Stepgrandson Found Guilty of Murdering La Habra Woman, 73

An Arizona man was found guilty Monday of first-degree murder in the death of his 73-year-old stepgrandmother at her La Habra apartment last year.

Charles Wayne Keeler, 28, faces a possible death penalty because jurors found that the killing took place during a robbery.

Keeler was arrested in Reno a month after the death of Lois Bacon, who had been stabbed and strangled on Jan. 29, 1986. She was found by a daughter the next day.

Several hours before the woman’s body was found, Keeler was videotaped at two banks trying to cash a $600 check with the victim’s signature forged on it; he was driving the victim’s car when he was stopped in Reno for running a stoplight.

Keeler was seen in the La Habra area selling kitchen equipment a short time before the woman’s death. He was also identified by a neighbor as the man seen leaving the victim’s apartment the night she was killed.

Keeler displayed no reaction when the verdict was announced Monday.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jill W. Roberts said later, “It was an intelligent jury that made an excellent decision.”

Robbery Sentence

The jurors are to return July 6 to Superior Court Judge Lloyd E. Blandpied Jr.’s courtroom to begin the penalty phase of Keeler’s trial, in which they must decide whether he should get the death penalty or life in prison without parole.

Keeler has a long criminal record, which includes a 10-year prison sentence for robbery. Roberts has declined to discuss what will be brought up during the penalty phase.

Death sentences in Orange County are rarely sought in cases in which relatives are convicted of murder in the deaths of family members. The last such case in Orange County was more than three years ago; the jurors in that case did not return a death verdict.

Roberts noted, however, that although Keeler referred to the victim as “grandma” and lived with her for a time, they were not blood relatives. The victim reportedly refused to have anything to do with Keeler because of his criminal past.

Keeler denied killing her. He testified that she loaned him her car and that he found her checkbook in the glove compartment. When he was arrested in Reno, according to a transcript of an interview with police, Keeler told them: “If people think I would do in my own grandmother, they have got to be all the way crazy.”

He denied then that he had forged the $600 check.