Tina Faelz Murder Suspect Due in Court Today

Steven J. Carlson, the man accused of murdering 14-year-old Tina Faelz almost 30 years ago as she walked home from school, is due to appear in court in Oakland today for a preliminary examination.

Initial hearings had been held at San Leandro Juvenile Justice Center because Carlson was a juvenile at the time of the killing.

Carlson, 44, a registered sex offender with a criminal history involving drugs and battery, was on suspicion of killing Faelz in April 1984. He was a classmate of Tina's at Foothill High School.

Carlson's father, interviewed by Patch right after Carlson's arrest, said he doesn't believe his son committed the crime.

On April 5, 1984, Tina Faelz, a 14-year-old Foothill High freshman, was stabbed to death in a culvert that once crossed beneath Interstate 680, while she was walking home from school. Fellow students discovered her body shortly afterward. Now, 27 years later, Carlson is being charged in the killing.

Pleasanton Police said Carlson lived close to the path on which Faelz was killed, a popular shortcut that passed east of the school underneath the freeway to the Valley Trails neighborhood. He said it would have been easy for the suspect to know which students used that route to walk home. (For a map showing the school area, click here.)

Editor's Note: Journalist Tanya Rose contributed to this report