Wife’s Blood Found in Home

Detectives found a small amount of Jana Carpenter-Koklich’s blood in the bedroom she shared with her husband, who is charged with killing her, authorities said Friday.

Bruce Koklich, 42, pleaded not guilty Friday to one count of murder at the Los Cerritos Courthouse in Bellflower. Carpenter-Koklich, daughter of the late ex-state Sen. Paul Carpenter, disappeared Aug. 18 from her Lakewood home, authorities said. Her body has not been found.

Sheriff’s Lt. Ray Peavy said Friday that when investigators checked the interior of the home, there was “no blood visible to the naked eye.” But they discovered the blood spots by using Luminol, a substance that makes even trace amounts detectable. The blood matched Carpenter-Koklich’s, Peavy said.

Sheriff’s detectives also found larger bloodstains in her Nissan Pathfinder, which was found Aug. 27 in a Signal Hill garage. Detectives declined Friday to explain the suspected motive, why the evidence points to Koklich or the timing of the arrest, which occurred a week after the death of Carpenter-Koklich’s father.

Koklich was arrested Thursday outside his Long Beach real estate office and was taken to Los Angeles County Jail, where he is being held in lieu of $1-million bail. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Barbara M. Scheper denied a request Friday to reduce that amount.

Koklich’s attorney, Henry Salcido, said his client plans to post bail next week in the form of property bonds.

The suspect had reported his 41-year-old wife missing Monday morning, Aug. 20, when she did not show up for work at the office they shared and when he could not find her at home. He also offered a reward for information on her whereabouts.

That weekend, her mother said Friday, Carpenter-Koklich did not return her phone calls and missed a date with her to see a movie.

When Janeth Carpenter asked her son-in-law what the couple had been doing over the weekend, “he couldn’t tell me anything,” she said. “I knew that he must have been lying.”

Carpenter said she went to their house several times the week that Koklich reported his wife missing. She and the housekeeper discovered that a bedsheet, towel, doormat and pillow were missing, Carpenter said. She said Koklich told her he believed his wife had been abducted by a carjacker Monday morning.

“After these items were missing, I thought she was abducted from the house,” Carpenter said.

She said she did not know of any problems in her daughter’s marriage. Paul Carpenter, however, told authorities he believed that his daughter wanted to divorce her husband but that Koklich did not want to split the assets.