Teaching Session Snares Suspect in Orange Killing

Eric Nelson, a forensics specialist with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, was only supposed to be training his fellow investigators last Thursday in the proper use of the state’s new computerized fingerprint identification system, known as Cal-ID.

So when he plugged in prints found at the scene of a grisly ax slaying in Orange in 1985, he didn’t really expect the computer to spit back the name of a man whose prints matched. But it did: Carlos Willis Wilkerson, 36, a transient.

Wilkerson thereby became a prime suspect--the only suspect--in the slaying of Hettie Lucielle Mathews, a 61-year-old Orange woman, in her home on Nov. 13, 1985.

“My pulse rate jumped to twice the normal, and I jumped the stairs three at a time,” Nelson said in an interview Wednesday. “I was quite excited.”

So were Orange police, for whom an exhaustive investigation, thousands of flyers and a $10,000 reward offer from Mrs. Mathews’ son had failed to turn up a single suspect, according to department spokesman Bob Gustafson.

Last Friday, police obtained a warrant for Wilkerson’s arrest and sent out Teletypes asking law enforcement agencies around the country to be on the lookout for him.

On Monday, Wilkerson was found in a jail cell in Phoenix, Ariz., where he was being held in an assault case. Orange police detectives flew there Tuesday to arrange to have him moved to Orange County. On Wednesday, he was taken from Phoenix and booked into the Orange County Jail on suspicion of murder, rape, robbery and burglary, Gustafson said.

Mrs. Mathews’ nude body was found in her bed the day after she was killed. An autopsy showed that she had been raped and struck in the head with an ax, Gustafson said. The killer had apparently broken into the house, in the 100 block of South James Street, about 11 p.m. and had left with some of Mrs. Mathews’ jewelry.

Residents of the street were relieved Wednesday when they heard that someone had finally been arrested for the crimes.

“I’m glad. It had been over a year,” said Don Pender, Mrs. Mathews’ next-door neighbor for seven years. Pender said he installed an alarm system and extra locks after Mrs. Mathews was killed. “The police said they weren’t going to give up, and I guess they kept looking. I think they did a good job.”

Worked for Hughes Aircraft

Mrs. Mathews had lived in the house about 20 years, Pender said. “She was a very neat person. She kind of kept to herself.” Mrs. Mathews lived alone, Pender said, and worked in electronic assembly for Hughes Aircraft in Fullerton.

Praxedis Olmedo, Mrs. Mathews’ other next-door neighbor, said she is still afraid to go out of her house at night because of what happened.

“I didn’t hear anything that night and then they just found her the next day,” she said. “This is a quiet neighborhood, and all of a sudden something happened like that.”

Los Angeles police questioned Wilkerson on Wednesday about the slaying and attempted rape of an 81-year-old woman on Western Avenue last month, Los Angeles police Detective Raymond Futami said. “It didn’t come out too good; he wasn’t very helpful,” Futami said.

Photos Shown to Witnesses

Three witnesses who were shown photos of Wilkerson after his prints were identified said they saw him in the area where Evelyn Anderson was dragged behind a market one Sunday morning, sexually assaulted, brutally beaten and robbed of $10, Futami said. She died in Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital five days later.

Futami said he hopes Wilkerson’s arrest will result in more witnesses coming forward in the Los Angeles case. “We can’t really do much right now unless we find more witnesses,” he said.

Two months ago, the Cal-ID system led to the arrest of a suspect in an Anaheim killing nine years ago. It also is credited with leading law enforcement authorities to Richard Ramirez, the suspect in the so-called Night Stalker killings.