Younger of Charles Sons Was Family’s Big Success : Profile: Friends can’t imagine Eddie, the more average son, is a suspect in killings of his parents and brother.

At Eddie Charles’ soccer game a few years ago, a parent ran into Dolores and Edward Charles on the sidelines.

“All they could do was brag about their other boy,” said the woman, whose son was a teammate of Eddie Charles. “As a mother, my only reaction was, poor Eddie.”

This week, Edward Charles III, 22, was arrested on suspicion of killing his parents, Edward, 55, and Dolores, 47, and his brother, Danny, 19. Their bodies were discovered Monday night in a family car that had been doused with gasoline and set on fire outside a La Mirada high school.

In the Charles family, it seems, Danny was the sparkling success story while Eddie was the average kid, according to interviews this week with friends, classmates and neighbors who knew them.

When younger brother Danny went to USC to study acting and opera singing, for example, Eddie remained at home in Fullerton tuning up cars at the corner gas station. While Danny was a driven showman with a bundle of awards, Eddie was a regular Joe who dreamed of being an Olympic boxer.

But most of those interviewed said they could not fathom how the easygoing Eddie Charles they know, who enjoyed spending time feeding his girlfriend’s horses and openly worried about his father’s health, could be a suspect in his family’s slaying.

“Do I think he could have done that? No. No. No,” said Jeanne Bowen, whose daughter Tiffany is Eddie Charles’ fiancee of a few months.

Some friends and neighbors, however, said Eddie’s mellow nature contrasted with an explosive side.

His high school girlfriend said that sometime after she broke up with him in 1991, Eddie knocked her to the ground when he encountered her at a local soccer field. Two neighbors said that at his Terraza Place home, he was seen flying into rages, screaming at his parents and once throwing rocks at a recent girlfriend’s car after an argument.

“Eddie had a temper. He was always arguing with his dad, yelling obscenities at them. His parents seemed afraid of him,” said a neighbor who spoke on condition she not be identified. ‘He acted like he was running the show.”

Following Eddie Charles’ arrest on Wednesday, investigators from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department spent Thursday combing the family house and grounds in a tony section of Fullerton, where the family had lived for at least 12 years.

Authorities said they believe that Charles on Sunday night killed his parents in the home and the brother nearby, then put them in Danny’s car and hid them at an unknown location until Monday night. An autopsy determined that the father and brother died from bludgeoning with a blunt instrument, but the mother’s body was too severely burned to tell. Danny, whose body was found unburned in the trunk, had also been stabbed repeatedly.

Investigators said they had no motive for the slayings. Charles declined interviews at the Fullerton Jail on Thursday, and his attorney issued a brief statement of “continuing confidence and support” for him but declined further comment.

Orange County prosecutors said they expect to receive the case for review on Monday.

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Ray Peavy said a search of the home produced evidence incriminating Charles, but he declined to specify it. He said there was no sign of a struggle in the house.

By Thursday, relatives of the Charles family had flown in from as far as New York and Houston. As investigators searched the house and grounds, they sat inside with Dolores Charles’ father, who lives at the home and was asleep there the night the family died.

Peavy said Charles has stopped talking to investigators since his arrest at the house, on the advice of his lawyer. Attorney John J. Donovan had said earlier that Charles told investigators he is innocent.

The turn of events, first the grisly discovery of the charred Honda outside El Camino Continuation High School, then the arrest of the family’s oldest child, stunned the normally tranquil neighborhood and left family friends searching for answers.

Edward Charles Sr., a Hughes Aircraft engineer, and Dolores Charles, a self-employed typist, were known for their involvement in their sons’ activities. He helped coach Eddie’s youth soccer team in the early 1980s, while she provided refreshments and served one year as a club president.

“They seemed like a very supportive family, very supportive of their kids,” said Larry Mitobe, coach of the Warriors youth team at the time.

Dolores Charles was a leader of the booster club at the Orange County High School of the Arts, handling publicity and ticket sales for the school, where Danny Charles graduated in 1992.

But Danny Charles often seemed to outshine his older brother.

While Danny was making a name for himself at a prestigious performing arts school, Eddie was struggling just to be average on the soccer field at Sunny Hills High School. He was the player who tried hard, but was remembered most for missing a tying shot near the end of a playoff game, teammate Jason Fichtelberg said.

Although Charles played varsity soccer for three years, he never hung out with jocks, said former high school friends. His crowd worked on cars.

“I don’t even remember him being on the team,” said Mike Mitobe, who graduated from Sunny Hills a year ahead of Charles in 1989.

Charles “had a way of carrying himself that wasn’t coordinated or cool,” Fichtelberg said. “Sunny Hills was real cliquish. His friends weren’t one of the major cliques; they would try to go out and be social (at) the major hip parties. For most people, your whole life at Sunny Hills is trying to be accepted.”

Friends said Charles was polite and well-liked by their parents and got along well with his own family.

“He bragged about his brother. You could tell he loved his family,” said John Cho, the father of Charles’ best friend in high school.

Added Joonie Cho, the best friend, “Eddie got along well with his folks. I went to his house a lot and never saw any serious fights--just regular teen-age arguments.”

Yet Eddie’s high school girlfriend said he sometimes felt pangs of jealousy toward his brother and even complained that Danny was their parents’ favorite.

“He would say they loved (Danny) more than they loved Eddie. I doubt that’s true. I think he was just feeling sorry for himself,” said the former girlfriend, who asked that her name not be used. “They didn’t neglect him or anything. He always had money.”

The girlfriend said she met Eddie while the pair were students at Park Junior High School in Fullerton, but the couple didn’t start dating until he was a high school senior.

“He treated me real good in the beginning.” But when they broke up in 1991, Eddie started behaving strangely, she said.

A few weeks after they parted, she bumped into Charles when she went to watch some friends play soccer on a youth team he was coaching. But after the boys left, she said, he pushed her to the ground and slapped and kicked her.

Shortly after that, she said, when she left her car in a store parking lot, she returned to find it dented.

“The next time he saw me he said he was with his friend and his friend did it,” she said. “I was really scared. . . . My mom got a new alarm system on the house.”

But the mother of Charles’ fiancee said she never saw any signs that he could be violent. In fact, Charles lived for much of the last few months at their home.

He also seemed full of dreams. He worked out at a Fullerton racquetball club and had bulked up noticeably, friends said, and told even casual acquaintances he was on his way to becoming an Olympic boxer. He told his fiancee’s mother he planned to attend the Olympic training center in Colorado in March.

But no one on the local boxing scene has ever heard of Eddie Charles. He also was not registered in the organization that sanctions Olympic-level fights, though records show he belonged for three months last year. Eddie’s boxing dream took some longtime friends by surprise.

“Growing up, he never seemed like a fighter. In high school you have people who were fighters and tough guys,” said Shon Halverson, who grew up in the same neighborhood. “And he wasn’t one of them.”

Times staff writer Tracy Weber contributed to this story.