Brutal Murder in the Muirwood Neighborhood Remains Unsolved

Twenty-seven years ago, Foothill High School freshman Tina Faelz, 14, was brutally murdered in the Muirwood neighborhood along Lemonwood Way at Interstate 680.

The site of this homicide is very close to where I live, just 250 feet east and 450 feet south of my home. This area at the end of Lemonwood Way is currently a fenced-in, open area that borders up against I-680.

One family between Eastwood Court and Lemonwood Way on my side of Muirwood Drive lived here at the time of the murder. The rest of us have lived here just over ten years or less.

I first learned of this unsolved murder six years ago when my neighbor Karen Danek told me the story. Karen said "it bothered me then and it still bothers me now." Karen and her husband, George, moved out of the area in 2009, after George retired.

The then-Pleasanton Police Chief Bill Eastman retired in 2000, and the senior investigator on the homicide was Lt. Darrin Davis — he also is retired.

I contacted the Pleasanton Police Department to find out where things stand on the murder, and spoke with Sgt. Jim Knox, the current homicide investigator.

I informed him that I write a blog for Pleasanton Patch and have been researching the unsolved murder in the Muirwood neighborhood. He told me that he "could not go into any detail because the case is still an active investigation."

I asked Sgt. Knox if he remains in contact with the victim's mother, Shirley Faelz —now Shirley Orosco, having married in 2006. Knox said they "are in regular contact" with Orosco.

I informed Sgt. Knox that I have researched the crime online and informed him there are reports of the police interviewing teachers, students, family members and people coming and going from the Faelz household. I did not see any reports where the police had conducted interviews with residents of the Muirwood Drive neighborhood during the course of the investigation. Sgt. Knox responded "I am sure that residents were contacted and interviewed."

There is more online regarding this horrible murder than what is in the printed media. The San Jose Mercury News covered the story, and there were follow-up stories. The last detailed account was three years ago by Janet Pelletier writing for Pleasanton Weekly, where she was managing editor.

I left a voicemail there for the now-managing editor, Dolores Fox Clardelli. She did not return my call.

Janet had this in her news account on the murder of Tina Faelz:

"Faelz 14, was last seen alive at 2:35 p.m. April 5, 1984. The Foothill freshman often took the bus home from school but had recently started walking home to avoid being teased by other students riding the bus, according to her mother, Shirley Orosco.

"Faelz took a back-route from the high school walking on a path that connected through Astor Court to Lemonwood Way and through the Interstate 680 underpass to her Valley Trails home. But that day, she only made it part way when police believe she was approached and subsequently stabbed to death."

One online account describes in graphic detail the wounds Tina suffered with the amount of blood at the scene. I was a little shocked as I read the details of the murder scene and other related online accounts.

I was further struck with the severe level of bullying that was routine at Foothill and on the bus to and from school for some students. It was mostly girls in groups but not limited to just groups of girls — there were boys also bullying one or two other students. The threats directed toward Tina were a much higher level than simple teasing. Then there were the reports of drugs and alcohol use by students at Foothill that surprised me.

From the brutality inflicted on Tina at the time she was murdered, I am inclined to think one person could not have acted alone. If there was more than one person involved in murdering Tina, they were probably young people and probably students. If there was one person acting alone in murdering Tina, it was probably an older person who may well have killed before.

The police have DNA results and that may well be the manner in which this case is resolved. When someone is arrested and their DNA is run through the state's database, there is a hit.

Footnotes:

1. When I was considering writing this blog and discussed it with my editor and then started researching the material mostly online, I became somewhat overwhelmed with the complexity and the enormity of this case. I was surprised at the student exchanges during the investigation and the years following the murder.

2. I used specific search criteria to research this unsolved murder in the Muirwood neighborhood, and the investigations and had a few surprises. I noticed I was getting hits on Zodiac message boards. I ignored them initially for a couple of days then decided to follow a couple of them. I learned that in the early 1970s, Zodiac posted at least one and maybe two letters from the Pleasanton Post Office on Black Avenue. The letters went either to the Los Angeles Times or the San Francisco Chronicle or one letter to each. We know that Zodiac started his murder spree in Vallejo, a community 40 miles east of Pleasanton. I do not know if Zodiac was active after 1980. Zodiac has never been brought to justice.

3. I searched for a phone number and email address for Shirley Orosco and did get a possible email address from a people-finder site. I sent an email to the address provided and identified myself, described the blog I was writing for Patch and asked for comment. I know from my research that Shirley Orosco has actively sought help in publicizing her daughter's murder so as to get the community talking and maybe jiggling someone's memory — maybe that will fire up the murder investigation and result in the arrest of a suspect or suspects. After this blog posts, if I do have contact with Shirley Orosco, I will follow up with additional comment.