Man’s New Life, Family Threatened by Past : Crime: Wisconsin native arrested in 1983 Irvine slaying had abandoned a drug habit and was putting his wife through nursing school. Now he’ll return to Orange County to face charges.

Scott Andrew Stockwell had a steady job at a foundry, a wife he was helping put through nursing school and a young daughter he spoiled. The 31-year-old Wisconsin native had abandoned a drug habit and was looking to the future, planning for more children, said his wife, Megan.

This week, Stockwell’s past caught up with him.

Irvine police named him as a suspect in an arrest warrant in the 1983 bludgeoning death of Boyd William Finkel, a 39-year-old Irvine tire store owner and car collector. Finkel may have been beaten to death after making sexual advances to Stockwell, investigators said.

Homicide detectives took Stockwell into custody Tuesday morning after questioning him at the police station in Stockwell’s hometown of Marinette, Wis.

Stockwell agreed to return to Orange County to face the charges, said Irvine Police Sgt. Jim Broomfield. Stockwell will be held in Orange County Jail in Santa Ana until his arraignment today or Friday, police said.

“It’s kind of fulfilling to be able to identify somebody and clear a case that has been open for so long,” Broomfield said.

Irvine homicide detectives recently got a break in the case after they matched fingerprints taken from the crime scene with those in a new, computerized fingerprint database in Montana, where Stockwell had been arrested in 1986 for drunk driving. They then traced him to Michigan.

Tuesday’s arrest shocked and angered Megan Stockwell, 21.

“I didn’t know anything about it. . . . All of a sudden, for some ungodly reason, they pulled him in out of nowhere,” she said during a telephone interview from Menominee, Mich., a town across the state line from Marinette.

“My husband had a drug problem, but now he has a 4-year-old daughter who is the world to him. They picked the worst possible time to do this.”

She said the first she heard about the slaying was when she spoke with her husband after his arrest Tuesday.

Megan Stockwell said he was cooperating with authorities and she hoped that would work in his favor. She said her husband “comes across rough and tough. But he’s just a big teddy bear once you get to know him.”

Finkel had dinner the night of Oct. 15, 1983, in Irvine with business associates, police said. Shortly after that dinner, Finkel picked up Stockwell, who was hitchhiking, police said.

Stockwell, who had been discharged from the Navy, had been drifting around Southern California and at times stayed with strangers; he asked to stay at Finkel’s house for the night. Finkel agreed and drove to his home on Lockhaven Circle, Stockwell told investigators. Stockwell told police that, once the men entered the house, Finkel began making sexual advances, police said.

Investigators said Stockwell told them he became upset, beat Finkel, and then stuffed his body into the trunk of one of Finkel’s cars, a Cadillac parked in the garage.

Police said Stockwell then took another of Finkel’s cars and left California. He drove to Oregon and then Idaho before abandoning the vehicle along a logging road in Montana, Broomfield said. Stockwell moved in with a friend near Helena, Mont., police said.

Irvine police found Finkel’s body more than a week after the bludgeoning. Two of his friends reported him missing, which prompted investigators to check Finkel’s home and garage.

A hunter found Finkel’s car in Montana in November, 1983. Investigators immediately checked fingerprints found in the car and the crime scene with available records in California and Montana but were not able to identify them.

Investigators ran out of leads and the case was largely dormant for almost a decade.

In the meantime, Stockwell moved from Montana. He left in 1988 and worked construction jobs in Alabama. A year later, he settled with his wife in the Marinette-Menominee area, where he worked at a model airplane business before taking a job at a foundry in Marinette, making pistons.

A former boss remembered Stockwell on Wednesday as a good worker.

“He did a pretty good job,” said Ron Busch, owner of Balsa USA, which makes model airplanes. “I’d hire him back.”

Irvine police got a break in the murder case last December, when they checked their crime scene fingerprints in a new, computerized database that links all Montana law enforcement agencies. Investigators found the prints belonged to Stockwell, who had been arrested in Montana for drunk driving in the mid-1980s.

Police learned in April that Stockwell had moved from Montana, located him in Michigan, and about two weeks ago obtained a warrant for his arrest.

“A lot of these cases may get shelved for a long time, not because we’re not interested but because we’ve run out of leads,” Broomfield said. “Then scientific technology catches up and gives us a break. You go back and, depending on how well-maintained the evidence is, it can provide you a lot of help.”

Megan Stockwell said she is trying to figure out how to contact her husband and worries about a trial.

“He just finally ducked into a good, decent job at the foundry,” she said. “ . . . Our life was finally starting to hit the right direction.”

Times staff writer Rene Lynch contributed to this report.