Authorities say the couple’s two children were inside the house, and the victim had filed for divorce months earlier.
SANBORN, N.Y. — A Buffalo police officer was charged with second-degree murder after authorities said his wife was fatally shot inside the family’s Niagara County home on Feb. 14, while the couple’s two children were in the house and relatives were trying to reach her.
Investigators say the case quickly grew beyond a local homicide inquiry because the suspect, Lance Woods, 53, is an active Buffalo police officer. New York Attorney General Letitia James announced that Woods was arraigned Feb. 15 and ordered held in custody. Buffalo police later said Woods was suspended without pay, while the department opened an internal review into how officers and supervisors handled calls from the victim’s family and their contact with Woods before his arrest.
Police say the chain of events began with concern from Alexis Skoczylas’s relatives on Saturday afternoon. According to Lewiston police, officers were sent to the home on Buffalo Street in Sanborn at about 5:14 p.m. for a welfare check on a female resident. Officers who entered the house found Skoczylas, 35, dead inside. Local television station WKBW reported that she had a single gunshot wound to the head. The criminal complaint filed in Town Court accuses Woods of intentionally causing her death by shooting her with a firearm at 5781 Buffalo St. The attorney general’s office said the shooting happened while Woods was off duty and at home with his family. Police later said the couple’s two children were present in the house at the time of the shooting, though both children were later placed in the care of relatives.
Authorities say Woods was not arrested at the home. Lewiston Police Chief Michael Salada said Woods was detained during a traffic stop by Amherst police between 3 a.m. and 4 a.m. on Sunday, hours after the welfare check. Buffalo police said they were first contacted around 1 a.m. by Lewiston police, who were trying to locate Woods in connection with a homicide investigation in Niagara County. Buffalo detectives then shared resources to help find the vehicle Woods was believed to be driving. Woods was later charged with one count of murder in the second degree. In a statement announcing the arraignment, James said Woods appeared before Justice of the Peace Pamela Rider in Niagara County’s centralized arraignment part and was remanded to custody. As in any criminal case, prosecutors said the charge is an accusation and Woods is presumed innocent unless proved guilty in court.
One of the most closely watched parts of the case is the timeline released days later by the Buffalo Police Department. That account shows the victim’s family was reaching out well before Woods was taken into custody. At 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 14, Skoczylas’s mother called Buffalo police’s E-District and asked whether someone could contact Woods because she did not have a phone number for him. Three minutes later, a Buffalo police captain was alerted. At 4:42 p.m., according to the department, that captain told an E-District lieutenant that Woods would have Skoczylas call her mother back within an hour. By 5:12 p.m., Skoczylas’s sister had called an Erie County non-emergency number and was redirected to Niagara County. At 5:30 p.m., the mother called again and said she still had not heard from her daughter, adding that Lewiston police were already at the residence and that no one was home.
The timeline then shows a series of contacts between Buffalo police and Woods as concern mounted. At 7 p.m., Lewiston police called Buffalo’s E-District seeking a supervisor. At 7:52 p.m., the Buffalo police captain had a discussion with Woods in person at the D-District station house and called Lewiston police while Woods was there, confirming that Woods had the two children with him. At 8:05 p.m., Woods left the station house with the children, according to the department’s account. Lewiston police did not discover Skoczylas’s body until shortly after midnight, Buffalo police said. At 12:45 a.m., the department was informed that she was a homicide victim and that Woods was a person of interest. At 1:10 a.m., Buffalo police said they began using investigative resources to help locate the vehicle Woods was believed to be driving. He was detained at about 3 a.m.
Officials have released only limited details about what investigators believe happened inside the home. The felony complaint is brief and states that Woods intentionally caused Skoczylas’s death by shooting her with a firearm. WKBW reported that investigators believe the gun used was a personally registered firearm, not a city-issued weapon, and that Woods was not driving a city vehicle when he was stopped. The same report said Woods had worked for Buffalo police since January 2008 and, at the time of his arrest, held the rank of police officer while serving as an active school resource officer who answered calls at schools across the city. Police have not publicly described a possible motive beyond the fact that the marriage was under strain. Court records cited by local media show that Skoczylas filed for a contested divorce in September 2025, about five months before her death.
That divorce filing has become a central piece of the public understanding of the case because it places the shooting against the backdrop of a pending breakup. Still, there are major gaps in the public record. Investigators have not said whether there had been prior threats, whether any child witnessed the shooting, or what led police to view Woods as a suspect so quickly. Salada said there had been no previous domestic violence calls to the home, a detail that narrows but does not answer questions about what may have happened inside the family’s private life before Feb. 14. Police also have not publicly explained how long Skoczylas had been dead before officers entered the house, though Buffalo police’s later timeline described Saturday morning as her approximate time of death.
The location adds another layer to the story. Sanborn is a hamlet in Niagara County, outside Buffalo, and the homicide inquiry was led by Lewiston police rather than the city department where Woods worked. Because Woods is a police officer, the state attorney general’s Office of Special Investigation became involved under New York Executive Law Section 70-b, which requires the office to assess any reported death that may have been caused by a police or peace officer, whether the officer was on duty or off duty. James said that if the office determines an officer caused the death, it proceeds with a full investigation. Her office thanked Lewiston police, the Niagara County Sheriff’s Office, Niagara Falls police and the Niagara County district attorney for assisting in the case. That unusual oversight means the prosecution and the administrative response are unfolding at the same time.
Inside Buffalo police, the case has already triggered consequences beyond the criminal charge. On Feb. 18, the department said Woods had been suspended without pay effective Feb. 16. It also said a police captain had been suspended with pay pending an internal affairs investigation. According to the department’s own timeline, Internal Affairs investigators were formally notified Sunday morning, arrived at Lewiston police headquarters at 10:24 a.m. and initially suspended Woods with pay at 11:15 a.m. After internal charges were drafted the next day and signed by Interim Commissioner Craig Macy, investigators served Woods in person at Orleans Correctional Facility at 7:03 p.m. Monday and suspended him without pay. The department said its review would examine whether policies, procedures and professional standards were followed as family concerns were routed through district personnel on Saturday.
The case has also drawn attention because of the narrow window between relatives’ first calls and the later discovery of Skoczylas’s body. The timeline suggests her mother was seeking help from Buffalo police hours before Lewiston officers found her dead and before Buffalo police knew they were dealing with a homicide. It also shows Woods appearing at a station house with the children and leaving before midnight. Public officials have not accused any supervisor besides Woods of criminal wrongdoing, and the suspended captain has not been publicly identified in the department’s written timeline. But the record released by the city has raised questions about what information was known when, who communicated with whom, and whether any earlier action might have changed the course of the evening.
For now, the criminal case remains in its early stage. Woods faces a single count of second-degree murder, and no public indictment had been announced in the materials released immediately after his arraignment. Prosecutors have not publicly disclosed ballistics findings, autopsy details beyond the reported gunshot wound, or statements from Woods. The children, whose names have not been released, remain with relatives. Skoczylas’s death left a family at the center of a homicide case that now touches local policing, supervisory accountability and the state’s officer-involved death review process. The next major milestone is likely to come through further court proceedings or a more detailed filing laying out the evidence prosecutors plan to use.