SANTA CRUZ — The Santa Cruz County District Attorney’s Office has added murder to a series of charges filed against a woman whose child died of a potential drug poisoning last week.
Santa Cruz police arrested Korisa Woll, 38, after she arrived at a local hospital July 28 with her dead 18-month-old daughter, referred to in court documents as “Baby Z.” The District Attorney’s Office initially filed charges including two counts of child abuse and destroying evidence. Woll, who remained held without bail at the Santa Cruz County Jail, appeared in court for her arraignment Wednesday, a hearing that was then delayed until Aug. 29 in light of the new charge.
Family and friends of the baby gathered for the short hearing before Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Nancy de la Peña. Outside the courtroom, Cher’ie Lynn Brown said her son Curtis Tillman, Baby Z’s father, had died of a drug overdose on April 4. Baby Z, said Brown, “was our life.” The family, including Tillman, Woll, Baby Z and additional children, had moved back to Santa Cruz from Tennessee in 2023, Brown said.
“We love Korisa very very much. This is just a tragic,” Brown said before she choked up with emotion.
Brown said she and longtime family friend Carol Halpin had sought to alert Santa Cruz authorities to what they described as abusive and neglectful conditions in Tillman and Woll’s household.
“The family was staying with me January and February, off and on, and I alerted authorities to possible abuse and neglect and asked them to investigate so that the parents, Curtis and Korisa, could have help to take care of the children properly, because they were struggling way back in January and February,” Halpin said.
Per state law, Children Protective Services agencies are not allowed to disclose information on whether a case has been opened nor any case-specific details for anything involving a child, Santa Cruz County Human Services Department spokesperson Adam Spickler said Wednesday.
According to court documents, however, Tillman was charged at the end of March with four felony counts of corporal injury to a child, three felony counts of assault likely to cause great bodily injury, one misdemeanor count of assault likely to cause great bodily injury and felony ammunition possession. On the day of his death, Tillman pleaded not guilty to charges and was released from custody, pending future court dates, according to filings.
In the months before Baby Z’s death, Woll was living with her parents in Scotts Valley, until several weeks earlier, Assistant District Attorney Krystal Salcido said during a court hearing requesting a protective order keeping Woll and her other children apart last week. Immediately prior to Baby Z’s death, Woll was at Casa Azul, a renovated Victorian home divided into several apartments and operated by Housing Matters on nearby Coral Street, according to information from Salcido and Housing Matters Executive Director Phil Kramer.
Asked Wednesday about community concerns related to drug use in and around Casa Azul, Kramer said that he was in the process of seeking a city historic building permit that would allow for the installation of a taller wrought iron fence around the apartment building to keep out trespassers. Tenants’ leases also include a prohibition on any criminal behavior, meaning illegal activity would be grounds for eviction.
“The Casa Azul property presents some real challenges in terms of operating the property knowing that there’s a real congregation of people in the area,” Kramer said of a long-time homeless encampment and related drug use that proliferated until recently along Coral Street. “We’re trying to provide a safe environment to meet the needs of the tenants who have asked us to help support a safe environment for them.”
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to clarify Woll’s whereabouts prior to her child’s death.
