Prosecutors await police reports in Leila Fowler murder case

Calaveras County prosecutors said they are waiting for police to hand over evidence in an 8-year-old girl’s gruesome murder before they consider filing charges against her 12-year-old brother.

The older brother of Leila Fowler was arrested on suspicion of murder by Caleveras County sheriff’s deputies over the weekend after authorities said the boy’s story about an intruder brutally stabbing his sister didn’t add up.

There was no sign of a burglary or robbery at the home when Leila was killed April 27. The children’s parents were at a Little League game.

The boy is being held at a juvenile detention facility awaiting charges. Prosecutors are awaiting full reports from the Sheriff’s Department before they consider charging the boy with murder, an official from the Calaveras County district attorney’s office said in a message left on the office’s voicemail.

For the first few days after the slaying, children in town were terrified, getting most of their information from each other at school, said 11-year-old Faith Armstrong.

“I didn’t want to sleep in my bedroom,” she said. “I didn’t want my little sisters to go outside.”

But long before the authorities announced the arrest, the small town -- its center is little more than a strip mall surrounded by hay fields and rolling foothills -- had started doubting the tale of a long-haired stranger with a knife.

The busiest restaurant in the community of 7,500 is Good Friends Chinese Buffet, which serves all-you-can-eat sushi, Chinese food, pastries and ice cream for one price.

Every night waitress Fian Ngo heard people talking about the brother.

“One table had a child who said ‘I go to school with him; he’s a bully.’ At another table a girl said “No, he’s nice. He’s my friend.’

“But most people were saying the story just didn’t add up.”

One neighbor had supported the boy’s account, saying she saw someone fleeing. She later recanted.

“Funny thing is she’s a customer of ours. She’s normal. I don’t know what she saw,” said Ngo.

Two days after the stabbing, Fidel Taylor--who knows many of the children in town from coaching sports--sat down his two children who attend Toyon Middle School with the boy.

Taylor, a retired police officer, told his children they were not to repeat it outside their family, but that he suspected the brother.

“I wanted them to know they were safe and to keep away from him.”

But as more than a week went by and Taylor watched his friends trying to soothe terrified younger children, he went cryptically public with his suspicions, posting: ‘I know you’re thinking it too’ on his Facebook page.

He received dozens of private messages from parents who wanted to ease their children’s fears of a child killer on the loose but not accuse a 12-year-old.

Taylor said the arrest brought a feeling of sadness, as well as relief.

A week before she died, he had seen Leila in line with her mother at a coffee shop.

“She was twirling and twirling the way little girls do,” he said. “But now her murder is a tragedy instead of a threat.”

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Joseph.serna@latimes.com

@josephserna