Decades After Infamous Killing, Suspect Arrested Under Alias

Investigators in California have taken a suspect into custody in a decades-old murder case after new DNA analysis pointed them to a man who had been living under an assumed identity in another state, according to KTLA. Officials say testing conducted on evidence preserved for years identified 64-year-old James Lawhead Jr. as the person responsible for the 1991 abduction and killing of 31-year-old Cindy Wanner. She disappeared from her home in Granite Bay the day after Thanksgiving. When authorities arrived, they discovered her 11-month-old child safe but left alone in a high chair, ABC News reported.

About three weeks after her disappearance, Wanner’s body was located in a secluded area near Foresthill. Investigators determined she had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Lawhead had been released from prison earlier that same year after serving time for offenses involving a minor. By the time the DNA evidence identified him as a suspect, he could not be located.

Authorities eventually found him in Bullhead City, Arizona, where he had been using the name Vincent Reynolds. Detectives confirmed his identity through facial recognition technology before making the arrest.

In a related development, Lawhead’s sister, 71-year-old Terry Lawhead Steele, was taken into custody in South Carolina. She faces a charge of being an accessory after investigators said documentation conflicted with her statement that she had not been in contact with her brother for many years.

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