Police have arrested the hospitalized grandson of an elderly couple found murdered last weekend in their Glendale home, and said they will recommend that murder charges be filed next week, a police spokeswoman said Friday.
Nathaniel Wayne Scheiern, 34, had been injured in a single-car crash on a freeway in Santa Clarita on June 25, where he suffered significant but non-life-threatening injuries, said Tahnee Lightfoot of the Glendale Police Department, and was rushed to Henry Mayo Newhall Memorial Hospital.
“Detectives believe the victims were killed sometime before the car accident,” Lightfoot said. “While at the hospital, the detectives waited for several days to allow Scheiern to recover from his injuries before continuing their investigation with him.”
Scheiern was arrested at about 6:30 p.m. Thursday on two counts of suspected murder, she said. The case will be presented to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office on July 7.
Police named him a “person of interest” last Sunday, when the bodies of Verna Irene Scheiern, 82, and William Scheiern, 77, were found in their house in the 600 block of Alexander Street, after police received a call about 9:30 a.m. on June 28 from a concerned family member who had not heard from them.
Police officers found the home’s front door open and discovered the couple’s bodies, but did not find Scheiern, who was living with the elderly pair.
Autopsies conducted on the couple showed both had multiple injuries, but decomposition of the bodies prevented pinpointing the cause of death.
— City News Service