Son to Be Tried in His Father’s Brutal Slaying

The son of a 77-year-old retired Rancho Santa Fe attorney who confessed to killing his father by repeatedly smashing a flower pot on his head in a dispute over $200,000 will go on trial for first-degree murder, a judge decided Thursday.

Charles Tremaine DeWoody, 51, has already confessed to killing his father, Charles O. DeWoody, on Aug. 31 after an argument at the Rancho Santa Fe home over a $200,000 inheritance that his mother, Nancy DeWoody, was going to give him.

The elder DeWoody, who had opposed the transfer, refused to give in, saying, “Not while I’m alive,” according to police officers who interviewed DeWoody.

He then ordered his son to leave the home and went to call 911.

The son “snapped and went into a rage,” chasing his father around the back yard of the El Mirador Road home, he told police. When his father fell, the younger DeWoody grabbed a clay flower pot and used it repeatedly to smash his father’s head.

“He said he did it until he couldn’t carry on any further and was totally exhausted,” Sgt. Robert J. Plumbley, who interviewed DeWoody, testified in the preliminary hearing before Vista Municipal Judge Harley Earwicker.

The younger DeWoody said he then went to the telephone, which was still off the hook, wiped it clean of fingerprints, and placed it on the cradle, Plumbley testified.

He told police he then left his parent’s home and drove back to his house in Nevada City, about 60 miles north of Sacramento, ditching his bloody clothes at a service station on the way and using a change of clothing he had in his car, Plumbley testified.

Sheriff’s Deputy Mona Moreno testified Thursday that she found the father face-down on the ground.

“His head was bloody and he had part of a clay pot that looked like it was embedded in the back of his head, and his ear was mangled,” Moreno said. “Blood was bubbling out from his mouth and nose.”

A paramedic testified that he and his partner scooped dirt about the volume of “a medium-sized orange” out of the elder DeWoody’s mouth and nose.

DeWoody was taken to Scripps Memorial Hospital-La Jolla, where he lay in a coma for more than two weeks before dying Sept. 17.

Plumbley testified Thursday that Nancy DeWoody had inherited a house more than a year ago. She expected to receive about $500,000 from the sale of the house and had promised to give $200,000 to her son so he could build his “dream house.”

But she told police that her husband was against the plan, saying that, at age 51, Charles T. DeWoody should be able to support himself, Plumbley testified.

Defense attorney Bradley C. Patton said his client, a free-lance editor of biomedical articles, had been receiving $2,500 a month from a trust fund and an additional $1,000 a month from his mother until the killing.

On the day of the dispute, Charles DeWoody said he drove down from Nevada City specifically to confront his father “one last time,” Plumbley testified.

Outside the courtroom, Patton said there was no premeditation in the killing and thus it was not murder but either involuntary or voluntary manslaughter.

“He just snapped and went into a rage of passion,” Patton said. “If you plan something like this, you don’t use a flower pot that just happened to be where his father happened to fall.”

Deputy Dist. Atty. James Valliant pointed to DeWoody wiping off fingerprints from the telephone, changing his bloody clothes after the fight and taking a different route home than he normally would as indicators that he knew what he was doing when he killed his father.