Wife of accused killer stands by him despite ‘no contest’ plea

The wife of a man accused of killing a young woman over four decades ago insists he is innocent – even after he pleaded no contest.

“Nobody knows him as well as I do and, if I thought for one second, for one second, he was guilty of these things, I would not be supporting him,” Pamela Sullivan told KOLO this week of her husband, Charles Gary Sullivan.

Sullivan, 77, pleaded no contest in May to second degree murder charges stemming from the 1979 death of Julia Woodward, 20.

He was sentenced on Tuesday to 15 years behind bars, and will be eligible for parole after five years, 2NEWS said.

Sullivan – who already spent four years in jail while awaiting proceedings – will get credit for time served.

Despite the fact that Sullivan’s DNA was found in Woodward’s pants, Pamela insists that he is not the killer.

“There’s no evidence. There’s nothing there. The case is extremely weak,” she told KOLO.

Woodward’s case is not the first time Pamela has been confronted with serious allegations against her husband.

In 2007, a young woman hitchhiker claimed that Sullivan kidnapped her from I-80 near Emigrant Gap and took her to a remote location where he bound and threatened to rape her.

Pamela, who had been dating Sullivan for seven years at the time of the accusation, says that he picked up the woman, but did not kidnap or threaten her.

“The rest of it didn’t happen, not the way she said. Uh-uh. No, no,” she insisted on Tuesday.

Sullivan was ultimately convicted of a lesser charge of false imprisonment, and was made to serve time in prison and register as a sex offender.

Pamela married him anyway.

Now, she says that his no contest plea in Woodward’s case is merely a simple way of ending the ordeal and ensuring that he returns home as soon as possible.

“There is no closure in this case. There is no justice because there’s never going to be justice when an innocent man is convicted of something he didn’t do and it’s not only the victim’s family’s tears. It’s our tears as well,” she lamented.

Woodward’s body was found in a shallow grave 15 miles outside of Reno on March 25, 1979 – over a month after she was last seen at the San Francisco airport, News 4 reported.

She had been bludgeoned to death, and was found with her hands bound and adhesive over her eyes.

“For me there’s no closure. I’ll miss my daughter forever. I’m relieved to have this resolution, I wish the sentence would have been harsher,” Woodward’s mother, Cecily O’Connor told the court at Sullivan’s sentencing.