Arrests made in 1991 cold case murder of Northern California mother Cindy Wanner
The 35-year-old mystery of who kidnapped and murdered Cindy Wanner of Placer County, California, has been solved after advanced DNA analysis led to the arrest of a suspect and an accessory, authorities announced on Monday.
In 1991, Wanner disappeared from a home in Granite Bay. The body of the Sacramento native was found about three weeks later in a remote area a few miles away. Authorities said it appeared Wanner had been kept alive for at least a few days after being kidnapped.
At a press conference on Monday, the Placer County Sheriff's Office said investigators on Friday arrested as 64-year-old James Lawhead Jr., a convicted high-risk sex offender who had spent time in prison in Sacramento County.
On November 25, 1991, Warner and her 11-month-old child had gone to her sister's home to clean it. When Wanner's husband arrived at the house with their four-year-old daughter, they found the 11-month-old strapped to high chair and crying. Wanner was gone and her shoes, her coat and her car were left at the home. Investigators said there was no sign of any struggle and the home was largely undisturbed.
A hunter discovered Wanner's body three weeks later about 35 miles away in a wooded area in Foresthill near the Tahoe National Forest. She had been raped and strangled, according to the Sheriff's Office.
Lawhead had been released from prison in early 1991 after serving 11 years out of a 19-year prison sentence for breaking into a home in 1980, brutally beating a grandmother, and raping her 11-year-old granddaughter. He murdered Wanner 10 months after being released from prison, the office said.
"When he was sentenced, psychiatrists from the state classified him as a mentally-disordered sex offender who was not amenable to treatment," Woo said. "Yet he was still released after 11 years and kidnapped and murdered Cindy Wanner within a year of his release.
In 2002, Lawhead was arrested after failing to register as a sex offender in Placer County and was also arrested on an outstanding weapons charge in the city of Lincoln in 2005. Placer County Sheriff Wayne Woo said at Monday's press conference that following that arrest, Lawhead then assumed the name Vincent Reynolds and disappeared.
He was arrested at his home in Bullhead City, Arizona and was booked into the Mojave County Jail on charges of kidnapping, murder, and being a wanted sex offender.
"Our detectives flew out there immediately upon his arrest and served a search warrant, seizing numerous items of evidence from the home, including multiple loaded firearms staged throughout the house, and a bag that had his clothes, $15,000 in cash, and a burner phone," Woo said.
His sister, 71-year-old Teri Lawhead of San Clemente, California, was arrested in Lancaster County, South Carolina and charged as an accessory. The Sheriff's Office said she was contacted multiple times about her brother and she had denied any knowledge of his whereabouts as recently as last month. However, investigators found that the Arizona home where Lawhead was living was owned by his sister and they had been in contact with each other.
Woo said the Sheriff's Office had created a video seeking the public's help in finding Lawhead after obtaining new DNA analysis in the case and identifying him as the suspect. The office was preparing to release the video this week before it received a lead last week from the Scottsdale, Arizona Department that used a facial recognition database from the state transportation department to get a match on Lawhead.
Placer County District Attorney Morgan Gire said Lawhead has been charged with one count of murder, along with special circumstances of rape and kidnapping during the commission of a murder, as well as an independent count of kidnapping. His extradition to California from Arizona has not yet been scheduled, Gire said.