Suicide Notes Found In Cell Prosecutors Will Release Synopsis Of Murder Case Against Wood

Notes to his attorney and family members were found in Robert Wood’s cell after the accused child murderer committed suicide on Monday, but officials won’t say whether they contain a confession.

“I won’t speak to the content of the letters until we have an opportunity to talk to the people they were addressed to,” sheriff’s Capt. John Simmons said Tuesday.

However, Wood clearly was contemplating suicide when he wrote the notes, Simmons said.

News of the notes outraged Wood’s public defender, Scott Mason, who learned of their existence from a reporter on Tuesday.

“No one’s told me about any note. If he wrote a note, I deserve to see it,” Mason said.

“If he was alive, it would have been a confidential communication and they couldn’t have looked at it. I’m not sure they should be able to look at it now. It is still a confidential communication to me,” he said.

Wood was found shortly after 11 a.m. Monday. He was hanging from a cable tied to bars over an air vent on the wall of his cell. The vent is roughly eight feet off the concrete floor of the cell.

Where Wood got the cable - commonly used as TV cable - still is under investigation, Simmons said. There was no TV set in Wood’s cell.

Wood was not on a suicide watch. The morning he killed himself, he had an opportunity to exercise with the other prisoners in his group. He declined and stayed in his cell. A prisoner found him when the group returned about an hour later. Paramedics tried to revive him.

Wood had been in jail since the body of his 11-year-old son, Christopher, was found dumped in the snow by a road in northern Spokane County on Feb. 11.

Two days earlier, Wood’s home on Blue Skies Lane was destroyed by fire. At the time, Wood blamed the blaze on his son. Prosecutors later charged that Wood strangled his son, set fire to a couch, then dumped the body.

In deep financial trouble, Wood was the beneficiary of a $50,000 life insurance policy on Christopher.

Wood left a file folder containing the insurance policies on Christopher at a neighbor’s house where he stayed after the fire. All of Wood’s other files were damaged in the blaze.

In March, Wood pleaded not guilty to the charges of arson and murder. He claimed innocence during a television interview.

The Spokane County prosecutor’s office believes it had enough evidence to convict Wood of murder and is preparing a synopsis of its case for the public, county Prosecutor Steve Tucker said.

Work has already begun on that synopsis, which is expected to be finished in one or two weeks. The prosecutor and Spokane County Sheriff Mark Sterk want the public to see the evidence against Wood.

Wood’s half-brother, Don Birch of Colville, and many of Woods neighbors want to see the evidence as well, as a way to bring some closure to the death of Christopher Wood.