Latoya Woodard
When a devoted father is found brutally stabbed to death in his Florida home, detectives turn their focus to the picture-perfect family who appear to have it all.
Season 28, Episode 24
Originally aired: March 7, 2021
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Transcript
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When a Florida couple takes a second chance on love, sparks fly.
We had good chemistry together.
They were very family-oriented.
He was excited to buy his first home.
It was an accomplishment for him.
But their forever home wasn't meant to be.
Where is he bleeding from?
Oh my gosh.
Man, I'm afraid he's even going there.
Here's like blood everywhere.
There was blood everywhere.
It was on the wall, floors.
I was just stressed with them.
It was a violent, violent scene.
As investigators stalk a killer, a string of startling allegations raises alarming questions about a family that appeared to have it all.
Friends with benefits, that was off and on.
This stuff that just starts going through your head of what happened, who did it.
To see your loved one cut from one place to the next place, to see his skin is sickening.
April 13th, 2018, Deltona, Florida.
At 10:17 p.m., a Volusha County 911 dispatcher receives a distressing emergency call from 34-year-old Crystal Lig.
911, where's your emergency?
My roommate looks bad.
I think somebody might have broken or something.
I don't know what's going on.
Is he alive?
Is he talking, breathing, moving?
No, he's not moving at all.
Okay.
All right.
I'm sorry.
I mean, his wife is flipping out right now.
Okay.
There's like blood everywhere.
As first responders rush to the scene, the 911 operator continues to stay on the line.
During the call, Crystal ends up giving the phone to Latoya Woodard, who lives there and actually is the victim's wife.
She got on the phone.
She was hysterical crying.
Can she tell me what happened?
Here, please.
Please, come fast for me, please.
I know you're upset, but I can't remember anymore.
When Sheriff Deputy Sarah Jackson arrives on the scene, she is met in the driveway by both women.
I asked who else is in the house, what's going on.
They said somebody broke in and stabbed him, and they give a brief of, you know, hurt inside, males hurt inside.
They're hysterical.
They were able to tell the respondent deputies that there were two kids still in the house.
Police quickly spring into action and start to secure the home.
Myself and two other deputies run into the house, start clearing the house, see what's going on.
Find the male on the floor.
I stay there with him.
There was blood everywhere.
You could clearly see there was a struggle.
It was on the wall, floors.
It's a horrible thing to have happen in your community.
Why?
That's my only question.
Why did this happen?
Born in Brooklyn, New York, Edwin Lee Sinclair Daniels was the third of four children.
Edwin was born in New York, Kings County Hospital,
on October the 26th, 1982.
Eight pounds, two ounces, big boy.
He was my teddy bear.
You always want to hug him, squeeze him.
He's very friendly.
In 1994, at age 12, Edwin's family moved to Florida.
While attending high school in Volusha County, Edwin began a relationship with a fellow student named Lache.
Me and her had a class together in high school, and it just kind of, you know, I like the brother kind of thing, and it kind of went from there.
They were actually dating through the high school time and they ended up getting together.
And of course, you know next thing we knew that Jordan was there.
Edwin and Lachey had their baby boy Jordan in 2002 but the relationship wasn't meant to last.
We thought okay well maybe they'll get married and they'll get into a relationship but you know things just didn't work out in that direction.
He was very committed, he was caring and even at the point when him and Lachey didn't really see eye to eye on many things, he would still go by and make sure Jordan was taken care of.
After the young couple went their separate ways, Edwin remained a devoted father.
Sacrificing his own future for the sake of his son, Edwin opted to forego college and instead turned his lifelong passion for technology into a career.
He went into the technology world, deciding that was going to pay more, do more, and you know, expand his life a little better, so he ended up working at Verizon.
Despite his busy schedule balancing work and family, Edwin still made time for his face.
He would come to church.
He would help out again in the media technology area.
While attending church, Edwin met a woman who would change his life forever, 23-year-old Latoya Woodard.
I believe she was born in Marathon in Key West.
And she went from high school, she went to the Navy, she got married.
