Man Held in Killing of Wife Who Vanished

The son-in-law of a former California senator was arrested Thursday on suspicion of killing his wife, who has been missing since August, authorities said.

Bruce Koklich, 42, was charged with murdering Jana Carpenter-Koklich, who disappeared from their Lakewood home Aug. 18 and has still not been found, the district attorney’s office said.

The victim’s father was Paul Carpenter, a former state senator from Orange County.

Sheriff’s investigators arrested Koklich just after noon Thursday outside his real estate office in Long Beach. He was booked into the Lakewood sheriff’s station and transferred to the Twin Towers jail near downtown Los Angeles, where he is being held in lieu of $1-million bail. He is scheduled to appear at the Los Cerritos Courthouse today for arraignment.

Authorities declined to discuss the case other than to describe what led to the murder charges as “a preponderance of evidence.”

“There’s no body and no one substantial piece of evidence,” Sheriff’s Lt. Ray Peavy said at a news conference Thursday afternoon. “It’s a combination and accumulation of facts that developed through the investigation that led to this point.”

Peavy said the case is largely circumstantial but that “we believe he did it.” Koklich had been under surveillance since his wife’s disappearance. Detectives would not discuss a motive.

Koklich’s attorney, Henry Salcido, said his client maintains his innocence.

“First he loses his wife, and now the wrong person is being arrested,” said the lawyer, who also attended the news conference.

Koklich allegedly killed his wife “on or about Aug. 18,” according to court papers. The 41-year-old real estate agent was last seen early that Saturday morning, when a friend dropped her off at home after they attended a concert at Staples Center together, detectives said.

Carpenter-Koklich, described by friends as punctual and fastidious, missed several appointments that weekend and failed to return phone calls, including one from her mother, authorities said.

Koklich reported his wife missing two days later, when she didn’t show up at their office and he couldn’t find her at their home.

He offered a $100,000 reward for any information. Detectives said Koklich agreed, but later declined, three times to take a polygraph test.

Salcido said the reason Carpenter-Koklich did not return phone calls that weekend was because the couple had come back from a business trip in Las Vegas earlier in the week and they “were tired and wanted to spend some quality time together.” He said the couple were happily married and were planning to adopt children.

On Aug. 27, Carpenter-Koklich’s bloodstained Nissan Pathfinder was found abandoned in a garage in Signal Hill, with her keys still in the ignition. Three teenagers had been seen joy-riding in the car, authorities said.

A few weeks later, a handgun taken from her purse was handed over to authorities. In October, DNA tests confirmed that blood in the car was Carpenter-Koklich’s, authorities said.

Peavy said he believes the body is probably hidden near where the car was discovered, he but expressed doubts about it ever being found. Deputy Dist. Atty. Greg Dohi said prosecuting a murder case without a body will be challenging.

Koklich was not the only suspect investigators considered, authorities said. “The detectives working the case looked at a number of different leads, not just those that involved Mr. Koklich,” Dohi said.

But Salcido said sheriff’s investigators did not aggressively pursue the possibility that the teenagers seen driving the Pathfinder were involved in her death.

Immediately after his daughter disappeared, Paul Carpenter said he doubted that she would return home safely.

As detectives updated Carpenter-Koklich’s family about the investigation, her parents expressed their belief that their son-in-law had something to do with their daughter’s death, Peavy said.

“Initially they seemed to support him,” he said. “But as time went by, and not a whole lot of time, they let it be known to us they thought their son-in-law was responsible for their daughter’s death.”

Carpenter-Koklich’s mother, Janeth Carpenter, said Thursday that over time, she became convinced that her son-in-law was to blame.

“I supported him for about a month, because I just couldn’t believe he could do such a thing,” she said. “But after I reviewed all the evidence, there just wasn’t any other explanation.”

Carpenter said that the last five months have been difficult and that the arrest doesn’t make it any easier.

“It makes me feel very sad,” she said. “Jana and Bruce were my whole family.”

Paul Carpenter, a Democrat from Cypress, served in the Assembly and state Senate before being convicted of political corruption and spending four years in prison. He died last week of cancer.