Opinion ID: 2590211
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: Murder of Ronald Gene Wiebe

Text: About 8:30 or 9:00 p.m. on Friday, July 27, 1973, Ronald Gene Wiebe left his mother's house in Los Alamitos to go to the Sportsman's Lodge for a few beers. He was 20 years old, five feet five inches in height, and weighed 125 to 130 pounds. About 6:30 a.m. on July 30, 1973, Seal Beach police officers were dispatched to the Seventh Street on-ramp to the San Diego Freeway, where a body later identified as Wiebe's was found. There was no belt in the pants; the right foot was bare, but there was a sock on the left foot. The top of Wiebe's pants was undone, exposing his penis. There was a ligature mark on the victim's neck about one-quarter-inch wide. Death had occurred about two days earlier, caused by asphyxia due to ligature strangulation. Postmortem road burns were all over the body. A sock had been stuffed into the victim's rectum, apparently postmortem. The victim's penis had been pinched after his death. His blood-alcohol level was 0.02 percent at the time of death, and no drugs were detected in his system. The prosecutor argued to the jury that 7TH ST. on defendant's list referred to Wiebe. The defense presented evidence that Officer Earl Potter of the Los Alamitos Police Department knew Wiebe and was familiar with his car. While on bicycle patrol outside the Sportsman's Lodge during the early morning hours of July 28, 1973, Potter did not see Wiebe's car. Later that day or the following day, however, the car was found at a nearby Firestone Tire store. Latent fingerprints taken from Wiebe's car did not match defendant's.