Latoya and her first husband raised three boys together, but the marriage ended in divorce.
And she had came out of the military.
She was discharged and not quite sure how or all the particulars about it, but she was coming to church and she would come with her family.
By 2007, Latoya was ready for a fresh start with fellow church member 24-year-old Edwin Daniels.
We're all church-oriented and the older group of kids, you know, the teens would hang out.
And Latoya's brother, which is Jimmy, became roommates with Edwin.
She ended up going over and crashing there.
Next thing I know, they were dating, they were going out.
Latoya and Edwin grew closer over the next nine years.
They were living together first and were not married at first.
They had two kids and two girls.
And then later on, they decided to get married.
After their 2016 wedding, Edwin and Latoya settled into a new home together in Deltona, Florida.
He seemed to be happy, she seemed to be happy.
It was beautiful to see where they were going and what they accomplished.
Edwin was excited to buy his first home.
It was an accomplishment for him.
He lived for his kids.
He worked hard to provide for his kids.
As a father, he was always there.
Whatever is going on, he would make sure that he took off to be there.
The couple also found room in their home for one more important person in Latoya's life.
Crystal Lyde.
Crystal is Latoya's best friend from the military.
From what I understand, they have been friends for several years.
She needed somewhere to stay, and my brother had his beautiful home.
He had an extra bedroom.
I guess she talked to my brother, and it was okay for her to stay there.
And I think she stayed there about three years.
Together, Latoya and Edwin built the life they had always dreamed of.
They would cook together.
Maybe they had good chemistry together.
They were very family-oriented.
Tragically, on April 13th, 2018, Edwin and Latoya's happily ever after is brutally cut short.
It was a very bloody scene.
The victim's clothing was soaked in blood, and there was blood spatter on all of the walls.
For first responder Deputy Sarah Jackson, her concern isn't just for Edwin, but also for the welfare of his children.
My first thought is, where's everybody else at?
What just happened?
The sheriff's office is going through all of the rooms, upstairs and downstairs.
That's how they come across the children and escort them out.
With the children safe and having found no sign of the alleged intruder, paramedics charge into the home.
I didn't see him breathing, but he was a larger gentleman, so it might not necessarily have been easy to see his chest up, you know, rising and lowering.
Medics desperately try to revive the victim, but it's no use.
35-year-old Edwin Daniels is pronounced dead at the scene.
When I am working, it's just quick processing the scene.
What do I see?
I'm looking around at everything.
There was definitely a struggle.
You can tell it was definitely fresh by the color of the blood.
The stuff that just starts going through your head is what happened, who did it.
Coming up, Edwin's brutal final moments are revealed.
There were numerous wounds to his head, neck area.
There was a violent, violent scene.
And detectives hone in on a possible motive.
On April 13th, 2018, authorities in Volusia County, Florida discovered the bloody body of Edwin Daniels in the home that he shared with his wife, Latoya Woodard, their children, and roommate Crystal Lyde.
Police are thinking, oh, it's a stranger who came in.
What would be the motive?
Perhaps a robbery.
Perhaps it was
a money incentive, a property incentive.
As authorities secure the scene, word of the attack reaches Edwin's brother, who is a chaplain with the Volusia Sheriff's Office.
My heart is racing.
I'm pounding, trying to get there.
I'm driving with my daughter.
We get off the exit over in Deltona.
And so you come around the corner, and of course, the bright blindness of the blue and white light lit up the night sky.
I saw the yellow and black crime scene tape, and I knew he had died in the house.
When my son Tony came in in the middle of the night and he told me that my son is dead, I went into shocks, you know.
You just can't believe it.
Tony says, Sally,
Edwin is dead.
My body had no bones.
I just fell to the floor.
As Edwin's family grapples with their loss, detectives arrive on the scene.
The family was on the driveway of the residence.
Latoya, from the first one I saw, was sitting on the ground.
She was crying.
She was showing signs of like hyperventilating.
She was upset.
Latoya seems in no condition to talk to police and is taken to a local hospital to be evaluated, while Crystal Lide is transported to the sheriff's office to be formally interviewed.
