Fingerprint Leads To Murder Charges in 44 Year Old Case

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Charles Edward Faith, 68, Charged With A 1964 Murder

Charles Edward Faith, 68, awaits the start of his preliminary hearing in Santa Ana. Faith is being charged with killing a hotel manager in 1964 after the cold case was linked to him using newly developed forensic technology.

SANTA ANA – A long-retired police chief reached back into his memory Monday to recall what a crime-scene investigator told him nearly a half-century ago as they stood near the body of a murder victim in a Santa Ana hotel.

The investigator felt that the bludgeon and strangulation murder of Christine Elizabeth Vono Wariner on Feb. 16, 1964, was solvable, former Tustin Police Chief Charles Thayer testified, especially because they found four bloody fingerprints apparently left by the suspect on the hotel door.

"With these fingerprints, we've got our man," Thayer quoted the investigator as saying.

Orange County prosecutors and Santa Ana police cold-case detectives believe the investigator was right, even though it took more than four decades to arrest a suspect.

On Monday, Charles Edward Faith Jr., a 68-year-old Phelan man, sat in a hospital gown in a wheelchair in a Santa Ana courtroom as a preliminary hearing began to determine if there is sufficient evidence to put him on trial in the killing of Wariner.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Larry Yellin contends that Faith, who originally was not a suspect in 1964, was matched to the fingerprints on Wariner's hotel door through advances in forensic technology.

Faith was arrested in November 2007 after Santa Ana cold-case detectives Ferrell Buckels and Louie Martinez got a hit when they ran Wariner's case through a newly digitized California database.

It is the oldest cold-homicide investigation – at 44 years – in Orange County history to result in an arrest and prosecution.

Thayer was a Santa Ana patrolman in 1964 when Wariner's bruised and battered body was found lying in a pool of blood inside the manager's room at the old California Hotel at the corner of Main and Sixth streets. She was partially nude, had been battered and suffocated, and it appeared that someone had tried to rape her, Thayer testified.

He said detectives removed the door as evidence and kept it in storage for years at the Santa Ana police station, as more than 200 potential suspects were eliminated over the years when their fingerprints did not match those found at the scene.

Christina Lonzo, Wariner's daughter, traveled to Orange County from her home in Alabama to watch the preliminary hearing.

Lonzo, now 65, said it was nerve-wracking to finally see the man accused of killing her mother more than 44 years ago. "But it's good to finally learn what happened," she said during a break.

The preliminary hearing before Superior Court Judge John D. Conley will resume Jan. 5.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/santa-wariner-police-2264326-years-investigator?slideshow=1

 

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SAN BERNARDINO - Armed with new technology, police detectives have been able to solve a number of cold cases by matching a suspect's DNA.

But in Orange County, an elderly Phelan man has been ordered to stand trial after his fingerprint allegedly matched those found by detectives 44 years ago at a bloody crime scene.

It was the break authorities were looking for in the beating and strangulation of 47-year-old Christine Elizabeth Wariner, the live-in manager at the California Hotel in Santa Ana, in 1964.

After hearing testimony and reviewing some of the evidence presented at the hearing, a judge ordered Charles Edward Faith Jr. to stand trial on murder charges in Wariner's death after a two-day hearing concluded Jan. 5 in Orange County Superior Court. He is scheduled to appear again in court Jan. 20.

Faith's fingerprint, which was matched through the use of advanced forensic technology, proved to be key, prosecutors say.

"In 1964, they knew it was going to be the smoking gun," said Senior Deputy District Attorney Larry Yellin. "It just took the 40-plus years to figure out whose they were."

Authorities also believe evidence shows Wariner may have been sexually assaulted.

The 68-year-old Faith was being held on $1million bail. He faces up to life in state prison if convicted.

Wariner's death is the longest-running cold case in Orange County history that resulted in an arrest and prosecution, prosecutors said.
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Faith's lawyer, Deputy Public Defender Julie Swain, did not return a phone call and e-mail requesting comment.

Wariner was found bludgeoned and partially nude in her room at the hotel. The assailant left her door open, and she was discovered by a tenant who wanted to pay rent.

During the investigation, officers collected evidence from the scene, such as bloody fingerprints, according to Santa Ana police.

At the hearing last week, former Tustin Police Chief Charles Thayer, now 78, testified about how officers knew back in 1964 that identifying the mystery fingerprint could solve the crime, Yellin said.

Fingerprint analysis methodologies have changed little since then, but the technology used to examine them has progressed.

The ability to match fingerprints has improved through the use of computers. Santa Ana cold case detectives tackled the case again in 2006 and submitted the fingerprint to the county's crime lab for processing through a state digital database.

Detective Louie Martinez, in the Cold Case Unit, declined to discuss the case while it is in the courts.

The fingerprints were first matched to Faith in 2003, Yellin said. After numerous interviews, an arrest warrant was issued in November 2007.

With help from U.S. marshals, police arrested Faith at his mobile home in Phelan.

http://www2.sbsun.com/sanbernardino/ci_11427518

 

[Abroad]

Any updates on this case yet? I assume they are taking the suspect to court?

 

[Shellie435]

Trial Info

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/faith-wariner-santa-2274226-hotel-old

SANTA ANA – A 68-year-old Phelan man sat in a wheelchair without emotion Monday as he was ordered to stand trial on a charge that he bludgeoned and strangled a Santa Ana hotel manager nearly a half-century ago.
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http://www.ocregister.com/articles/santa-case-murder-1914811-police-cold

"I always had a lot of empathy for her because she always had an extremely rough life," Lonzo said. "That poor woman. Her life was always so negative that it was almost inevitable that her life would end up badly."
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This poor woman had such a sad life. She was raised in orphanages, her dad commited murder and was executed when she was a child. She tried to commit suicide over prospects Child Services was going to take her children away, her daughter says she was "mentally crippled". A sad ending to such a sad life.
My heart goes out for Ms Lonzo and her family

 

[Dakota]

I often wonder is assholes like this are scared shitless when they realize that technology has caught up to decades old evidence.
I certainly hope so.

 

[Unamused Cat]

Too bad he spent most of his life free. Now that he is old and decrepit it will really cost the taxpayers. Bah!