A Long Island truck driver was found guilty of killing his girlfriend inside the cab of his truck outside a Patchogue motel, officials said Wednesday.

Willie Hart, 61, of Yaphank, was convicted of second-degree murder in the May 2023 killing of 37-year-old Candace Woodruff of Texas, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.

The long-haul trucker called police in the early hours of May 29, 2023, saying he had found Woodruff unresponsive on the floor of his tractor cab parked outside the Shore Motor Inn in Patchogue.

Responding officers 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

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