By then, Latoya's mother, Terry McQueen, has arrived on the scene.
She stayed with the kids and then the kids ended up going to be interviewed at what we call CPT, which is child protection team.
With all witnesses safely removed from the home, detectives begin processing the grisly crime scene.
There was a lot of blood all over the floors, so we had to be very careful about where we walked.
It was found in the hallway that leads into like the living room and kitchen area.
And you could see how um the drywall had been kicked in, blood everywhere, so it was a violent, violent scene.
As police approach Edwin's body, they find evidence that suggests he was attacked as he entered his home.
The body was laying somewhat facing up
and there was,
if I recall correctly, french fries on the floor,
receipt, and a bag of food.
It suggests that he didn't get very far into the house before he's attacked there.
He He never makes it out of the foyer.
A closer look at Edwin's body reveals the violent nature of the attack.
There was numerous wounds to his head and
area.
His carotid artery was nearly transected.
There was some clothes underneath his foot and next to him, the way he was sprawled out, there was like a Jamaican-style Rastafarian hat.
hat.
We collected it because it was an unknown.
You don't know if it belonged to him or it belonged to somebody else.
I did look at the front door.
There were no signs of forced entry nor onto the back of the residence.
There didn't appear to be anything taken from the home.
In fact, there was a wallet conveniently there with money sticking out and no property
appeared to be taken.
Though detectives find no weapons in the vicinity of Edwin's body, because he was injured with a sharp object, several knives are confiscated from the home, including one found in the kitchen sink.
The knife appeared to be a cheese knife laying in the sink.
That was collected.
It's got a finely serrated blade, and it has two tips or prongs on the end.
With the search of the home completed, police moved to speak to Edwin and Latoya's seven and nine-year-old daughters.
The children both said that night that they did not witness anything.
They went to sleep, they had headphones on.
The next thing they know, they're being woken up by law enforcement.
Police are hopeful that the victim's wife and roommate can provide more detailed information.
Latoya is cleared by the hospital shortly after getting there.
They check her vitals, and everything is fine.
And once she was cleared, she was transported to the Deltona BCSO operational building to be interviewed.
When Latoya first arrives, detectives document her appearance and collect any physical evidence.
Looks like you're getting a little bit of a scrape on your left on the outside.
Her clothing was collected as evidence by
another deputy.
Now dressed in scrubs Latoya sits down with detectives
How's your relationship Danielle?
Been okay
I mean
not normal stuff we fight.
Yeah, we are you
Then the next day we love each other You currently seeing anybody else
No
when police ask Latoya about the events leading up to Edwin's murder, she tells them she spent the morning at work before coming home in the afternoon.
I was tired, and my best friend said she would pick up the girls from school for me.
Edwin, about when he gets off work.
And so she goes upstairs and goes to sleep, and she's waiting for him.
She told us while she was laying there in bed, she had fell asleep, but she did hear a loud bang, which she associated with the garage door being closed.
I was like, oh, you know, he'll come upstairs, so I just laid back down.
At some point, she hasn't still heard from Edwin, so she decides to go downstairs to find Edwin to check on him.
She said she walked around the corner, and that's when she found Edwin there on the floor.
I just tried to hold him, and
I had no piece of breathing, or I was just trying to hold him.
Did he ever say anything to you?
She says that she begins screaming.
Crystal comes in and she asks Crystal, tells Crystal to call 911.
Having heard of Latoya's version of the night's events, police turn to her roommate, Crystal Lyde.
She told us that you had picked him up from school yesterday.
I did.
She told us about that day, how she had picked up the kids around 5.30 because Latoya asked her to.
She said when she got home, Latoya was not home at that time.
This is different because Latoya had told law enforcement, Latoya gets home and she's waiting for the children.
She's waiting for Crystal.
That was inconsistent.
According to Crystal, Latoya returned home around 7 p.m.
At that point, Crystal left the house.
She left and went to Walmart and came back.
I was going upstairs and going to take myself to my barroom.
And then when I was coming back down, she was like, call 911.
