Father’s Search Ends as Son’s Sentence for Murder Begins

Gerald Murphy spent the last three years searching for the son he had never met.

But when the Long Beach man finally got the chance to touch him, it was only hours before the young man was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison.

“Today was the first time I made any physical contact with him--to reach out and shake his hand,” Murphy said Monday, after a Maryland judge sentenced his son, Michael Gregory Woods, to life in prison without parole.

“What a tragic thing this is,” said Murphy, a real estate investor. “I feel deprived in a sense, but I’m glad I answered the question of what happened to him.”

Murphy said he was a college student in 1967 when his girlfriend became pregnant and gave the child up for adoption. He began searching for the son after the boy’s 18th birthday.

Woods, now 22, was convicted earlier this year of the contract murder of Michael Boyd, a 25-year-old National Security Agency employee.

The shooting and Woods’ arrest came only a few weeks before Murphy learned that his son was living in Maryland. For the previous three years, Murphy had searched court records, school yearbooks and playgrounds in Bellingham, Wash., where his son was born.

“It was a disconcerting feeling--a feeling that there was a person out there that I had to find,” Murphy said. He was always looking “for a kid with thick-bottle glasses like mine.”

Murphy eventually went to court, seeking to have the adoption records opened, but his request was denied.

Finally, two support groups--the Washington Adoptees Rights Movement and Adoptees Liberation Movement Assn.--helped Murphy make contact with the adoptive parents through a confidential intermediary.

“At the time the (intermediary) said, ‘There is a little problem: he’s in jail,’ ” Murphy said. “Gee, I thought the young kid was probably smoking some grass. I never imagined it could be as severe as this,” Murphy said.

Murphy began writing to Woods soon after the July 2 murder and after his son’s arrest on July 4. They met several times--but always through a glass partition in the Anne Arundel County detention center.

They exchanged pictures through the mail and Murphy sent Woods a picture of his son’s natural mother, who he said died of cancer seven or eight years ago.

“I don’t know if guilt is the right word. I was more curious. I wanted to know who he was,” Murphy said. “I’m glad I answered the questions of what happened to him.”

And, Murphy said, he hoped to answer some questions for his son. “They (adopted children) sometimes think they are the result of outlaws; a prostitute and sailor on leave or something.” Murphy said he wanted his son to know more of his roots.

Woods grew up in Bellingham and later moved briefly to New Jersey before settling in the Annapolis area. While in Washington, he acquired a minor criminal record, including two petty theft convictions and later driving without a license. In Maryland, Woods was charged with possession of marijuana several months after he was charged with murder.

He had been working as a pizza delivery man when he became friendly with Jody Boyd, who worked in an Annapolis restaurant. Jody claimed that her husband beat her and their three children. She asked Woods to kill her husband and, in return, she promised to give him and his two teen-age conspirators her husband’s $25,000 life insurance benefit, according to court testimony.

After two failed attempts to blow up Boyd with dynamite rigged to his car’s ignition, Woods finally gunned him down as he returned home with a bag of take-out cheeseburgers, according to court testimony.

Woods was convicted of first-degree murder. On Monday, he became the first man in Maryland sentenced to life without parole, a sentencing provision that went into effect July 1, the day before the murder.

Murphy, 46, flew from Long Beach to be with his son at the sentencing. Murphy has a wife and two other children.

Murphy said that he was, naturally, disappointed in his son’s fate, but that he felt “very, very badly for his (adopted) parents.”

“It’s one thing to lose someone you never really knew and another to lose your only child for whom you changed diapers and did all of the rest of the things you do in raising a child.

“I didn’t watch him grow up the way they did. The attachment is not as strong.”

Dave Woods, the adoptive father, said he did not want to comment on his son’s sentence or his reunion with his natural father.

“I didn’t have the courage to ask them if it was all worth it. I think they would have said it was,” Murphy said.

“If he ever gets out and I’m still alive, I’ll be there for him.”

Staff writer Lee Harris contributed to this report.