Arrest Ends Decades-Long Search for Granite Bay Killer

GRANITE BAY — Placer County officials held a press conference at noon on Monday, April 27, to announce the arrest of a suspect in one of the region’s most notorious cold cases. Detectives took 64-year-old James Lawhead Jr. into custody on Friday, April 24, in Bullhead City, Arizona, for the 1991 kidnapping and murder of Cindy Wanner from a home in Granite Bay.

Sheriff Wayne Woo spoke to reporters and expressed pride in the cold case team’s persistence. “Arguably, one of the most heinous, notorious cold cases we’ve had here in Placer County,” Woo said of the crime. Detectives from the Placer County Sheriff’s Office, working with the Bullhead City Police Department, arrested Lawhead at the driveway of his Arizona home. Lawhead offered no resistance during the arrest.

Wanner, then 35 years old, vanished on November 25, 1991, while cleaning her sister’s house in Granite Bay. Her 11-month-old child remained strapped in a high chair and crying when relatives arrived. Wanner left her shoes, coat, and car behind at the scene. Searchers recovered her remains three weeks later in a remote wooded area near Forest Hill. Pathologists determined she had been kept alive for some time after the abduction and died from strangulation.

A video shown during the press conference detailed Lawhead’s criminal history. In 1980, Lawhead broke into a home in Sacramento County, beat a 71-year-old grandmother unconscious, and sexually assaulted her 11-year-old granddaughter. A state psychiatrist classified Lawhead as a mentally disordered sex offender not amenable to treatment. Lawhead served 11 years of a 19-year sentence. The Wanner crime occurred roughly 10 months after his release.

Lawhead failed to register as a sex offender in Placer County in 2002 and faced a weapons charge arrest in Lincoln in 2005. He then assumed the identity of Vincent Reynolds and disappeared from official records. Investigators checked databases across the United States and Canada for any sign of Lawhead under new identities or as deceased, but it was an analyst from the Scottsdale Police Department who matched a photo of Lawhead through Arizona Department of Transportation records using facial recognition technology. Lawhead was arrested the day of the discovery.

Authorities seized multiple loaded firearms staged throughout the home, a bag with clothes, $15,000 in cash, and a burner phone. Lawhead now faces one count of murder with two special circumstances for rape and kidnapping during the commission of the murder, plus a separate count of kidnapping. District Attorney Morgan Geyer commended the Sheriff’s Office cold case team and noted the family endured 35 years of anguish.

Lawhead’s sister, 71-year-old Terry Lawhead, was arrested on Saturday, April 25, in Lancaster County, South Carolina, on an accessory charge. Terry Lawhead owned the Bullhead City home where her brother resided. She had denied knowledge of his location in earlier contacts with investigators, yet maintained communication and aided his evasion, according to Sheriff Woo. Lawhead awaits extradition to Placer County for prosecution.

Sheriff Woo credited advanced DNA analysis for the identification. “The last item we had submitted. Thankfully, due to the new technology, Contra Costa’s Forensic Lab was finally able to get us a hit,” Woo said. Donations from the Placer County community through the Placer County Cold Case Foundation funded the testing that led to the match. Woo encouraged other agencies to compare their unsolved cases against Lawhead’s DNA profile.

During a question-and-answer session, Sheriff Woo addressed the family directly. “Nothing can bring back the loss of their loved one or even attempt to overcome the trauma that they’ve been through over the last 34 years,” Woo said. “We hope this is a small step in the healing process for closure and to bring justice to this case, and we’re keeping them all in our thoughts and prayers.” The family no longer lives in the area but received regular updates on the investigation.

Woo confirmed that investigators found no evidence that Lawhead knew Wanner before the crime. The District Attorney’s Office will move forward with prosecution once Lawhead returns to Placer County.