And I'm like, what's going on?
Crystal tells detectives that Latoya could barely answer her question.
She was like, oh, my God, oh, my God.
You know, he's waiting, he's waiting.
I was like, who's waiting at?
And then I saw the blue and I backed up.
I was like, whoa.
Police find Crystal's story plausible, but it still needs to be confirmed.
We had to get the full story from Crystal.
When we played the 911 call for her, she started to change her story.
Coming up, detectives turn up the heat on Crystal.
So were they arguing with us?
It was a little bit, but not, you know, I don't know.
And a shocking tip turns this investigation on its head.
My sister spun that on me.
You know, she got a boyfriend.
I'm like, whoa, she got a boyfriend.
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Florida police investigating the murder of 35-year-old Edwin Daniels have just caught an inconsistency in the statements from his wife Latoya and their roommate Crystal Lyd.
Latoya had already told us that she arrived home before Crystal and the kids, but Crystal's now saying the opposite.
So it's showing that someone is not being truthful.
In an effort to verify her account of the night's events, investigators return to Crystal's 911 call and scrutinize it for inconsistencies.
Tell me what happened.
I don't know exactly what happened.
I heard like a whole bunch of shouting and everything like that.
Later in the call, the 911 operator operator attempts to have Crystal clarify the disturbance she purportedly heard in the home.
Okay.
And you said you heard a commotion?
No,
I thought I heard something and then I left and went to Walmart.
And then when I came back, you know.
And then that's when we learn, hey, wait a minute.
Crystal has said to the 911 operator that she heard Latoya and edwin arguing and she then leaves to walmart comes back 15 20 minutes later and now edwin has been murdered and latoya is there upset covered in blood detectives are convinced that crystal is holding back key details surrounding edwin's death what remains unclear is if she's covering up for herself or for someone else
she clearly stated that she heard some sort of commotion so then at that point, we believe she may have seen what occurred.
Now, detectives turn back to Crystal and confront her with the conflicting statements.
The detectives, they get their 911 call
recording, and they enter, they go back into the room and they play that recording for her.
I heard like a whole bunch of shout outs and everything like that.
So now she can hear herself saying these things.
And then that's when she admitted, yes, Edwin's car was there when I left.
Were they arguing when he left?
It was a little bit, but not, you know, I don't know.
I just didn't want to go around.
Again, this goes to the fact that the victim's wife, Latoya, said she never saw Edwin and...
didn't have an argument with him and did not see him until she came downstairs and found him.
Crystal insists to detectives that it wasn't until she returned from shopping that she discovered something was wrong.
Crystal, she's got her bag of groceries from Walmart and she goes upstairs, she said, and took off her shoes, her slip-on shoes, they were at the bed and put her groceries down and then came down to check on Latoya.
And then that's when Latoya is saying, call 911, call 911.
After Crystal tells us more details about the argument, to this point, all the evidence leads to Latoya Woodard.
We ended up going back to confront Latoya about this information.
They asked her, hey, Crystal says that she heard you arguing.
And Latoya just said, Crystal's a liar.
Crystal's lying.
She was very defensive.
And we didn't stay with her very long at that point.
So once we finished with her there, she was free to leave.
She left with Crystal.
They both left.
They had to get enough evidence to convince me, hey, it's time to arrest.
Uncertain which of the two women are telling the truth, investigators attempt to verify Crystal's story.
Crystal lied, told the police that she went to Walmart.
So the police follow that up.
They go to Walmart.
I viewed the security footage.
And we are able to verify she was at Walmart from the time of 946 to 954.
We established her alibi.
Detectives are also able to confirm Crystal's story about returning from her shopping trip and going upstairs.
Her shoes were found.
There were shoes found by the bed, and there was also a Walmart bag there and items from Walmart that were found on the bed.
Law enforcement was able to corroborate that the time on her Walmart receipt was consistent with the Walmart video.
After Crystal is ruled out, detectives turn to Edwin's autopsy report for answers.
The 16th of April, the autopsy was performed.
We learned from that that he had 34 stab wounds.
