NILES, Mich. — The Michigan State Police (MSP) announced Friday that Patrick Wayne Gilham, 67, of South Bend, Indiana has pleaded no contest to Second Degree Murder for the 1987 murder of Roxanne Wood.
Gilham has agreed to a minimum sentence of 23 years in prison for the murder of Wood.
MSP initiated the murder investigation in Niles on Feb. 20, 1987 when Wood's husband, Terry Wood, found her murdered in their home.
The case has remained active by the MSP Fifth District Cold Case Team and for the last year and a half, MSP detective sergeants John Moore and Jason Bailey have been working the case.
Gilham was identified as a possible suspect from evidence left at the scene of the original crime. MSP surveilled Gilham and interviewed him two times before making his arrest for open murder in South Bend, Indiana.
"The MSP Fifth District Headquarters and Western Michigan University partnered and collaborated on this case through the universities’ Cold Case Program. This program provided organizational and informational support made up of college students and its director, Dr. Ashlyn Kuersten. This was the first case in which the two entities formed the collaborative effort," MSP said in a statement on Friday.
The investigation took a combined 10,000 hours of work by MSP and its Special Investigation Section.
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