SANTA CRUZ — A 55-year-old former state hospital psychiatric patient is facing a 15-year prison term as part of a plea deal confirmed Wednesday.
After extended mental health treatment, Steve Wooding was found competent in August to face charges in a 2018 attempted murder case. Ahead of a potential trial, Wooding pleaded no contest to attempted murder, two counts of assault with great bodily injury and possessing a knife on a college campus before Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Denine Guy.
According to details of the case laid out in this week’s hearing, Wooding, unprovoked, approached a 19-year-old Cabrillo College student seated in a busy cafeteria and stabbed her in the back on Oct. 31, 2018. The student, pursued by Wooding, fled the cafeteria to a grassy area outside before students and at least one teacher assisted in pinning Wooding to the ground, according to Sentinel reports at the time. Student witnesses sharing their perspectives were not sure if the unfolding incident was a Halloween prank or a school shooting.
Before the assault, Wooding sent the Sentinel more than 100 emails and nearly 50 voicemails with nonspecific threats of his plans to commit an offense, communications which were forwarded to authorities at the time.
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Wooding’s violent history with Cabrillo College dates back to 1994, when he clubbed a Cabrillo psychology instructor in the face with a wooden ax handle in his classroom. Wooding, who last attended Cabrillo as a student in 1992 and was 25 years old at the time, squirted a caustic liquid into the faces of students who attempted to restrain him and clubbed another in the head, according to Sentinel reports.
Wooding’s criminal proceedings in that case were suspended when he was found incompetent to stand trial and was remanded to the custody of the Department of State Hospitals through 1999.
Similarly, in February 2019, Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Paul Burdick found Wooding mentally incompetent to stand trial for the 2018 stabbing and ordered him back to State Hospitals.
Wooding is scheduled for sentencing at 9 a.m., Oct. 9.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article should have stated that Wooding’s sentencing remains pending.