He had stab wounds in his head, in his face, in his tongue, in his esophagus, his hands, his abdomen.
So he was brutally, brutally stabbed.
He had a depressed skull fracture.
The degree of violence leads investigators to one conclusion.
Why keep stabbing after 5, 10, 15, 20 times?
So certainly it makes you think, hey, this is someone who had a lot of anger, a lot of animosity toward Edwin.
No property appeared to be taken and no prime marks.
So all of those things are making you think it wasn't the stranger.
On April 18th, 2018, five days days into the investigation, the case takes a shocking turn when two of Latoya's family friends step forward with an explosive allegation.
After this incident happened, you know, I couldn't really sleep.
And I felt like something was wrong.
Her and my sister was pretty close.
So when my sister sprung it on me, you know she got a boyfriend.
I'm like, whoa, she got a boyfriend.
We actually learned that Latoya had a boyfriend.
His name was Alan Roberson.
So this is the first time law enforcement's hearing, does she have a boyfriend?
Which, remember, Latoya told the police she did not have a boyfriend.
Investigators are also stunned when Latoya's friend mentions the hat found under Edwin's body.
She said it was a hat that was under Edwin's body.
She didn't say it's if it was Alan's hat or a hat that Alan gave her.
It was a hat that Alan gave her.
Okay.
So, and maybe that kind of scared her because maybe she might think it was him that did it, or I don't know.
Law enforcement, they haven't released that they have located this hat under Edwin's body, so that was significant.
And not only that, but that she was scared that it was connected to her boyfriend.
It was time to go talk to him at that point.
We needed to locate Alan and figure out who he was, where he was, and see if he knew anything.
Police are able to determine that 26-year-old Alan Roberson works for the same local sandwich chain as Latoya.
When they reach out to his employer, they learn from his manager that on the day of the murder, Alan was not himself.
He was working at his store on the day of the murder, and at some point at about noon, he was having a meltdown.
We didn't know the reason why, but the manager said Alan did have a meltdown.
As detectives examine the timesheets from the day of the murder, they discover something peculiar.
Latoya had gone from her place of employment, logged off at one, and then went over to where Alan worked and worked there for another 15 minutes.
So she had been with him that afternoon.
And that's different from what she had told the police, which was right after work, I go home and I'm with my children, waiting for my husband.
When authorities finally get their chance to question Alan directly, he is anything but cooperative.
We pulled him aside because he was working.
We told him why we were there, that we want to talk with him, but he told us that he wasn't going to talk with us unless he had an attorney present.
When detectives return days later, they find Alan's attitude hasn't improved.
He said he wouldn't talk to me unless I ordered food.
So another time I went back, I ordered a a sandwich.
I tried talking to him while he was making my food, and he wouldn't talk to me.
He would just ignore me, make my sandwich, and he'd go stand off into the back room.
I probably went four, five, six times try to talk to him.
We're trying to find out who did it, but he would not cooperate.
It's another red flag.
Why is he trying to protect her?
Coming up, the chilling details of Edwin's attack come into focus.
He's caught off guard.
It's hard to defend yourself against a knife.
And a cold-blooded motive rises to the surface.
I knew they had money issues, and so it could have definitely been financial.
Five days after Edwin Daniels was found brutally stabbed to death inside his Deltona, Florida home, Investigators discovered that Edwin's wife, Latoya Woodard, had been hiding a secret affair.
It was significant that she's not telling us that right at the time of the murder she was seeing someone.
She's hiding that from us.
Why would she do that?
Is it because she's worried that he did it and could get in trouble?
Is she worried that we're going to now find out the motive?
With Latoya's 26-year-old lover, Alan Roberson, refusing to cooperate with law enforcement, detectives work to build their case against Latoya with the evidence they have on hand.
The crime scene, Detective Pete Bethet, he was going over all of the photographs of the clothing.
He notices that the victim's clothing appears to have these kind of unique circle stab wounds, kind of like a pattern, you know, through the shirt.
While examining the clothes, Detective Bethay makes a significant finding.
