‘Innocent Boys,’ Relative Says of Two Killed in Racial Fight

Denny Wayne Spradlin and Joe Steven Wilson grew up together, attending the same schools, going to the same parties and participating in the same neighborhood games of basketball.

Spradlin, 20, of Fountain Valley, was “a big redheaded kid with a little smile on his face,” according to his father. Wilson, 22, of Westminster, was a handsome “Casanova” whose family watched protectively over him after two of his older brothers both died violently in separate traffic accidents within the last two years.

Together, the two childhood friends strolled into a Westminster liquor store early Saturday morning to buy another keg of beer for a party they had been attending. There, according to the local police, a drunken Spradlin exchanged words with the wrong man.

Spradlin argued loudly with four people who were buying a bottle of cognac, then used racial epithets denouncing their Vietnamese heritage as they left the store, the liquor store owner told police.

One of the four went to his car, got a .38-caliber pistol and began firing at Spradlin and Wilson, police said. After wounding them, police said, the assailant coolly walked over and pumped one more round into each of their heads. Wilson was declared dead at the scene. Spradlin died a short time later at UCI Medical Center in Orange.

Westminster police eventually traced the suspect in the shooting to the Santa Clara address of Cuong M. Cao, 38, a former South Vietnamese marine, who was arrested near his home Saturday afternoon.

Cao was being held in Orange County Jail on two counts of suspicion of murder. Bond is set at $250,000 pending his arraignment Wednesday, police said.

The families of the slain men tried to sort out the tragedy Monday.

“Those are two innocent boys,” said Wilson’s sister, Irene Tafulu, shaking her head sadly at the family’s home on Coronet Avenue in Westminster.

At Spradlin’s home a few blocks away on Mesquite Street in Fountain Valley, Ronald Spradlin sobbed uncontrollably as he discussed his son: “I’m sure he was drinking and feeling pretty good and saying something. But that’s no excuse to kill somebody.”

Westminster Police Sgt. Andrew Hall said the victims “were in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Hall said.

Spradlin and Wilson attended Westminster’s La Quinta High School. Both were strapping, athletic youths: Wilson played basketball at the school while Spradlin played basketball and football, plus baseball so well that he harbored dreams of playing professionally until his athletic future was clouded by an ankle injury two years ago in his senior year, his father said.

Spradlin attended a 2-year college in Bakersfield for five months, then returned to Orange County to take a job in an automotive shop. He was hoping to take computer classes soon so he could follow his father’s footsteps in working on computers, Ronald Spradlin said.

Wilson had no set career plan. A construction worker, his main dream was to save up enough money so he could buy a new car, Tafulu said. “He wanted a black Mustang--the fastest they had,” she said, smiling at the memory.

Both young men lived at home and checked in regularly with their families on their comings and goings. Wilson’s family kept particular track of his whereabouts. On Good Friday, 1986, his brother, Tai Wilson, 24, was killed in a motorcycle accident. On the day after Thanksgiving that same year, his brother, Nuu Soloi, 39 (who used his father’s middle name as his surname), was killed in a traffic accident while riding a bicycle.

Tafulu said the family was overly protective of Joe, the youngest of four surviving brothers. “He was the baby,” she said. “If he went out, he always told us when he was going to be back.”

On Friday night, Wilson and Spradlin went to the home of high school classmate Bert Recktenwald to help celebrate Recktenwald’s scholarship to play football at Arizona State University. Recktenwald said the victims left the party shortly before midnight on a beer run. He said he did not hear from them again and learned the next morning when Spradlin’s father called him that they had been killed.

At the Wine, Stein & Barrel store on Brookhurst Street, the store owner told police that when Spradlin was arguing outside with the Vietnamese people, Wilson, who had returned to their car, got back out and tried to extricate his friend from an impending fight.

It was then, police said, that the suspect allegedly went to his car and got his handgun.

Wilson’s family said his actions in trying to help a friend were typical of his role as peacemaker in disputes. Spradlin’s family said that he, too, was a peace-loving person who had been involved in no more fights than any other young man growing up.

“He wasn’t a bad-ass,” his father said Monday. “He’d mostly try to back out if there was a fight.”

Services for Spradlin are scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday at St. Vincent de Paul Church in Huntington Beach. Services for Wilson are scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Thursday at Westminster Memorial Park.