Early Morning Murder - Odessa
By: Jay Plyburn
Updated: November 16, 2010
ODESSA -- An Odessa man is behind bars, charged with first degree murder. Now we're finding out it all started with a fight at a local bar.
At first, Odessa police thought it was just a traffic accident, but then they realized that the man inside the vehicle had been stabbed to death. It was quickly turned over to the Ector County Sheriff's Office. Now one man is dead, and one man could be facing life in prison.
"We received a call early [Tuesday] morning from OPD. They had an accident at 16th and West County Road. Upon arrival they found one of the passengers in the that vehicle had been cut," Ector County Sheriff Mark Donaldson said.
That passenger was Brian Allen Dillion. His throat had been slashed open. He was taken to Medical Center Hospital, but was dead on arrival. That's when the other people from the car were questioned.
"They said they were following to go to a place and this guy jumped out of his vehicle, walked over there and cut the victim. They then drove off trying to get him taken to the hospital and they had the accident," Donaldson said.
Clifford Paul Woods, the man that's now behind bars, tells a different story. He said there had been an altercation at a bar on FM 1936, and when he left...he was followed.
"And felt like they were following him to cause more trouble. So he went to them. He stopped and got out of his vehicle, went over there with a knife to scare them off," Donaldson said.
But deputies say he did more than scare them off. And once the damage was done, Dillion's friends gave the deputies a description of the vehicle and the search began.
"We located a vehicle that fit that. Investigators went out there and contacted the subject and he stated that he was in an altercation earlier, brought him down here, talked to him, and he's been filed on for murder," Donaldson said.
Woods is being held in the Ector County Detention Center and he could spend the rest of his life behind bars. Donaldson said that every investigation, especially a murder investigation, requires a little bit of luck and a little bit of hard work. The end result: the Ector County Sheriff's Department had both working in their favor on Tuesday.