The hole pattern on the shirt appears to match the cheese knife retrieved from Latoya's kitchen.
The exact measurements from the distance between the two prongs on the knife, the hole marks on his shirt.
He was able to notice the correlation from the knife in the holes.
That made me start thinking that that knife was...
the one that was used.
And I believe the medical examiner's office was also notified of the possibility of that being the
murder weapon.
Investigators also re-examine photos taken of the injury to Latoya's knee.
When I was going over those photos, I saw the injury just above the knee and what appeared to be consistency between that injury and the cheese knife that was collected from the sample.
When Detective Bethay takes a closer look at the clothes Latoya wore the night of the murder, he notices something else.
I observed blood on her shirt,
and we reached out to Leroy Parker, who is an expert
in blood spatter analysis.
He agreed that the person wearing the shirt had to be in the vicinity at the time that the incident occurred.
For investigators, it's even more proof that Latoya's lies have finally caught up with her.
It's confirmed that the blood on Latoya's shirt is in fact Edwin's blood.
This definitely shows that she was with Edwin
when he was being murdered,
not upstairs asleep in bed as she claims.
Based on the evidence, Police believe that when Edwin arrived home with the food requested by his wife, he was ambushed.
Latoya and Edwin's physical stature is not much different, so it would have been easy for her to overpower him if he's coming in the door and not expecting this to happen.
He was obviously attacked in a hallway.
Whether he was coming or going out of that hallway,
I would think that he was probably coming in because, you know, the food nearby.
He certainly did fight, but he's caught off guard.
It's by someone he loves who's armed with a knife.
It's hard to defend yourself against a knife.
Believing the motive for the murder revolves around the affair between Latoya and Alan, detectives acquire the couple's phone records.
Between April 1st and the 14th, there was 91 contacts between the two of them, which is way more than Latoya had contact with her own husband.
on her phone.
We also learned that Latoya and Alan, they texted a lot and every day.
We learned that Latoya would call him, call him as in Alan, her king,
and Alan would call her his goddess.
They would tell each other they loved each other.
There was talk about a pregnancy and a miscarriage.
Never any discussion of that in the text messages with her husband.
But there is discussion where she's texting Alan Roberson saying, I feel like a failure as a woman,
talking about her miscarriage.
So it was clearly a serious relationship.
While the affair provides a clear reason for the crime, police also consider a second possible motive.
Edwin, he had a $100,000 prudential life insurance.
He had it through his work, and Latoya tried to claim it relatively soon after Edwin was murdered.
I can only speculate, and this is my personal opinion.
I knew they had money issues, and so it could have definitely been financial or money issues.
With this information in hand, detectives try once again to get Alan Roberson to talk.
I have the power of subpoena at the state attorney's office as part of an investigation.
I can compel people to come in.
However, in order to compel you to come in, I have to give you immunity because you might incriminate yourself.
We're now in September of 2018 and Alan does show up as compelled by the court.
And at that time,
he agrees that he will cooperate and be interviewed by myself and the detectives.
I explain to him he has immunity.
Anything he tells me can't be used against him, that he has to
testify.
Coming up.
Alan finally shares his side of the story with investigators.
We confront him with those text messages, and he doesn't remember.
He minimizes it.
It was like a friend with benefits.
That was off and on.
And Edwin's family learns the shocking cruelty of a homemaker-turned homewrecker.
We had no idea the severity of the trauma that he took.
We just broke down and cried.
People we didn't even know in there was crying with us.
After months of trying to get Latoya Woodard's lover, Alan Roberson, to cooperate in the murder investigation of Edwin Daniels, a subpoena has finally compelled him to meet with police on September 6th, 2018.
We then talked to him, and he was
less than truthful, we'll say.
So let's try to go back to April if you can remember what you had going on in your life back then.
I can't really recall that far back.
I mean, it's really only, what, five months, six months?
It's a long time to meet.
Through the interview, we asked him a lot of questions, and a majority of his answers were, I don't remember.
He also denied his relationship as Sirius
with a Latuya.
Tell me about that.
