Death penalty possible for man accused of murder in Placer County cold case
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- James Lawhead Jr. faces murder and kidnapping charges in a 1991 Placer County cold case.
- His charges make his criminal case eligible for the death penalty.
- Lawhead was arrested April 24 at his Bullhead, Arizona, home after a facial‑recognition.
A man accused of kidnapping a woman from a Granite Bay home before sexually assaulting and killing her in Placer County in the early 1990s could face the death penalty.
James Lawhead Jr., 64, the man accused in the 35-year-old cold case, returned Tuesday morning to Placer Superior Court. He faces charges of murder and kidnapping in the November 1991 disappearance and death of Cinthia “Cindi” Wanner.
Judge Raymonn DeJesus granted the defense’s request to postpone Lawhead’s arraignment a second time since his arrest last month. DeJesus scheduled Lawhead to return to court June 16 for his continued arraignment hearing. Lawhead has still not entered a plea to the criminal charges.
Along with the murder and kidnapping charges, Lawhead faces two special circumstance allegations alleging he killed Wanner during the commission of rape and kidnapping.
Outside the courtroom after Tuesday’s brief hearing, Placer County District Attorney Morgan Gire told The Sacramento Bee that the special circumstance allegations make the case against Lawhead eligible for the death penalty. Gire also said he had not yet made a decision on whether his office will seek the death penalty against Lawhead.
California has not executed a prisoner since 2006, but the death penalty remains legal and is still pursued in select cases. If Lawhead is convicted and the death penalty is imposed, he would remain in prison for the rest of his life unless California’s moratorium on the death penalty is lifted and capital punishment resumes.
Lawhead was taken into custody April 24 in the driveway of his home in Bullhead, Arizona. He spent nearly a week in the Mohave County Jail while awaiting extradition.
On April 30, the Placer County Sheriff’s Office sent two of its deputies and a detective on a sheriff’s plane to pick up Lawhead at an airport in Kingman, Arizona, for a flight back to Placer County, where he was booked at the Auburn jail. He remains in jail custody and is ineligible for bail.
Granite Bay kidnapping
On Nov. 25, 1991, Wanner was cleaning her sister’s Granite Bay home when she was kidnapped. The 35-year-old Rancho Cordova mother was taken by a suspect, leaving behind her 11-month-old daughter in a high chair, where she was later found crying and alone.
Wanner was sexually assaulted and left to die among trees in the Foresthill area, where her body was found more than two weeks later.
The murder suspect remained unidentified until earlier this year. At a news conference in April announcing Lawhead’s arrest, Placer County Sheriff Wayne Woo said analysts at a forensic lab in Contra Costa County identified Lawhead as the suspect using DNA evidence collected from the 1991 homicide.
The sheriff said investigators searched for Lawhead, but the wanted suspect seemed to have “just disappeared” in 2005. They couldn’t find any records for him.
Video about cold case
The Sheriff’s Office had produced a video about the cold case identifying the suspect and was about to release it, hoping the public would help investigators find Lawhead.
In the meantime, sheriff’s investigators contacted law enforcement agencies in other states with access to facial recognition technology. Woo said a crime analyst from the Scottsdale Police Department in Arizona used the technology and found a match in a state Department of Transportation database. That information led investigators to the Bullhead home.
The sheriff said Lawhead had been living, investigators believe, under a false name at the Arizona home owned by his sister, Terry Lynn Lawhead-Steele, 71, of San Clemente in Southern California.
Lawhead-Steele was arrested April 25 in Lancaster County, South Carolina, on suspicion of being an accessory to a crime, accused of helping her brother avoid authorities. Woo said investigators believe she had been communicating with her brother.
The Placer County District Attorney’s Office has formally filed a charge of accessory against Lawhead-Steele. As of Tuesday afternoon, Lawhead-Steele remained listed in custody at the Lancaster County Detention Center. Authorities were working to have her returned to California to face charges in the Placer County case, possibly next week.
This story was originally published May 19, 2026 at 11:56 AM.
