THE EVIDENCE AGAINST JOHN WESLEY
by Donna J. Wade
No
one who knew Terese Stewart believes she killed herself. Not then, not
now. After the Riverside County DA successfully prosecuted John Wesley and
his wife for defrauding Mary Stewart, county investigators repeatedly
refused to re-open their investigation into her daughter's death.
When Mary presented the privately funded investigation to the DA's office,
they took the low road. In an incredible display of arrogance, the DA
decided that the fact that Mary Stewart spent her life savings
investigating the death of her daughter made her a prime suspect! Here's
what the privately funded investigation unearthed:
THE OPPORTUNITY
Wesley had keys to the Stewart home, and routinely came and went as he
pleased, even when neither Mary nor Terese were there.
THE MEANS
Wesley knew Mary had recently been given a gun because she showed it to
him. Still in the manufacturer's box, the gun was kept inside a sack on
Mary's dresser. Anyone with access to her home could have found it.
SPECIFIC DETAILS THE KILLER WOULD KNOW
The day after Terese was found dead, before any official police or
coroner's reports became available, Wesley told Mary, Shane and others
specific details about the incident. He later claimed the police
detectives provided him with the information, but it is unlikely that
police detectives would have shared such details with anyone. Wesley said
Terese had been shot while standing, then placed in the chair where Mary
found her. A subsequent exhumation and autopsy of the body showed that the
bullet's trajectory validated his assertion.
ATTEMPTS TO IMPLICATE MARY
Wesley told Mary and her son that there were three bullets in the gun, and
that they would find that it had been wiped clean of fingerprints.
According to experienced, retired LAPD investigators interviewed about
this case, had Terese actually handled the gun, smudges would have been
found on the weapon. RSO forensics personnel found no prints or smudges in
their examination of the gun. Wesley also stated he found a fine spray of
blood splatter high on the wall of the room where Terese was slain, but
when interviewed by investigators he indicated he never entered the
bedroom. Mary’s PI noted that only a person who has been present at a
death would know such a wound ejects a “fine spray.”
The day after Terese's death, Wesley and his wife met surreptitiously with
RSO Det. Brinkman, claiming to be "anonymous" neighbors, and gave him
false information about the nature of Mary and Terese's relationship in
order to implicate Mary in her daughter's death. He further claimed Mary
was causing problems at Giant Computer by trying to take control.
Apparently in Wesley's mind, given the claims he made recounted in
statements by clients and vendors, he was supposed to control Giant,
despite the fact that he owned no Giant shares and had been hired by Mary
(the CEO, incorporator, and major shareholder of record) to act only as a
manager.
THREATS AND LIES
In a contentious meeting with Mary the day of Terese's death, Wesley
threatened to break her, to make her cry. He then insisted on knowing
exactly when Mary would be home that night. He later bragged to Judy
Wagner that he had threatened Mary, and that he expected to be considered
a suspect because he was the last person to see Terese alive, at
approximately 6 PM the day of her death. But he told the police a
different story. Wesley claimed to have been with a Temecula real estate
agent, James Orndorff, until around 10 PM, then he and Lynn went directly
home.
According to Orndorff's statement to investigators, he did show the
Wesleys property that evening, but he felt the Wesleys were stalling him
because they spent "way more time than was necessary" looking at the lot.
Then Wesley insisted they have dinner together. They arrived at the
restaurant at closing time, but Wesley convinced the owner to stay open
and serve them dinner. They left the restaurant together around 9:45 PM.
Orndorff, Wesley's "airtight alibi" according to DA Investigator Silva,
was interviewed by Stewart's private investigators in July 2001, and again
in July 2002. At that time, he stated that he had never been interviewed
by sheriff's deputies or by anyone from the DA's office. He recalled that
Wesley spoke frequently in public about Terese's "suicide," describing the
scene in explicit detail, to garner sympathy from associates at business
networking meetings. He also indicated that he believed Wesley capable of
murder.
Sometime after his dinner with the Wesleys, Orndorff had occasion to pass
the lot the Wesleys allegedly wanted to buy. He was shocked to find
fencing and kennels with Wesley's "sled-dogs" inside. He marveled at
Wesley's audacity in setting up shop on land he didn't own.
According to Dr. Peggy Taylor's statement, she spoke with Wesley at the
Stewart home after sheriff and coroner officials completed their
investigation, while Mary went to pick up her son, Shane. Wesley told Dr.
Taylor that Terese had been killed by a narcissistic personality, and
tried to convince her that Mary had pulled the trigger.
