Murder of Kacie Woody

Kacie Rene Woody (born October 17, 1989) was a middle school student living in Holland, Arkansas, with her father and brother. Her mother had died in a car accident in 1997. Woody used Yahoo! Messenger to keep in touch with friends and, in a Christian teen chat room, began communicating with a user identified as "jazzman_df," who claimed to be a 17-year-old named Dave Fagen from San Diego. The user was in fact David Leslie Fuller, a 47-year-old man from La Mesa, California, who used a photo of a young man to disguise his identity. Fuller and Woody communicated frequently over months, including by phone, and Fuller invented a story about a dying "aunt" in Arkansas to build a rationale for eventually traveling to the state.

On the evening of December 3, 2002, Woody was home alone in Holland while instant messaging another online contact, a boy named "Scott" who was later confirmed to be a genuine teenager in Georgia and was cleared of involvement. Her messages to Scott abruptly stopped at 9:41 p.m. When family members returned home later that night, they found signs of disturbance, including her broken reading glasses, and notified police. A large-scale search involving the FBI, Arkansas State Police, and Faulkner County law enforcement followed, including a Morgan Nick Alert.

Investigators traced a rental car and hotel records to David Fuller, who had checked into a Conway motel and whose phone number matched calls placed to the Woody household. Fuller's motel room contained an unused bed, a packed suitcase, camouflage clothing, and rubber gloves. Records showed he had recently rented a storage unit in Conway.

On December 4, 2002, Conway Police Sgt. Jim Barrett and FBI agents located Fuller's storage unit, where a silver rental minivan was parked with its engine running. As officers approached, a single gunshot was heard from inside. After a standoff and the arrival of a SWAT team, officers entered and found Fuller dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Woody's body was found in the back of the minivan, restrained by chains, with a bottle of chloroform and a rag nearby. She had been raped and shot.

A subsequent FBI investigation of Fuller's apartment found photographs and personal information about Woody and her friends, and established that he had made similar, unsuccessful online grooming attempts toward at least three other girls beginning in 2000. Records also showed Fuller had made two earlier trips to Arkansas in the fall of 2002 and had purchased restraints, tape, and chloroform-related supplies before the abduction. Fuller had a prior arrest for indecent exposure and had been investigated, without substantiation, over an allegation involving his daughter.

Following her death, Woody's family and friends established the Kacie Woody Foundation to promote internet safety education, and her story was later used in FBI internet-safety training materials as well as in journalistic and documentary accounts of the case.