Prosecutors: Arizona man suspect in other late-70s killings
(Washoe County Sheriff's Office)
RENO, Nevada - Prosecutors are branding a 73-year-old Arizona man a serial killer in a bid to convince a Nevada judge to deny bail pending trial in the killing of a California woman more than 40 years ago.
Charles Gary Sullivan’s defense attorney, David Houston, didn’t argue for his client’s release Tuesday after Sullivan pleaded not guilty to murder in the 1979 bludgeoning death of 20-year-old Julia Woodward.
However, Houston says he doesn’t believe DNA evidence presented to a grand jury in August ties Sullivan to Woodward’s slaying.
Sullivan was arrested in August in Flagstaff, Arizona and remains jailed without bail pending another hearing in January.
Prosecutors say DNA evidence from Woodward points to Sullivan, who was convicted of a 2007 sex attack on a woman in California’s Nevada County.
A Nov. 7 filing by prosecutors calls Sullivan a suspect in the slayings of two other Reno-area women: a 23-year-old in 1979 and a 17-year-old in 1978.
He’s not charged in those cases.