Alteria Woods

Alteria Woods, 21, a pharmacy technician, was shot 10 times and killed while lying in bed when three Indian River County, Florida SWAT officers fired into the bedroom during a pre-dawn drug raid on March 19, 2017. The raid targeted her boyfriend's father; a gunfight broke out between her boyfriend, Andrew Coffee IV, and the officers after Coffee said he did not know they were law enforcement. A grand jury exonerated all three officers who fired — finding no probable cause to indict any of them — and instead indicted Coffee himself for Woods's murder, under a legal theory that his actions had caused the deadly police response. A jury acquitted Coffee of murder and every violent charge against him in 2021, convicting him only of a firearm-possession charge unrelated to the shooting itself. No one has ever been convicted of killing Alteria Woods.

Gifford, FL · Indian River County

• 2017: Case opens — victim reported missing or found.
• Documented milestones (renewed investigation, media coverage, family advocacy) to be added as sourced.
• Present: case remains unresolved. No named suspect has been convicted.

• The raid, the gunfight, and the shooting of Woods while she lay in bed, per Indian River County Sheriff's Office statements and subsequent criminal and civil proceedings.
• The three officers who fired — Sergeant Patrick White, Detective Christopher Reeve, and Officer Richard Sarcinello — were identified publicly, placed on brief administrative leave, and returned to duty before the grand jury even convened.
• A grand jury in July 2017 found no probable cause to indict any of the three officers, while separately indicting Coffee for second-degree murder of Woods, three counts of attempted murder of a law enforcement officer, and other charges, on the theory that his gunfire caused the deputies' fatal response.
• A jury acquitted Coffee of murder and all violent charges in November 2021 after roughly 11 hours of deliberation, finding he acted in self-defense; the same jury convicted him only of possessing a firearm as a convicted felon, for which he was later sentenced to 10 years.
• Woods's mother, Yolanda Woods, has said she still wants law enforcement held accountable for her daughter's death and has pursued a separate federal civil lawsuit against the sheriff's office alleging the raid was botched.
• The Indian River County Sheriff's Office maintained after Coffee's acquittal that Woods's death was a direct result of his actions, not the officers'.

• Whether the deputies fired first, as Coffee and his family maintained, or whether Coffee fired first, as the sheriff's office maintained, was disputed at trial and left unresolved even after Coffee's acquittal, since the jury's self-defense finding did not require it to determine who fired first.
• Whether any of the three officers' specific shots were the ones that struck Woods, as opposed to a specific accounting of each officer's individual fire, has not been made public in available reporting.
• Why the grand jury found no probable cause to indict any of the three officers who fired into an occupied bedroom has not been explained beyond the prosecutor's brief public summary, since grand jury proceedings are sealed.

• CBS12 — “Grand jury exonerates law enforcement in Alteria Woods shooting; charge boyfriend”
• WPTV — “Alteria Woods: Man charged for murder of woman during SWAT raid found not guilty; mother supports jury's decision”
• Vero News — “Grand jury exonerates officers in drug raid, charges Andrew Coffee IV with murder”
• Project Cold Case
• Murder Accountability Project
• NamUs