Contra Costa sheriff building death penalty argument in wife stabbing

(10-27) 16:29 PDT ORINDA -- Investigators said Monday that they are trying to build a death penalty case against an Oakland man who allegedly stabbed his estranged wife near the Caldecott Tunnel and pushed her out of his pickup in front of stunned motorists. Robert Woods, a 47-year-old former maintenance worker for the city of Oakland, was arrested on suspicion of murdering Elnora Caldwell, 46. Caldwell obtained a restraining order against Woods earlier this year, saying she was afraid of him. She was stabbed to death Saturday night and pushed from the pickup on a stretch of Fish Ranch Road that passes over the east end of the Caldecott Tunnel. The Contra Costa County Sheriff's Office is handling the case because the killing happened on unincorporated land near Orinda. It plans to turn over its evidence to prosecutors Tuesday for a charging decision. "He deserves it," Caldwell's brother, Roy Jenkins of Alameda, said of the death penalty. "Life in the pen? I don't see it. That's my sister, man." Sheriff's Capt. Daniel Terry, who leads the investigations division, declined to say how he might build a death penalty case, which would require an allegation of so-called special circumstances. Under California law, these include the slaying of a police officer or a witness, an unnecessarily torturous killing, or a killing that is done during the commission of certain violent felonies such as kidnapping or rape. Caldwell's family members believe she was kidnapped Saturday from her Oakland home, perhaps by someone other than Woods. Ultimately, the decision whether to seek the death penalty rests with prosecutors. Officials with the sheriff's office have not said how Caldwell ended up in Woods' truck, but said she was stabbed and then pushed out on Fish Ranch Road at about 6:15 p.m. Police and witnesses said Woods went to Caldwell's Oakland apartment and washed up, then turned himself in to an Oakland police officer in the area. More than a dozen motorists stopped to help Caldwell. Some gave her chest compressions and others jotted down the license plate number of the GMC pickup. Alameda County Superior Court records show that Caldwell applied for a domestic violence restraining order against Woods on April 29, and that the order was to be active until 2013. Her relatives said she had also filed for divorce, but there is no record of such a filing. Caldwell wrote in her application for the restraining order that Woods had shoved her after showing up unannounced at the Nordstrom department store in San Francisco where she worked and accusing her of infidelity. In 2007, she wrote, Woods pulled her hair during an argument in his truck, forcing her to flee and take a taxi home. In a third incident, Caldwell said, her husband broke a glass sliding door at her apartment. "It has to stop," Caldwell wrote of alleged verbal and physical abuse. Court records show that Woods was fired from his job as a maintenance worker for the city of Oakland last year for allegedly doing drugs and threatening to kill co-workers. CONTINUE READING..