A Family Learns to Cope in the Unsolved Murder of a Placentia Girl, 14

Jack Osborn of Placentia doesn’t believe it happened the way they say it did.

The San Bernardino County coroner, Osborn says, should not have said that Osborn’s daughter, 14-year-old Wendy, was tortured before her body was found in the Chino Hills of San Bernardino County in January of last year.

But authorities say it is true. What they don’t know is who did it.

Wendy Osborn was last seen alive as she walked to Tuffree Junior High School the morning of Jan. 20. Two weeks later, horseback riders found her clothed body. Authorities said she had been dead about 48 hours, that she had been sexually assaulted and strangled.

Officials thought they had a prime suspect in Warren James Bland, a 51-year-old convicted sex offender, arrested in February on suspicion of killing 7-year-old Phoebe Ho of South Pasadena. Ho, like Osborn, was abducted on her way to school, held captive for days and strangled.

Officials now say Bland, who is in Riverside County Jail awaiting trial in the Ho slaying, is no longer considered a suspect in the case of Wendy Osborn.

“We’ve checked new leads ever since major indicators led us to believe Bland was our suspect,” said Sgt. Bill Arthur of the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department. Although there are similarities in the cases, he said, there is not enough physical evidence to charge Bland with Osborn’s slaying.

“We still don’t have a suspect,” Arthur said.

Although the case remains open, Placentia Police Sgt. Russ Rice said, information about Osborn’s abduction stopped coming in shortly after her disappearance.

Still, Wendy’s parents say, law enforcement officials have done everything they can.

“The Placentia Police Department was great,” Jack Osborn said. “And the San Bernardino sheriff’s office has been very supportive and helpful.”

There is one public official, however, whom the Osborns don’t appreciate: San Bernardino County Coroner Brian McCormick. The Osborns filed a $5-million lawsuit against McCormick in October, charging that he lied when he told the press Wendy Osborn had been tortured with pliers or a clamplike tool during her captivity.

“I’ve read the autopsy report,” Jack Osborn said. “There’s nothing in the autopsy report about pinch marks or plier marks. I don’t know where he got that information.

“His conduct at the news conference he gave after her autopsy was inappropriate. He seemed to want to sensationalize the whole thing. We want him to be responsible for what he said.”

Carol Osborn added: “As far as we’re concerned, it (Wendy’s death) was sensationalized enough.”

Phil Alexander, an aide to McCormick, said the coroner would not comment on the case.

Jack Osborn said he is not sure if his daughter’s killer ever will be caught.

“There are times when I say it doesn’t make a lot of difference,” he said. “But then there are times when I realize--because of my reactions to things that I hear and see--that it does make a lot of difference.”

In the meantime, the Osborns and their sons, Mark, 10, and Galen, 18, have helped each other cope with Wendy’s death.

“One of the things we realized at the very beginning,” Jack Osborn said, “is that we have two other kids who need functioning parents and who are still with us and whom we love as much.

“We try not to set up a shrine around Wendy,” he said. “We hope to make her as much a part of our life as if she were still with us and give her the place she deserves. . . . We all miss her.”

In memory of Wendy, Tuffree Junior High School installed a plaque and garden, with trees donated by the Placentia Police Assn. This week, school officials will dedicate a new marquee in her honor.

Arthur said the case will remain open indefinitely, and the city’s $10,000 reward stands.

“We are constantly in touch with the people” in Placentia, he said. “In the back of their minds they know, as we know, that the suspect is still out there.”