Local News in Brief : Reunion Sparked by Slaying Coverage

Thirty-two years ago, Charles Willgues Sr. boarded a bus for Los Angeles, leaving behind a wife and three small children in the family’s home in Taylor, Mich.

This week Willgues stepped off a jet at Detroit Metropolitan Airport and hugged the son who traced him to Los Angeles after Willgues led police to a Sacramento landlady suspected of killing her tenants.

“This is the moment I’ve been waiting for for the last 32 years,” Willgues, 58, said after embracing Charles Jr. in the airport terminal.

The children had not seen their father since he left Michigan more than three decades ago.

They might not have found him if he had not helped police find California murder suspect Dorothea Puente.

Willgues met Puente in a Los Angeles bar five days after she fled her Sacramento boardinghouse after the discovery of seven bodies on the property last month. He later tipped off authorities on Puente’s whereabouts, and she was taken into custody.

A television reporter trying to locate Willgues after Puente’s arrest visited his old apartment where there was a letter from Willgues’ youngest daughter, Debbie Sculley. She did not know that he had recently moved. The letter went to the old address.

But the reporter eventually passed the letter on to Willgues. Taylor police helped him get in touch with his family, leading to Thursday’s reunion.