Man Found Breaking Up Hard to Do, Police Say

He had no job and no visible means of income. But police suspect that Lloyd Leon Wetzel married women to help pay the bills.

Ventura County sheriff’s detectives say Wetzel, a 29-year-old Simi Valley man, was married to three women at the same time. Now they are investigating whether he wedded them to swindle them out of their money.

“There is some evidence of possible fraud--that he was getting married for financial reasons,” said Det. Ronald Nelson, lead investigator on the case.

Sheriff’s deputies Monday jailed Nelson on suspicion of bigamy. He is being held at Ventura County Jail in lieu of $200,000 bail and is scheduled to be arraigned in Municipal Court this afternoon.

According to Ventura County records, Wetzel married Sandra Mae Lemich of Moorpark in January during a ceremony at Glory House, a church in Simi Valley.

Trouble was, Wetzel never got divorced from the woman he married in 1987 or the woman he married three years later, Nelson said.

Lemich, 17 years older than her new husband, said Tuesday she smelled trouble within months of her marriage. She said she started poking around and uncovered evidence that Wetzel may have never gotten a divorce from the woman he married in 1987.

“I did my investigation, and found out he was already legally married,” said Lemich, who first met Wetzel as a customer in the Simi Valley restaurant where she waits tables.

She took the information to Ventura County detectives, whose investigation led to Wetzel’s arrest. Wetzel now faces one felony bigamy count, but Nelson said more charges of fraud may follow.

“That’s the part that’s still under investigation,” Nelson said.

Lemich said Wetzel got off to a rocky start when they first met, but quickly made amends.

“He was really rude while I was working,” she said, “really obnoxious. He yelled out that he wanted my phone number and stuff, and I told the people he was with that was no way to get an older woman.

“That was on a Sunday, and he came back looking for me each of the next two days,” Lemich said. “But those were my days off.”

During their months-long courtship, Lemich said, Wetzel did all the right things. By December, the couple were in love and talking marriage, she said.

“I was thinking with my heart instead of my head,” said Lemich, who has never met the other two Mrs. Wetzels. “I really loved the man deeply.”

Pastor Antonio Vivirito, who married Wetzel and Lemich on Martin Luther King Day early this year, remembers the couple well. He spent a long time talking to them, making sure they wanted to spend the rest of their lives together.

“I talked to them about the age difference, saying ‘You know she cannot produce any children,’ ” Vivirito said. “But he said ‘I don’t care. I love her.’

“He was so much in love,” the pastor said. “I couldn’t believe it when I heard about the arrest.”

Wetzel left a trail of public records across Southern California.

Nelson said Wetzel married Bonita Hoffman in 1987, but that union was not altogether loving. The Newbury Park woman filed for a temporary restraining order in Ventura County Superior Court in July 1990, claiming domestic abuse.

The restraining order was granted for three years, according to court records. But within months, according to Nelson, Wetzel married his second wife, Guadalupe Diaz, now 27, a Sylmar resident.

Nelson said that for some time, Wetzel was living with both Hoffman and Diaz in separate households, without either woman knowing about the other.

“Early with the first two marriages, he was spending time with both wives,” the detective said. “The wives discovered each other and they kicked him out.”

Hoffman could not be reached for comment Tuesday. Diaz did not return phone calls. But Nelson said both of Wetzel’s first two wives have been interviewed by investigators and are aware of the bigamy allegation.

“They didn’t come forward themselves,” Nelson said. “But we have been in contact with them.”

On the 1996 marriage license issued by the Ventura County clerk, Wetzel swore under the penalty of perjury that he had never been married. He listed his occupation as the owner-manager of a trucking company.

Lemich said Tuesday that she still does not know why Wetzel wanted to get married.

“I asked him why he did it, and he said he thought he was divorced.”

Staff writer Tracy Wilson and correspondent Jason Terada contributed to this report.