Flyers Handed Out Where Her Purse Was Found : Osborn Investigation Intensified

Seeking new leads in the murder of 14-year-old Wendy Osborn, 20 detectives from the Placentia Police Department and the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department distributed flyers and questioned residents in downtown Anaheim Tuesday.

She disappeared while walking to her Placentia school on Jan. 20. Later that day, a transient found her red purse in an Anaheim dumpster, and it was in that area that officers assembled Tuesday morning. In intermittent rain, they fanned out from the area around an East Center Street liquor store, passing out circulars and questioning passersby, residents of a nearby senior citizens complex and workers at the Anaheim Civic Center two blocks away.

The flyers ask anyone who had seen Wendy, her purse, or a pink book bag--still missing but believed to have been dropped in the dumpster with the purse--to call the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department at (714) 988-6577 or the Placentia Police Department at (714) 993-8146.

Detectives are hoping to strengthen their case against convicted sex offender and principal suspect Warren Bland--or possibly flush out a new suspect, according to Dana Williams, a San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department spokesman.

Case as Good ‘as It Ever Was’

“Our case against Bland is as good now as it ever was,” Williams said, but he added: “We haven’t closed the door that there might be another person.”

“There are no other particular suspects (in the Osborn case) other than Bland, but that does not eliminate the possibility of another individual or individuals,” Williams said.

The day Wendy was kidnaped, which is believed to have been between 7:30 a.m. and 8 a.m., Bland reported to his part-time job at a McDonald’s Restaurant in San Diego at 11 a.m.

“There is a possibility he dumped the purse then went to work at 11 a.m.,” Williams said.

The 14-year-old girl was abducted, raped, tortured and strangled and her body found Feb. 1 in the San Bernardino County area of the Chino Hills.

Bland has not been charged in Wendy’s death. However, he has been charged with the murder of 7-year-old Phoebe Ho of South Pasadena and, on Tuesday, was linked to the murder of an elderly San Diego woman.

Late Tuesday afternoon, Williams said that the day’s search had turned up nothing. He noted that he had learned of the latest charge against Bland from a radio reporter--and not San Diego police. “I wish they had called me,” Williams complained.