| For Immediate Release Case # 07NF2652
July 21, 2009 |
Susan Kang Schroeder Public Affairs Counsel Office: 714-347-8408 Cell: 714-292-2718 Farrah Emami |
INDIANAPOLIS MAN LINKED THROUGH DNA CONVICTED OF MURDERING 20-YEAR-OLD SINGLE MOTHER IN 1985
SANTA ANA – An Indianapolis man was convicted today of the cold-case murder of a 20-year-old single mother in her Anaheim apartment in 1985 after being linked through DNA. Wendell Patrick Lemond, 51, Indianapolis, IN, was found guilty by a jury of one felony count of first degree murder and faces a maximum sentence of 25 years to life in prison at his sentencing on Sept. 25, 2009, at 9:00 a.m. in Department C-35, Central Justice Center, Santa Ana.
In 1985, Lemond worked with 20-year-old single mother Catherine Tameny at an Anaheim business, Archive. Early in the morning on Aug. 5, 1985, Lemond murdered the victim in her Anaheim home. The defendant sexually assaulted Tameny, who was found with her shirt pulled up to her upper torso and naked from the waist down. Lemond wrapped a clock cord around Tameny’s neck, bound the hands of Tameny’s 2-year-old son, and left him in the living room. Lemond then fled the scene. The victim was found later that morning by her mother and step-father.
The defendant was a suspect from the beginning of the case, but there was insufficient evidence to charge him at that time. Several months after the murder, Lemond moved to Idaho, and later to Indiana.
DNA evidence, including a swab taken off the victim’s breast, was collected from the crime scene, but the case went unsolved. In 2007, Lemond’s DNA was matched to the murder of Tameny using technology that did not exist in 1985. The defendant, who was living in Indiana, was extradited on Aug. 30, 2007, to faces charges in Orange County.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Howard Gundy of the Homicide Unit is prosecuting this case.
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