Suspect in 1991 California cold case murder extradited after Bullhead City arrest

AUBURN, CA (AZFamily) — A man accused in a notorious 1991 cold case murder is now back in California after being arrested in northwest Arizona.

The Placer County Sheriff’s Office said 64-year-old James Lawhead Jr. was taken into custody at his home in Bullhead City and has since been extradited to California, where he is being held in Auburn ahead of his day in court.

On Monday in Auburn, Calif., the Placer County Sheriff’s Office announced that 64-year-old James Lawhead Jr. was in custody in connection with the cold case murder of Cindy Wanner. He was arrested at his home in Bullhead City.

Lawhead had been living in Arizona under the name Vincent Reynolds.

“Arguably, this is one of the most heinous, notorious cold cases we have here in Placer County,” Sheriff Wayne Woo said at a news conference.

‘Heinous’ crimes

On Nov. 25, 1991, Wanner and her 11-month-old child went to the Sacramento suburb of Granite Bay to clean her sister’s home. When Wanner’s husband and their 4-year-old daughter arrived at the home hours later, the 11-month-old was strapped in a high chair, crying, and there was no sign of Cindy.

Wanner had disappeared without a trace, leaving behind her shoes, her coat and her car.

Her remains were found about three weeks later in a wooded area near Foresthill. Pathologists at the time believed Wanner had been kept alive for some time before she was raped and strangled.

The sheriff’s office says detectives worked the case for years, with no strong leads. But recently, the agency submitted a sample to the Contra Costa (Calif.) Sheriff’s Office crime lab that identified Lawhead as a person of interest through modern DNA technology.

Lawhead is a convicted sex offender who previously spent years in prison. In 1980, investigators say he broke into a 71-year-old woman’s home, beat her until she was unconscious and sexually assaulted her 11-year-old granddaughter.

He was sentenced to 19 years in prison, but released after 11 years in early 1991, 10 months before Wanner was taken.

Years passed, and Lawhead was arrested for failing to register as a sex offender in Placer County. He was arrested again in 2005 on an outstanding weapons charge in Lincoln, Calif., but disappeared before trial.

“And we explored all possibilities on what could have happened,” Sheriff Woo explained. “Whether he was still living under a fake identity, whether he had left the country, or whether he was even deceased.”

Detectives reached out to other law enforcement agencies in Arizona and other states with access to facial recognition technology. One final item linked the murder to Lawhead.

Facial recognition technology links suspect

The Arizona Department of Transportation’s (AZDOT) facial recognition system, typically used to flag fraudulent driver’s licenses, state IDs and suspected identity theft, was used to locate Lawhead.

An analyst from the Scottsdale Police Department used AZDOT’s database and matched a photo of Lawhead, according to investigators. An ADOT spokesperson said potentially fraudulent photos undergo three levels of review by detectives who are trained in facial recognition training.

“If there’s really an unsung hero in this case, there’s many, it’s an analyst from the Scottsdale, Arizona Police Department,” Sheriff Woo said. And this analyst used the Department of Transportation database in Arizona and got a match on a photo of James Lawhead."

Lawhead was arrested on the same day, last Friday, on the driveway of his Bullhead City home and booked into the Mohave County Jail. Investigators said they found loaded firearms, $15,000 in cash and a burner phone inside his home.

He is jailed in Mohave County awaiting extradition to Placer County, California, where prosecutors have charged him with murder and kidnapping.

“Detectives from the Placer County Sheriff’s Office, members of the Cold Case Investigation Team, with the assistance of the Bullhead City Police Department in Arizona, arrested the monster responsible for this crime,” Sheriff Woo said. “Now we hope that this arrest will bring some justice and closure to Cindy Wanner’s family.”

His sister, 71-year-old Terry Lawhead, was also arrested in California as an accessory, investigators say. She reportedly owned the Arizona home where her brother was living.

“Simply because the passage of time doesn’t mean any importance is diminished. We harness new technology. We commit to good old fashioned police work,” Woo said.

Police searching for more possible victims

The sheriff’s office believes that Lawhead had also lived in Washington and Oregon over the past 20 years. Investigators said they are now retracing his movements through Washington, Oregon and Arizona to determine whether he may be connected to other crimes.

Retired cold case detective Troy Hillman said he believes there could be more victims.

“You know me personally, from what I’ve seen in my career, I’d say yes. I would say hopefully agencies go back; they develop a timeline for this guy and figure out where he’s been,” Hillman said.

Hillman said Lawhead’s criminal history suggests he remained dangerous after his release.

“From what I’ve read, this guy was kind of an animal to begin with,” he explained. “Typically, when they do time, they think about their craft and then they continue it, so I don’t know if you can rehab these guys. He belonged behind bars, yet evaded justice all this time.”

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