Suspect in Infant’s Death Arrested : Crime: Former Laguna Beach resident is taken into custody in Tennessee two years after his son died of head injuries.

After a two-year investigation, a 48-year-old man has been arrested in Tennessee on suspicion of killing his infant son, police said Wednesday.

Stanley Jack Wyly, a former resident of Laguna Beach, was taken into custody just outside Nashville last week by Laguna Beach Sgt. Ray Lardie, who had been investigating since 3-month-old Benjamin Wyly died of head injuries in 1991.

“We are very happy to have (Wyly) in custody,” Laguna Beach Sgt. Lance Ishmael said. “These types of cases take a lot of work to put together and can be very difficult to prove in a court of law. We are now ready to proceed and go to trial.”

Ishmael would not say what specifically led to Wyly’s arrest last week or why the investigation took two years.

“It was an extensive investigation,” he said. “It’s a matter of pulling everything together and crossing all the T’s and dotting all the I’s.”

The baby’s mother, Pamela Parks, called 911 when the infant stopped breathing. When police arrived, she was giving the baby mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. The child was taken to South Coast Medical Center in Laguna Beach but died a short time later.

Because of the police investigation into his death, the baby has never been buried and his body has remained at the county morgue.

After the child’s death, the parents, who were not married, separated and Parks moved to Arizona. Wyly moved to Georgia, then to Tennessee.

“The father became a suspect once we determined that the child died at the hands of another,” Ishmael said. “We tried to keep tabs on the father from then on. We didn’t want to lose him until we could get the case filed.”

Ishmael said police kept in touch with Parks throughout the two-year investigation. He said he did not know if Wyly knew he was a suspect.

Wyly, who was arrested without incident and waived extradition, is being held at Orange County Jail on suspicion of murder. His bail was set at $250,000.

He will be arraigned Aug. 5 in Municipal Court in Laguna Niguel.