SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA: Florida murder suspect Donald Santini, who outran cops for 39 years despite appearing on 'America’s Most Wanted' thrice, was reportedly caught in California in June. That same month, his daughter, Whitney Simmonds learnt that her father was taken away by US Marshals in connection to brutal 1984 slaying Florida mom Cynthia Ruth Wood.
It was during the fugitive's arrest that Simmonds discovered that her father's real name was "Donald Santini" and that he was actually 20 years younger than she previously knew. She also learnt that Santini had been living under various aliases in order to evade law enforcement. In a recent interview with the Daily Mail, Simmonds said that she believes her father is being "set up" by her older siblings, Santini's other children. According to her, he is being "railroaded" by the justice system, prompting the world to presume he is guilty.
'I feel like they knew and they folded on my dad'
In her interview, Simmonds told the publication that she believes her older siblings, who Santini fathered through various relationships, "set up" her father despite him being innocent. "I feel like they knew and they folded on my dad. I think my sister and my brother did. Within the next week [after Santini's arrest] they were at my mom's house selling stuff that belonged to my dad. It was rough for me, to walk into his house and see everything gone already," she told the outlet.
"I want to see the actual evidence. They say they have his fingerprints on her body but those fingerprints aren't around her neck, so who strangled her?" Simmonds asked while talking about Wood's murder. Reports suggest that Santini and Woods became friends in the 1980s after the former promised to find dirt on Wood's then-husband while she was in the middle of a messy divorce.
Wood was reported missing on June 6, 1984, and her body was found in a ditch after five days. Officials revealed that the woman was strangled to death and announced Santini as a suspect in the murder. Shortly after, the latter disappeared from Hillsborough County. "Most likely her husband set it up. Why else would the mention that she was in the middle of custody battle? Who told them that my dad had dirt on the husband?" Simmonds said of the case.
She also spoke about Santini's former landlord, Heidi Pareigis, who appeared in a TV interview in the 1980s and claimed she heard Santini having discussions about the killing of Wood. "I don't know. She could have just not liked my dad," Simmonds said of Pareigis.
'I guess he had multiple girlfriends'
Simmonds also discussed about her mother meeting Santini in the early 1990s. The latter reportedly settled in the southern Californian town of Campo at some point between 1984 and 1990 and met Simmonds' mother, a Thai immigrant named Somnuk, who came to the US in the 1970s, at a disco in the late 1980s. Santini later married Somnuk in Las Vegas in 1990.
"I guess they were just dancing and some guy was trying to get my mom to dance with him and my dad stepped in and made her feel more comfortable, because they other guy was making her feel uncomfortable," Simmonds shared. She mentioned that while she knew Santini was from Texas and suffered sexual abuse in his youth, he never talked about his life before he met her mother. "He told me a couple of stories about girlfriends that he had, I guess he had multiple girlfriends, he's kind of a ladies man," Simmonds said.
Simmonds mentioned that despite having other siblings with her father's relationships with different women, she was raised as an only child. Prior to being arrested, Santini and Somnuk reportedly got the custody of Simmonds' daughter. She said that her parents said they would look after her daughter, 13, if Simmonds went back to school. After Simmonds' graduation, her daughter wanted to continue living with her grandparents because she "loves them so much." She said the teen was not doing well and was left feeling depressed following Santini's arrest.
'My whole life, it was so normal'
Despite the mystery surrounding Santini and his alleged criminal history, Simmonds said that her father did not have a mysterious lifestyle. "My whole life, it was so normal. He's such a square, he never got into trouble. He would actually help the police when they needed when he was an apartment manager. It's just hard for me to believe that he would be a murderer," she told the Daily Mail.
However, she also mentioned that Santini reportedly grew more paranoid over the last 12 months and did not want her to post any pictures of him on social media. She also said Santini had a gun safe in his home but that it was mainly used for antique rifles that he received during his dealership days. Officials previously said that they could locate and arrest Santini on June 7 because he applied for a passport renewal.
Simmonds confirmed that her father was having an issue with getting identification and did not want to apply for a driver's license for some reason. However, she mentioned that she does not believe the story by officials as her father allegedly did his passport renewal through the mail. Simmonds alleged that narrative was made up to protect the person who led the cops to Santini.
"I think it was definitely somebody who knew and that they held a grudge against him," she reiterated. Simmonds also shared that she visited Santini in San Diego jail since his arrest and also spoke to him on the phone in Florida. "He was not happy about me speaking to the media because he just got out of solitary confinement on Wednesday for talking to the media. He said he was told if he speaks out again, he's going back in," she said.
Simmonds further shared that the prosecutor's office is reportedly working with the public defender's office in order to secure a guilty plea. "They want him to plead guilty. They're probably just gonna try to cover up anything that has to do with him being innocent," she stated.
