Photo: Image of suspect Antoine Nehme| Ventura County Sheriff’s Office
The long arm of the law proved once again just how long that arm can reach late on the afternoon of May 14, 2024 when detectives attached to the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department Major Crimes Bureau Cold Case Unit, working in conjunction with deputies assigned to the Moorpark Police Department served an arrest warrant on a 72-year-old Victorville, Ca. resident.
According to VCSD spokesman Sgt. Albert Ramirez, the subject of that arrest warrant was Antoine Nehme, whose identity had been unknown to law enforcement for more than 20 years as they doggedly investigated the April 16, 2004 murder of 71-year-old Moorpark resident Dennis Leroy Wood. It was at approximately 5:30 p.m. on that date when deputies responded to Wood’s home “in reference to a check the well-being call.”
Upon entering Woods’ home, deputies discovered him deceased as he “had been shot and was the apparent victim of a homicide.” The immediately ensuing investigation failed to determine a suspect in the killing and, ultimately, “the case became cold.”
As nature abhors a vacuum, so too do homicide investigators never stop working to bring killer to justice, and as the VCSD Cold Case Unit detectives “periodically reviewed” the killing of Woods, they eventually “uncovered evidence” and identified Nehme “as a potential suspect” which lead to the issuance of the arrest warrant bearing his name.
Nehme was contacted on May 14th and taken into custody, whereupon he was transported to Ventura County Jail to face a charge of murder, with his bail set at $2,000,000.
