Grisly Murder of Infant Girl in ’64 Remains Unsolved

The bank had foreclosed on the mortgage, and Dr. Wesley G. Slocum and his family were forced to vacate their home on Calvert Avenue. That’s when the movers noticed a strong smell coming from an unplugged freezer in the garage.

They broke the lock on the appliance, and there, in a swing-out wire basket, was the dismembered body of 2 1/2-month-old Cynthia Slocum. Her torso and limbs had been wrapped in two paper bags, then placed in cold storage for six years.

This week, Costa Mesa was stunned by the macabre slaying of William E. Nelson, 56, whose body was cut into pieces at his Elden Avenue home, rolled up into newspaper and placed in several plastic trash bags. Omayma Aref Nelson, his wife of four weeks, stands accused of killing him.

Twenty years later, the murder of Cynthia Slocum remains unsolved.

Slocum was prosecuted for the murder and during the trial in October, 1970, both he and his wife, Marian, accused each other of killing their infant daughter six years before. Slocum was acquitted, and his spouse was never charged.

As the prosecution’s main witness, Marian Slocum testified that her husband frequently slapped and kicked the child at home. The infant, she told the jury, lapsed into a coma after the doctor hit her on the night of Feb. 14, 1964.

Marian Slocum said she pleaded with her spouse to take the baby to the hospital, but he refused and tried to treat her himself at his Santa Ana office. After Wesley Slocum returned home, she testified, he left the house again with the child, coming back sometime later with two parcels wrapped in paper, which he placed in a freezer in the garage.

“I never looked in that freezer after that,” she told the jury.

Marian Slocum, who passed a lie-detector test before the trial, said she asked her husband what happened to the Cynthia. She quoted him as saying that the baby had died of head injuries.

She testified that she did not call the police because she feared her husband. He had an explosive temper, Marian Slocum told the jury, as well as paranoid tendencies that led him to think that people were trying to kill him to get his money.

In his defense, Wesley Slocum testified that he had gone to his Santa Ana office on the night in question and dozed off. He was awakened sometime later, he said, by a telephone call from his wife.

She allegedly told him that while feeding Cynthia, she had struck the child, knocking her unconscious. When he returned home, he said, his wife was hysterical and refused to tell him where Cynthia was. He told the jury that he searched the house but could not find the child anywhere.

Wesley Slocum testified that he did not call police because he loved his wife and had two other small children.

During his summation, then-Deputy Dist. Atty. James G. Enright assailed Wesley Slocum’s testimony, citing a pathologist’s opinion that the dismemberment of the infant had been a professional job. He disputed Wesley Slocum’s version of events, contending that Wesley Slocum would have paid more attention if his Cadillac were missing.

In 1974, Slocum was convicted of MediCal fraud and sentenced to 1 to 10 years in prison. He was released after 26 months.