Court Finds Technical Flaw in 1980 Testimony Against Him : Convict Freed, Rearrested in Fountain Valley Murder

After spending 4 1/2 years in jail on a murder charge that ultimately was dismissed, William Lee Evins faces arraignment today on a re-filed murder charge in the 1979 hammer attack and strangulation of a Fountain Valley woman.

Evins, 30, enjoyed momentary freedom Tuesday after a court dismissed the original murder charge in the death of Joan Virginia Anderson, 28, on March 7, 1979. But Evins was rearrested the same day on the new first-degree murder charge.

Evins was a transient construction worker, part of a crew putting an addition onto the Anderson house in January, 1979.

The original charge was ordered thrown out Monday by a state Court of Appeal panel in Santa Ana because the only evidence presented in a September, 1980, preliminary examination to link him sufficiently to the crime came from a witness who may have been hypnotized.

Under 1982 and 1984 state Supreme Court cases, testimony from a witness who has been hypnotized is inadmissible in court.

It was only after hypnosis that the witness, Randall R. Wanner, a friend of Evins, recalled that Evins had admitted killing Anderson, said Presiding Justice John K. Trotter Jr., writing for a unanimous three-judge panel.

But, he said, the Municipal Court judge hearing the preliminary examination had failed to determine whether Wanner actually had been hypnotized by a police officer.

That failure required that the case be dismissed, Trotter ruled.

But moments after Superior Court Judge Phillip E. Cox formally dismissed the charge on Tuesday, prosecutors rearrested Evins on the new charge.

“We will be able to present other evidence” linking Evins to the crime, said Deputy Dist. Atty. John Conley.

Deputy Public Defender William Kelley said he will seek Evins’ release from jail without a bond or on a reduced bond. Evins, who is not facing the death penalty, has been unable to meet the $30,000 bail set for his release.

Evins’ arraignment today will be in West Orange County Municipal Court.