Man held in his sister’s 1987 slaying

The badly beaten body of a 9-year-old girl was discovered in a storm drain by a group of children in 1987 only a short distance from the Santa Ana elementary school where she was last seen leaving her third-grade class.

Stumped, authorities theorized that Patricia Lopez might have been killed by gang members, whose presence was increasing rapidly in Santa Ana in those days. One of the girl’s brothers had been grazed on the forehead by a bullet in a gang dispute, lending weight to the theory.

Then, just as quickly, police focused on a mental patient in Illinois who had clipped out a newspaper article about the girl’s brutal death and had several child’s items in his possession, the owner of which was never identified.

But he was cleared, and as the years dragged by, police never focused on the girl’s large family, members of which could not be responsible for the death, they had concluded. The family was too tightly knit and had no history of conflict to trigger such thinking, they reasoned.

But now, with fresh DNA testing, evidence points to an older brother as the child’s killer, authorities say.

Resendo Lopez appeared in court in Santa Ana on Monday to face charges of murdering his timid sister by battering her head. A judge ordered him held on $1-million bail.

Lopez, 42, did not enter a plea, and his arraignment was continued. A large group of family members, including his mother, sat in the audience, saying only that they believed he was innocent. The mother, who declared bankruptcy in 1997, according to court records, said she planned to raise money for her son’s defense.

“The family seems to be acting like the family of the defendant,” said prosecutor Larry Yellin, “and not the family of the victim.”

Yellin said he did not know what motivated Lopez to allegedly kill his sister, but detectives said they were not able to discount the possibility that the girl had been sexually molested.

The prosecutor, however, said he would not present evidence that the girl had been sexually attacked. He declined to be specific about the new DNA link or say how or even when authorities got a break in the cold case.

Whatever the motivation, police believe the killer acted quickly, killing the girl within two hours of her disappearance June 3, 1987.

Witnesses in 1987 said that they saw a stocky Latino in his 30s with a thick mustache walking with the girl along the Santa Ana River after school that day.

Resendo Lopez was only 22 at the time, but detectives said the mustache the man now maintains is similar to the one witnesses described in 1987.

Patricia Lopez, who was described as a shy child and a favorite of her father, was the subject of an intense search following her disappearance. Her father, Ascencion, had stayed up as late at 4 a.m. going door to door asking for help, restarting his search at 7 a.m.

Two days later, children playing in the area came across her body in the riverbed near Fairview Street.

Detectives said that Resendo Lopez was never seen as a suspect until a new cold-case unit was established in the city in 2006 and discovered a DNA link. In the years since the slaying, Lopez had continued to live with his mother and held odd jobs through a temporary employment agency. Most recently he was a factory worker.

On Thursday, he voluntarily responded to detectives’ request to be interviewed without a lawyer about his sister’s death. The conversation was lengthy, they said, and the DNA evidence against him was laid on the table.

Lopez, they said, did not dispute it.

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garrett.therolf@latimes.com