POCATELLO — A former local judge missing for two days was found dead on South Putnam Mountain east of Pocatello on Tuesday.
Retired 6th District Judge William Woodland, 84, was found following an extensive search involving nearly a dozen law enforcement agencies and first responder groups across Southeast Idaho.
Woodland’s family reported him missing Sunday evening, Dec. 7. He was last seen that afternoon wearing a blue suit jacket, tan slacks and cowboy boots, driving a red 2013 Lexus GS, according to Idaho State Police.
Detectives and deputies with the Bannock County Sheriff’s Office located Woodland’s body Tuesday after receiving a tip from a community member, according to a Bannock County news release. His family has been notified.
“I want to extend the deepest condolences of the entire Bannock County Sheriff’s Office to the Woodland family,” Sheriff Tony Manu said in a statement. “Judge Woodland was a pillar of our community and the justice system.”
During the search, Woodland’s cellphone last pinged near Lone Pine Road and Gay Mine Road near Fort Hall, state police said.
Woodland was a graduate of the University of Utah S.J. Quinney College of Law, according to the Idaho State Bar, which recognized him for reaching a 50-year milestone in July 2023.
He served as a magistrate judge in Bannock County from July 1978 until January 1983 when he became a district judge. Woodland served as a district judge for more than 20 years before retiring in August 2003, at which point he continued to serve the county as a senior judge until January 2022.
Former Bannock County Sheriff Lorin Nielsen, who became deputy sheriff the same year Woodland assumed the bench in 1978, described Woodland as “very approachable and very professional.”
“He was engaged with each of his cases and just an all-around good person,” Nielsen said. “I served with him for many years, and he was a good friend. He knew what he was doing and was very fair — a no-nonsense judge but very fair and very professional.”
A friend and member of Woodland’s ward with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Francine Morris, described Woodland as someone with a quiet strength about him.
“He was the father of seven great kids, and I don’t know how many grandkids, but he was miraculous and marvelous,” she said. “He lost his wife five years ago, and it’s been hard and sad for him since. He and I would sit together every Sunday at church, and I would pick him up all the time and take him to lunch. We would go to the temple together, we would go on field trips, and he would just show me around everywhere he’d grown up.”
Morris described Woodland as her second dad.
“There’s no biological relation, but he would call me his other daughter and he was my other dad,” she said. “My dad is an attorney, and so he’s always been friends with (Woodland). When we moved into the Pocatello Creek Ward 23 years ago, he was in this ward, and so he and I just developed our own friendship and relationship over the years.”
Morris said Woodland had been her family friend for years.
“He just had a quiet strength. He’s steady, he’s solid, and he knows how to laugh,” she said. “He loved his wife and his family more than anything. That would be his greatest joy and accomplishment — his wife and kids and grandkids that mattered more to him than anything.”
The search effort involved Bannock County Search & Rescue, Idaho State Police, Portneuf Air Rescue, Pocatello Police, Fort Hall Police, Fort Hall Fish & Game, and sheriff’s offices from Bingham, Twin Falls, Butte, Power and Caribou counties.
The Sheriff’s Office thanked community members who provided information and the agencies that assisted in the search operation.