This statement to Dr. Taylor is pertinent because Mary had given Wesley
information regarding his narcissistic personality traits the day of
Terese's death. When asked her professional opinion of the Wesleys, Dr.
Taylor told investigators she would describe John as "insincere,
narcissistic and sociopathic."
BIGAMY AND DOMESTIC VIOLENCE
Mary's investigators also discovered that Wesley had not divorced his
previous wife, Shirley, before marrying Lynn. Shirley revealed that Wesley
blinded her in one eye during a domestic violence incident. She also
stated that Wesley had repeatedly beaten his daughter, then locked her in
her room for periods up to two weeks, slipping food to her once daily.
Investigators discovered numerous other victims of Wesley's scams in
California and other states, as well as several aliases and social
security numbers he'd used.
CONFLICTING STORIES
At Terese's wake, Lynn Wesley told Mary's neighbor, Sara Neely, that she
and John were at Mary's house at 10 PM the night Terese was killed to "do
some computer work," but they left because no one was home. The Wesley's
had keys and were accustomed to being in Mary's home when no one was
there. Why change the pattern? This contradicts John's assertion that they
went directly home.
An independent witness reported seeing
someone matching Wesley's description in a compact car parked outside the
Stewart residence between 10-10:25 PM the night of Terese's death. Two witnesses
(Arlene Wood and Eric Lutz) told investigators they observed Terese's truck in
the driveway between 9:40-10:25 PM that night, indicating that Terese was home
at the time Lynn Wesley said no one was there.
Friends of the Wesleys told investigators that when the Wesleys visited their
home, John steered the conversation to Terese's death, intimating that he knew
the real story. John cited their meeting and dinner with James Orndorff
to numerous people as evidence they couldn't possibly have been involved in
Terese's death. These people found it odd that John repeatedly asserted his
alibi when there was no need for one.
FORENSIC EVIDENCE
Independent ballistics testing on the gun demonstrated that the only way the
shell casing could have landed between the seat cushions was if it ricocheted
off something and landed there, or had been purposely placed there.
After the sheriff and coroner's office
ended their investigation, while Mary was gone to get Shane, Wesley claimed he
"found" Terese's keys atop a TV stand “where Mary always puts her keys.” Mary
contends she always keeps her keys in her purse. Months later, when Mary
received copies of the photos taken by crime scene technicians, the photos
clearly show Terese's keys inside her bedroom. The only way those keys could
have been "found" on the TV stand was if someone removed them from her room
after the photos were taken and placed them on the TV stand.
The issue of the keys is relevant, because
Terese would have needed a key to enter the house where she was killed, yet when
she was murdered, the keys were locked in her mini-apartment outside the house.
Someone with keys to the house had to be a party in her death.
When confronted by private investigators with the crime scene photos showing
Terese's keys in her room, Wesley stated that it indicated that either he or
Mary was the killer. Mary was not in Terese's room between the taking of the
forensic pictures and Wesley's "finding" of the keys on the TV stand. The only
two people in Terese's room after investigators were Wesley and Dr. Peggy
Taylor.
When the Stewarts received Terese's clothing from the Coroner, Shane called
attention to a bloody mark roughly the diameter of the gun barrel on Terese's
blouse above her left breast area. Sheriff's investigators reported that this
mark was probably made when the gun dropped from Terese's hand after she shot
herself, before falling and lodging between the seat cushions and becoming
concealed by her arm. But the PI'S offered another interpretation: the killer
shot Terese in the head, placed her in the chair, then attempted to ensure
she was dead by a shot to the heart, but the gun jammed.
MOTIVE
Greed and retribution. Wesley has a history of violence whenever his efforts to
control and manipulate proved unsuccessful. Though Wesley admitted to
investigators that he had Terese's software, he stated it was worthless, yet the
programmer who finished the work suggested that Wesley would be able to sell it
for $1200-$1600 per copy.
Wesley had Mary take out a $250,000 life insurance policy, payable to whomever
controlled Giant. Though Mary had not yet signed her living will, the Wesleys
had forged Giant documents in order to take over control of the corporate
assets; it is not difficult to imagine them forging Mary's signature on the
living trust after her demise. Mary believes Wesley's insistence that she
purchase a cemetery plot next to Terese's indicated that she was to be his next
victim, so that his takeover of all her assets would be complete.
Serious questions remain about what really happened the night Terese
Stewart died, but no one in Riverside County law enforcement seems the least bit
interested in answering them. In fact, they are doing their best to hinder any
further investigation and any review of the evidence by outside sources such as
Victim of Crime advocates. The DA's office also rejected an offer of asistance
from agents in the FBI's Cold Case Unit. What are they hiding, and why?
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