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By Miriam Raftery
Donald Michael Santini, aka Wellman "Wells" Simmonds
June 13, 2023 (San Diego’s East County) – A fugitive wanted for the murder of a Florida woman nearly 40 years ago, as well as a robbery in Texas, has been leading a double life in Campo. There, he brazenly held public positions under an assumed name.
On Wednesday, Donald Michael Santini, known locally under the alias Wellman “Wells” Simmonds, was arrested in Campo's Lake Morena community by U.S. Marshals, ECM news partner 10 News reports.
Simmonds served on the Campo-Lake Morena Community Planning Group as well as president of the board of directors for the Lake Morena Views Mutual Water Company, a troubled water district where nitrate contamination has left district residents forced to drink bottled water for the past three years, as ECM reported.
“Everyone was surprised. There was nothing unusual about him,” Billie Jo Jannen, Chair of the planning group, told ECM.
His unanticipated departure creates a vacancy that can’t be filled until Simmonds misses three months of meetings, per county policy, said Jannen.
Karen Russell is operating manager of Lake Morena Oak Shores Mutual Water Company, which is set to merge with the Lake Morena Views Mutual Water Company, after the state notified Simmonds’ district in January that it had failed to take steps in a timely manner to provide an adequate supply of safe drinking water to its customers.
“I was there when he got arrested,” Russell told ECM. She voiced “total shock” upon learning of Simmonds’ past. “He has a wife and granddaughter,” she said.”He was very involved with his granddaughter in gymkhana (an equestrian activity). His granddaughter lives with them and goes to school out here.”
No recent photos of Santini, aka Simmonds, could be located. Russell described him as “a nice looking man with grey hair and a moustache. He told us all he was around 80, and it turns out his birthday was the 9th of June and he turned 65. He was leading a double life.”
That nice looking man is suspected of strangling Cynthia “Cindy” Ruth Wood,33, a mother of three whose body was found in a water-filled ditch in Riverview, Florida on June 9, 1984—the suspect’s birthday.
According to the TampaBay.com news site, Simmonds, then known as Santini, had been convicted of rape while serving in the U.S. Army in1978. Later he returned to Texas, his home state, where he was charged with aggravated robbery of a convenience store in 1983. He confessed to the crime, then disappeared.
He worked as a janitor under the alias Charles Michael Stevens. He moved in with Pamela Lynn Kincaid, who later told the Hillsboro County Sheriff’s department that Stevens, aka Santini/Simmonds, confessed to her that he killed Wood. Santini/Stevens/Simmonds likely met Wood at a day care center where Wood worked as a manager and Kincaid’s children were enrolled..
Wood was going through a contentious custody battle with her estranged husband, Barry Wood, whom she had accused of physical abuse and filed charges against. Santini reportedly offered to provide her with information on her estranged husband to use in the custody dispute, 10 News reports. Santini vanished again after Woods' death, remaining a fugitive for the next 39 years.
On Friday, Santini aka Simmonds admitted in a San Diego courtroom that he is the man sought by Florida authorities for decades. But his public defender, Douglas Miller, said this was not an admission of guilt, adding, “He could not have committed this.”
Santini agreed to be extradited to Florida to stand trial, but said he did not feel “safe because of the family,” prompting the public defense to instruct him to be quiet.He is being held without bail.
According to the arrest warrant, he has used at least 13 aliases in his efforts to evade law enforcement over the years.
"This arrest allows us to reexamine evidence collected in 1984 using the technology of today, as the case is now considered open once again,” said Amanda Granit, a spokesperson for the Hillsborough Sheriff’s Office.
He was finally captured as the result of a lead received from the Florida/Caribbeean Reigonal Fugitive Task Force.
In rural East County, he lived for many years in a home on Morena View Drive that he called Greystone Manor, surrounded by black iron and grey cinderblock fencing, with multiple security cameras and four American flags flying outside.(Photo,right, by Miriam Raftery)
In his last interview with ECM in January 2022, Simmonds said the high nitrate levels in the water locally were “not good for elders or infants” and acknowledged the district had received grant funds to fix the issue. “I’m looking forward to getting these people some water they can drink,” he concluded. “And I’m right in there with them. I live here, too.”
Russell voiced frustration over unwanted media attention that Simmonds’ criminal record has brought to this placid lakefront town, noting that major media outlets never showed up to cover the community’s water crisis or even wildfires that threatened the town.
“It makes me very angry, because the community didn’t deserve this,” she told ECM.”Too bad he landed here It’s a distraction for the water company,” she added, then offered assurance for ratepayers that the merger will ultimately happen without Simmonds at the helm.
“We had a meeting this very morning with several different groups involved in the consolidation,” Russell revealed, “making sure that things are on track and moving forward.”
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