*Updated Jan. 10*
Mérida, Yucatán -
More than six weeks after a brutal knifing attack left a long term resident of the city’s American expatriate community dead, no one has been arrested, and local prosecutors have not reported on what progress, if any, they've made in the case.
Neighbors found U.S. citizen Sam Woodruff, 63, originally from Boonville, North Carolina, gravely wounded in his Colonia Itzimina home early on Nov. 12. He had been stabbed at least five times, and died a short time later at a local hospital.
Investigators and the local press reported at the time that the murder was sex related, “connected to persons in the gay community” and may have been committed by a male prostitute. As MGRR first reported on Nov. 12, police have suspected from the outset that Woodruff knew his killer(s), and may have invited the person(s) responsible into his home.
Woodruff had lived in Mérida for about a decade before his death. He was an avid and popular artist of local renown. A 1972 graduate of Virginia Commonwealth University, he studied communication arts and design.
Woodruff was the second American to die in Mérida in 2012 at the hands of a gay sex partner. In May former Pennsylvania resident Robert Leon Wickard, 67, was found dead in his rented residence just blocks southwest of the city's main plaza. His decaying corpse had been wrapped in a blanket and was buried in a shallow grave in an interior garden. Forensic experts believe he was killed about 15 days earlier. Several men were still living in the house, gradually pawning off his possessions. The gruesome discovery was made by a police unit on patrol at 4:00 a.m.
Four suspects were taken into custody in the Wickard case. One told the court he was a prostitute, and another described himself as a transvestite. The men told prosecutors that Wickard was stabbed during a sudden domestic quarrel. Charges were dismissed against two of them for lack of evidence, but the other men remain in jail facing charges of robbery and murder. Authorities are searching for a fifth suspect, said to be Wickard’s lover, whom he met in Campeche some weeks before the murder. That man, who was identified by state prosecutors as Angel Javier Segovia Domínguez, remains at large. Prosecutors have suggested he was Wickard's primary assailant. The two were roommates.
Jan. 10, 2013 - The Yucatan Times of Mérida reports this morning the "gay related" murder of a European tourist whose body was found near Xocempich, just west of Valladolid. The yet unidentified victim had rented a car in Playa del Carmen, Quintana Roo about two weeks ago, according to TYT. He had been dead for perhaps nine days, possibly from strangulation. The crime scene suggested sexual activity immediately before his death. The man may have been planning to visit Chichén Itzá.
This account in the Jan. 8 edition of Diario de Yucatan, Mérida's main Spanish daily, refers to the victim as a possible "homosexual tourist" (Hallan ejecutado en Dzitás), and is the basis for TYT's story today.
Jan. 18, 2013 - "Violence on Yucatán soil" - against foreigners
Robert Lee Wickard case
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Four suspects in murder of U.S. citizen set to be arraigned
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American citizen murdered in Mérida died at hands of gay sex partners, police say
U.S. citizen found murdered in Mérida
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