Sister of suspect in 1991 murder cold case appears in Placer County court
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- A Placer Superior Court judge set bail at $500,000 for Terry Lynn Lawhead‑Steele.
- She is accused of helping her brother who was wanted as a suspect in a 1991 murder.
- The judge ordered her to surrender her passport and to be monitored by GPS.
A woman accused of helping her brother hide from investigators in a 1991 murder case made her first appearance Wednesday in Placer Superior Court.
Terry Lynn Lawhead-Steele, 71, faces a felony charge of being an accessory stemming from charges her brother James Lawhead Jr. faces in a 35-year-old Placer County cold case. Her brother is accused of murder and kidnapping in the November 1991 disappearance and death of Cinthia “Cindi” Wanner.
Lawhead-Steele, who is from San Clemente in Southern California, was arrested April 25 in Lancaster County, South Carolina. She was held in custody for about a month at the Lancaster County Detention Center as she awaited extradition. Authorities brought her back to California and booked her Saturday at the Placer County Jail.
Lawhead-Steele was in court Wednesday afternoon for her arraignment hearing. Danielle Keller, Lawhead-Steele’s attorney, entered a not guilty plea on behalf of her client.
The accused woman stood silently behind protective glass in the courtroom and only spoke to confirm she understood her rights and was willing to waive her right to a preliminary hearing in a timely manner. A judge in that preliminary hearing will decide whether she should stand trial.
No previous arrests or convictions
On Wednesday, attorneys argued over whether the judge should set bail for Lawhead-Steele.
The defense attorney argued that her client should be released on her own recognizance, since she does not present a danger to the public or create a risk of failing to appear in court. Keller said Lawhead-Steele has no previous arrests or criminal convictions.
“She has lived a law-abiding life for more than seven decades,” Keller told the judge.
Lawhead-Steele had lived in the Sacramento area up until four years ago, when she moved to Southern California to spend her retirement. Keller said her client has a son and two grandsons who live in South Carolina, where she was visiting when she was arrested last month.
The defense attorney told the judge Lawhead-Steele has already spent about four weeks in jail custody, forced to sleep on a makeshift bed on the floor because the jail cell was too crowded. Keller said her client has a registered service dog who is still with her son’s family in South Carolina.
DNA evidence in cold case
Placer County Deputy District Attorney David Tellman, who is prosecuting Lawhead-Steele and her brother, argued that the defendant faces serious criminal charges. Tellman said she’s accused of lying to authorities of her brother’s whereabouts after he failed to register as a convicted sex offender and lying to investigators a few months ago when they were looking for her brother whose DNA was found on the body of the slain woman in 1991.
“These are serious offenses, and they all revolve around deception,” the prosecutor told the judge. “She covered for her on this horrendous crime as she covered for him for years.”
When investigators were looking for James Lawhead as a suspect in Wanner’s murder, his sister said she had no idea where he was even though he was living under a false name in a house she owned in Arizona, Tellman said.
He asked the judge to set Lawhead-Steele’s bail at $500,000. The prosecutor argued that Lawhead-Steele owns multiple homes, and $500,000 bail bond might be difficult but attainable to ensure she appears for all her court hearings.
Judge Michael W. Jones set Lawhead-Steele’s bail at $500,000 and ordered her to surrender her passport. Jones also ordered for a GPS anklet bracelet to be installed to monitor her location while free on bail.
The judge then scheduled Lawhead-Steele to return to court Tuesday for further proceedings and a bail review hearing requested by the defense attorney.
1991 murder
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 near Foresthill, 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 the arrests, Placer County Sheriff Wayne Woo said analysts at a forensic lab in Contra Costa County identified James Lawhead as the suspect using DNA evidence collected from the 1991 homicide.
The sheriff said investigators searched for him, but the wanted suspect seemed to have “just disappeared” in 2005. They couldn’t find any records for him.
Search for wanted suspect
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 a home in Bullhead, Arizona, where authorities found James Lawhead on April 24 and arrested him.
Woo said investigators believe Lawhead-Steele had been communicating with her brother. James Lawhead had been living, investigators believe, under a false name at the Arizona home owned by his sister. The sheriff said investigators questioned her about her brother’s whereabouts in March.
“She still denied any knowledge, said she hadn’t seen or heard from her brother in over 20 years and that he may have possibly been dead,” Woo told reporters in the April news conference.
Placer County District Attorney Morgan Gire has told The Sacramento Bee that special circumstance allegations against James Lawhead make the case against him eligible for the death penalty. Gire said he had not yet made a decision on whether his office will seek the death penalty against Lawhead.
This story was originally published May 27, 2026 at 4:14 PM.
