'Heinous and Notorious' Cold Case Possibly Solved 34 Years After Missing Mom's Baby Was Left Crying in High Chair

NEED TO KNOW

• James Lawhead was arrested and charged with murder in connection with the death of Cindy Wanner

• Wanner was found dead months after vanishing in 1991, leaving behind a crying baby in her Granite Bay, Calif., home

• Police say Lawhead was living in Arizona under the name Vincent Reynolds when he was arrested

More than 30 years after a mother vanished, leaving her baby behind in a high chair, authorities have arrested a suspect they say killed her.

Cindy Wanner, 35, went missing from her home in Granite Bay, Calif., on Nov. 25, 1991, the Placer County Sheriff's Office says . Her coat, shoes and car were all left behind and her 11-month-old child was found crying in her high chair.

"Her disappearance sparked a massive investigation and shook the community," the sheriff's office says. "Three weeks later, she was found strangled to death in a remote area outside Foresthill, approximately 40 miles from where she was kidnapped."

The case remained cold for nearly 35 years, but police now say a suspect, James Lawhead Jr., 64, has been arrested.

Lawhead was 30 at the time of the alleged murder and was released from prison that year after serving 11 years for child sex crimes, authorities say.

According to the sheriff's office, after Lawhead was identified as a potential suspect, detectives discovered that there was no record of him since 2005 and believed he was living under a new identity.

Facial recognition technology eventually led to a match, police say, and Lawhead was located, allegedly living under the name Vincent Reynolds in Bullhead City, Ariz.

Lawhead was arrested on April 24 and is awaiting extradition to California, per the sheriff's office.

The Placer County District Attorney's Office says Lawhead is charged with "one count of murder, along with two special circumstances: murder during the commission of a rape and murder during the commission of a kidnapping."

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He is also charged with kidnapping, prosecutors say.

Following Lawhead's arrest, his sister, Terry Lawhead Steele, 71, was arrested in South Carolina, with the sheriff's office alleging that she appeared to be in communication with her brother, who was living in a house she owned, even after telling police she hadn't spoken to him in more than 20 years.

“This is one of the most notorious and heinous cold cases we have here in Placer County," Sheriff Wayne Woo says in a statement. "We've never given up pursuing justice for Cindy and her family, we hope this is a small step in the healing process."

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