Relative to Stand Trial in Triple Slaying : Crime: A Fullerton gas station worker, Edward Charles III, could face the death penalty if convicted of murdering his parents and younger brother.

A municipal judge ruled Friday that there is enough evidence to order a young gas station mechanic to stand trial for the November slayings of his parents and younger brother.

Edward Charles III, 22, of Fullerton could face a death sentence if convicted of three counts of murder with special circumstances. He has pleaded not guilty.

Edward Charles, 55, an aircraft engineer at Hughes Aircraft in Fullerton, Dolores Charles, 47, a self-employed typist, and Danny Charles, 19, a promising opera singer and performer in his second year at USC, were found dead on Nov. 7 in Danny Charles’s car outside a La Mirada high school.

They had been bludgeoned, stabbed, choked and stuffed in the car, which was then doused with gasoline and set ablaze.

Investigators believe they were attacked the night before, put in the car and hidden at an unknown location until the car was set afire.

At Charles’ 2 1/2-month preliminary hearing, which ended Friday, his whereabouts that night were probed by both attorneys.

Charles told police he was at his fiancee Tiffany Bowen’s home in Fullerton on Nov. 6 and 7, but authorities said the fiancee’s family did not corroborate that.

Bowen’s brother, Richard, told Detective Curtis Royer of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department that the defendant called for a ride twice on the evening of Nov. 7. Bowen first gave him a ride to the service station where Charles worked, and later picked him up at playing fields about half a mile from the site of the burning car, Royer said.

Richard Bowen did not notice any gasoline odor, blood, or sweat on Charles when he picked him up, according to Royer’s testimony. Throughout the preliminary hearing Deputy Public Defender Ronald Klar tried to portray a family divided by sibling rivalry and parental disapproval of the elder son, including his failure to stay in college and his relationship with his fiancee.

Also during the hearing, the defense argued that a letter obtained by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department from an Orange County Jail inmate is inadmissible because its authenticity cannot be determined. The letter, purportedly written by Charles to the inmate he knew in jail, says that Charles discovered his family already dead but that he hid and later torched their bodies because he was afraid that he would be framed for their killings.

Judge Robert Keefe temporarily excluded the letter from the evidence until he has can authenticate it.

Charles will be arraigned April 10 in Orange County Superior Court, where the date for trial will be set.