{"id":363569,"date":"2026-06-17T00:34:43","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T00:34:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/363569\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T00:34:43","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T00:34:43","slug":"man-pleads-guilty-in-1991-kidnapping-rape-and-murder-of-granite-bay-mother","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/363569\/","title":{"rendered":"Man pleads guilty in 1991 kidnapping, rape and murder of Granite Bay mother"},"content":{"rendered":"

More than three decades after the abduction and killing of a Granite Bay mother shocked Placer County, the man accused of the crime has pleaded guilty and agreed to spend the rest of his life in prison.<\/p>\n

The Placer County District Attorney’s Office announced on Tuesday that James Lawhead Jr., 64, entered a guilty plea to charges stemming from the 1991 kidnapping and murder of Cindy Wanner. As part of the plea agreement, Lawhead admitted to murder and kidnapping charges and acknowledged special-circumstance allegations that the killing occurred during the commission of a kidnapping and a rape.<\/p>\n

\"james-lawhead-placer-county-sheriff.jpg<\/p>\n

Booking photo of James Lawhead Jr.<\/p>\n

Placer County Sheriff’s Office<\/p>\n

Prosecutors said Lawhead also waived his appellate rights and accepted a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.<\/p>\n

Wanner disappeared on Nov. 25, 1991, while caring for her 11-month-old child at her sister’s home in Granite Bay. According to investigators, Wanner’s husband arrived at the residence with their 4-year-old daughter and found the infant alone in a high chair.<\/p>\n

Authorities said there were no signs of a struggle in the home.<\/p>\n

Three weeks later, a hunter found Wanner’s body dumped in a remote area near Foresthill, about 35 miles from where she was abducted. Authorities have said evidence indicated Wanner was kept alive for at least several days after she was kidnapped.<\/p>\n

Prosecutors have described it as “one of the most notorious cold cases in Placer County history.”<\/p>\n

\"Cindy<\/p>\n

Cindy Wanner, James Lawhead Jr. in 1991<\/p>\n

Placer County Sheriff’s Office<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, investigators announced a breakthrough after advanced DNA testing on evidence collected during the original investigation identified Lawhead as a suspect. Detectives later tracked him to Bullhead City, Arizona, with the help of facial recognition technology and arrested him in May.<\/p>\n

At the time of his arrest<\/a>, authorities said Lawhead was a convicted sex offender who had been released from prison in 1991 after serving 11 years of a 19-year sentence for a Sacramento County home invasion in which he beat a grandmother and raped her 11-year-old granddaughter. The Placer County Sheriff’s Office previously confirmed that Lawhead’s release came roughly 10 months before he murdered Wanner.<\/p>\n

Investigators also arrested Lawhead’s sister, Teri Lawhead, on accessory charges, alleging she concealed information about her brother’s whereabouts while he was living in Arizona under the name Vincent Reynolds.<\/p>\n

Lawhead is scheduled to be formally sentenced on July 14 in Placer County Superior Court.<\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"More than three decades after the abduction and killing of a Granite Bay mother shocked Placer County, the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":363570,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[34511,10288,121,123,122],"class_list":["post-363569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-granite-bay-news","tag-placer-county","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=363569"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363569\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/363570"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=363569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=363569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=363569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}