A Long Island truck driver was sentenced on Wednesday to 22 years to life for murdering his girlfriend in the cab of his truck outside a Patchogue motel in May 2023.

Willie Hart, 61, of Yaphank, called police in the early hours of May 29 claiming he had found his girlfriend, 37-year-old Candace Woodruff, unresponsive on the floor of his tractor cab parked near the Shore Motor Inn in Patchogue.

Suffolk County police found the victim on the ground in front of the truck, not breathing, and noted scratches on Hart’s face that were “actively bleeding,” prosecutors said.

Emergency personnel also observed injuries to Woodruff’s body, including abrasions to her face and neck, soft-tissue hemorrhaging, head and neck contusions, and bruises to her arms and legs. She was taken to Long Island C

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