On Thursday, he protested his innocence at his arraignment in Haverford Township. In interviews, family members vowed that he was home at the time of the crash. They volunteered to take lie-detector tests. They even offered a plausible explanation of how Woods' palm print and fingerprint ended up on the stolen SUV involved in the fatal crash.
In the end, they were right. Haverford police, in another news conference after another perp walk, acknowledged as much when they said Woods was free to go home.
Back on Aspen Street in West Philadelphia, Woods was again the center of attention, this time under far happier circumstances. A day earlier, his mother, Terry Cotton Woods, had described how her son had been thrown to the ground by police and had pleaded, "Can you tell me what's going on? Can you tell me what I did?"
Now she was hugging Woods. His fiancée was there, as was his 4-year-old son, Za'khi. His godfather, Robert Herdelin, had picked him up from jail Friday and the two had stopped to buy a birthday cake and balloon for Woods' fiancée, Victoria Walton. She is expecting their first child in March. "I haven't really been to sleep," Terry Cotton Woods said.
The arrest cost Woods his job at a McDonald's restaurant, which he had started on the same day as his arrest. He said he planned to ask for it back.
Woods said that he barely knew Donnie Sayers, who was arrested Thursday night on murder charges in the crash. Police said Sayers, 28, was driving a stolen SUV when he rear-ended the car driven by Daniel Giletta, 21. Giletta's roommate at Villanova, Frank "Patrick" DiChiara, 21, was still listed in critical condition Friday.
