in a statement.
Santini was taken into custody in Campo, a relatively small community of 3,500 near the Mexico border by a fugitive task force, according to the U.S. Marshals Service.
The white-haired suspect appeared in court at an extradition hearing on Friday, wearing jail-issued clothing. In court, he admitted to being the man sought in connection with the Florida case.
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Santini, who, according the Marshals Service, had been featured "multiple times" on America's Most Wanted, had been on the run since June 1984, when Florida authorities obtained an arrest warrant linking him to the strangling death of 33-year-old Cynthia Ruth Wood of Bradenton, located south of Tampa. Wood's body was found in a watery ditch three days after she went missing on June 6 of that year.
“We are aware of this arrest and have sent detectives to interview Santini, while we await extradition," the sheriff's office said in a statement. “This arrest allows us to reexamine evidence collected in 1984 using the technology of today, as the case is now considered open once again.”
Local
Shortly after the murder, NBC's Tampa affiliate, WFAL, interviewed Heidi Pareigis, who told the station back in the '80s that she and her husband had rented a room to Santini in Sarasota, Fla. She also said at the time that she had overheard Santini planning the murder.
"He pointed out where he had done it, exactly how he had done it and such," Pareigis told the station. "He was just glowing about it, you know?"
Pareigis said at the time that it seemed like Santini was bragging about it.
"When he talked about violence and crime, he got an actual happy feeling out of it," Pareigis said, '
According to WFLA's report, Santini met Wood at the Camp Vista Day Care Center in Bradenton, where he would pick up his then-girlfriend's children. Investigators believed he had plans to befriend her, then ask her on a date. After being picked up for Santini for the date on June 5, 1984, however, she was never seen again.
The arrest warrant said a medical examiner determined she had been strangled and Santini's fingerprints were found on her body, according to a news report.
Online jail records said Santini, 65, was arrested as a fugitive. He appeared in court in San Diego County on Friday, agreeing to an extradition request filed by Hillsborough County.
