Serial Killer Suspect Killed Driver Who Stopped to Help, Officials Say

Charles Hedlund of Lucerne Valley made a tragic mistake when he stopped to help a disabled motorist last week along Interstate 15.

Hedlund, returning from a Las Vegas vacation, had no idea the man he was assisting was suspected serial killer John Wayne Thomson, said San Bernardino County Deputy Dist. Atty. Victor Stull.

Thomson stabbed Hedlund multiple times with a short blade knife and took an unspecified amount of cash, which may have been part of the more than $6,000 that Hedlund had won in Vegas, Stull said.

Stull said the details of the murder were “going to take some people’s breath away” in the trial.

Thomson’s arraignment was postponed Wednesday at the request of his newly appointed attorney, Deputy Public Defender Joseph D. Canty Jr. Thomson did not enter a plea, and will appear again in court Sept. 5.

Though Thomson will be tried in San Bernardino County first, prosecutors intend to use evidence from Washington state, where he is believed to have killed two people.

Thomson allegedly bragged to acquaintances in Washington about killing 36-year-old Lori A. Hamm of Longview and 73-year-old James Ehrgott of Spokane, who disappeared in early July, according to a probable cause affidavit unsealed in Washington this week. The court document was posted online by a Spokane, Wash., television station.

Charlie Rosenzweig of the Cowlitz County Sheriff’s Office, the department’s chief criminal deputy, said Hamm and Thomson met at the Maltese Tavern in Kelso, where Hamm sang karaoke and Thomson was briefly employed.

On the day Hamm disappeared, July 16, Thomson was seen driving her blue Ford Focus, Rosenzweig said.

The affidavit states that several Thomson acquaintances -- including a man who told police Thomson had sold him Hamm’s cellphone -- told investigators that Thomson showed them credit cards in Hamm and Ehrgott’s names.

When one acquaintance asked Thomson about the cards, Thomson replied that there should be no worries because he had put “a bullet in his head,” according to court documents.

When Thomson acquaintances Don Cobb and Stan Payne drove around with Thomson in the Focus later that night, they told police that Thomson passed around a handgun and said he needed more bullets because he had only one left.

Payne later led police to the gun that he said Thomson abandoned in a truck in Longview. Payne also told investigators Thomson told him he had “capped [Hamm] in the back of the head.”

At Payne’s direction, investigators also checked a nearby trash can and recovered Hamm’s credit cards and identification and a credit card belonging to Ehrgott, as well as papers and identification cards that belonged to Thomson.

Rosenzweig said Thomson tried to use some of the stolen debit cards but was unsuccessful because he did not have the personal identification numbers.

Later this week, San Bernardino County prosecutors say they plan to file additional charges against Thomson for carjacking one person and attempting to carjack two others Monday before he was arrested in Victorville.

Thomson was initially detained and tied up by two pressmen at a Victorville newspaper who rushed to help one of the carjacking victims. Others may have assisted with the capture.

Thomson has been charged with Hedlund’s murder.