When did that happen?
Friends with benefits, that was off and on.
Of course, we had all of his text messages, which tell a very different story.
And so we confront him with those text messages, and he doesn't remember.
He minimizes it.
Latoya never talked to you about her husband's death.
Not that I can recall.
So we have a lady who you were in a relationship with.
Husband is murdered.
And she never once tells you that he was murdered.
I'm having a hard time remembering.
Almost every question he doesn't remember.
It was clear to all of us that he was trying to protect her.
When police ask Alan where he was the night of the murder, he claims he was home with his mother and sister.
You went to work, you went home, and you believe you stayed home the rest of the night.
Murdered.
After the interview, authorities are able to confirm Alan's alibi.
They talked to his family, and his phone records and his Google records show that his phone was being used and active.
And we're talking in the timeframe of the murder at home.
It was all leading us to realize here's a motive.
She was having an affair with somebody that she was deeply in love with and wanted to continue a relationship with, as well as there was the life insurance policy.
So that may have factored in as well.
Unable to place Alan at the scene, police are now confident enough in their case against Latoya to issue a warrant for her arrest for the murder of Edwin Daniels on November 15th, 2018.
She was arrested at an apartment complex in Port Orange, Florida, where her mom, Terry McQueen, was living now.
She had moved at this point.
So she was taken down there in the parking lot.
It was an amazing day that day.
The investigators that's working on the case gave us a call that she was apprehended and arrested for second-degree murder of Edwin.
So we were overjoyed.
On February 4th, 2020, Edwin's family piles into a Delande, Florida courtroom for the first day of Latoya's murder trial.
There were a lot of people who loved and still love Edwin, so they were actually coming to every single court date.
I had generally like 10 to 15 family members coming to every court date.
Prosecutors contend Latoya killed her husband for his life insurance policy and to be with her boyfriend, Alan Roberson.
19 witnesses testify and everything went smooth.
I presented all of the evidence of their relationship before, but also their relationship after the murder.
She's having contact still with Alan Roberson.
Through phone calls and through jail messages, she was still in a relationship with him.
Through graphic photos from the murder scene and the autopsy report, prosecutors point out the enormously violent nature of the crime.
We had no idea the severity of the trauma that was, you know, that he, that he took.
To see your loved one, you know, cut from one place to the next place to see his skin you know out of his arm or out of his neck um you know to see his eyes like that um
it's it's
it's sickening i couldn't stay inside yet to see those pictures with my son may get stabbed on all that blood i had to be in a different room
When Latoya's attorneys present their defense, they do their best to shift the blame.
The defense's argument was that Latoya didn't do it
and maybe Alan Roberson did it.
But prosecutors tell the jury the evidence shows that Alan was in his home at the time of Edwin's murder.
This idea that Alan did it and she had no idea about it just didn't make any sense.
Obviously, because of the cell phone information and his family, but also because why would she continue this relationship if unwittingly and unknowingly he murdered her husband?
On February 7th, 2020, the jury retires to determine Latoya's fate.
The judge read the jurors the law, and then they went and deliberated.
They found her guilty as charged, and that was second-degree murder.
Latoya Woodard had her sentencing, and the judge sentenced her to life in prison.
We just broke down and cry.
People we didn't even know in there was crying with us.
We were relieved, really very thankful and grateful that justice was served.
While Edwin's family receives the verdict they hoped for, it does little to soothe the pain caused by Latoya's actions.
Oh my god, she took your heart away.
Leap you.
She did.
Knowing that you raised your child from a baby and for somebody to slaughter your child like that is not easy.
She took everything out of me.
We still grieving for him because I'd rather not sit here and do this with you.
I'd rather have him next to me.
One of my reasons for doing this and wanting to do this is to help other families.
If your relationship is in trouble, seek some help.
Get somebody to talk to.
Talk to them about because little things become big things that become complex things that can really destroy families and lives forever.
Alan Robertson has never been charged in connection with Edwin Daniels' murder.
Latoya Woodard is currently incarcerated in the Florida Department of Corrections.
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