The Murder of Tina Faelz
For this case, I watched another episode of Cold Case Files. It’s season 1 episode 3, titled ‘She Never Came Home.’
A 14 year old girl from Pleasanton, California, is killed while taking a shortcut home.
Background
Tina
Tina Faelz lived with her mom Shirley, and younger brother Drew. Tina wasn’t just an older sister, she was another mother figure to her brother. She always took care of him after school when their mom was away.
Tina struggled in school, she was severely bullied by a group of girls who would threaten her and throw rocks at her. Tina was so afraid that she didn’t ride the school bus anymore, she would take a shortcut home. She felt safe walking by herself, until one day when someone decided to take her life.
The Murder
On April 5, 1984, Tina left school, and went through her usual shortcut in the culvert. This was around 3-3:05pm, and Drew was expecting her home. About an hour later, Tina still didn’t arrive home, and Drew saw an undercover police car come up to the house.
Tina’s family learned that Tina had been killed, and a truck driver saw her body as he was driving on the highway. He stopped, walked down the culvert and called the police.
The police arrived soon after. Tina was identified when the police found her purse in a nearby tree, it had a report card inside. Tina was a freshman at Foothills High School.
She had been brutally killed. The medical examiner determined that she was stabbed 44 times, and alive for 38 of the stab wounds. The wounds were around five inches deep. There were no fingerprints, no footprints and no murder weapon found at the scene.
The police believed that the knife they were looking for wouldn’t have had a guard on the knife, and that the killer would most likely have cut themselves during the attack. The murder weapon wasn’t located in the area, even after a grid search was created to look.
Foothills High School
The next day, April 6, the police went to Foothills High School, to interview Tina’s classmates.
The police found out that on the day Tina died, the girls who bullied her threw rocks at her, and that one girl said “let’s tie her to a tree and stab her.” These girls were questioned, but they had been in detention at the time Tina was killed, and they were ruled out.
The next student the police spoke to was a 16 year old named Steve Carlson. He said that he and another student Todd Smith, were driving around and saw a student named Jeff Michaelson, in the culvert, around the time of the murder.
Jeff was a known bully, Steve had actually been thrown in a dumpster that day by him, and locked inside for 10 minutes. Jeff was also known to grope girls, and carry a knife on him.
Jeff was questioned on April 7. He had a cut on his index finger, and told the police two different stories about it. First, he said that he cut himself at work, and then that he cut it replacing a vent hood.
A search warrant was obtained due to the fact that he gave them multiple stories. The police found two hunting knives in his home, and they were sent in for testing. The knives came back clean, and the police didn’t have any evidence to charge him.
The Mom’s Boyfriend
The next suspect was a man named Keith Fitzwater, a man 15 years younger than Tina’s mom. Keith was verbally and psychically abusive to Shirley, and he caused a lot of tension in the Faelz home.
Tina had yelled at Keith a few days before she died, for hurting her mom. Keith apparently was very angry about it. Shirley had asked Keith to leave the home.
The police questioned Keith, and asked him where he was when Tina was killed. Keith said he had been at work, and on the day that Tina died, he asked his boss to drive him to Shirley’s.
The police spoke to Keith’s boss. He did confirm he gave Keith a ride home, but he told them that Keith had handed him his knife, and asked him to hold onto it.
The police asked Keith about this, and he said he didn’t want to walk into the home with a knife. The knife was sent in for testing, and it came back clean.
Many of Tina’s family members thought that Keith did it, especially Drew and Tina’s aunt, Karen. Keith wasn’t ruled out, but they didn’t have enough to charge him.
A Possible Break
On April 26, 1984, three weeks after Tina died, a man named Walter Nyman was arrested for sexually assaulting a 17 year old in Felton, California. The police thought the cases were connected because both crimes happened by water, and the victims were young teenagers. The 17 year old was able to get away, and Walter was arrested for attempted rape and assault.
At the time of Tina’s murder, Walter lived in Pleasanton, and told his grandma that he needed to leave the area. Walter’s grandma told the police that she remembers April 5, 1984, because Walter showed up at her house all flustered.
On April 28, a search warrant was obtained for Walter’s home. They found two bloody knives and bloody clothing. Each item was tested, but it came back as being animal blood. Again, he wasn’t cleared, but the police had no evidence.
Shirley’s Instinct
Tina’s case stalled after all the suspects were cleared. Drew said that he felt alone, and one person even joked with him that they killed Tina with a machete. Shirley was also deteriorating, but she tried to help the police as much as she could. If she heard a new story or new lead, she’d call the police.
In May 1987, three years after Tina’s death, Shirley came into the police station with a picture. She had read in the newspaper about a man named Michael Ide, who was in prison in Washington. Michael used to live in Pleasanton, and Shirley believe she met Michael at a barbecue, and had a picture with him.
The police sent investigators to Washington, to speak with the individuals who introduced Shirley to Michael. However, they said it wasn’t Michael in the pictures. Shirley was crushed, and she had to be put into mental hospitals over the years.
The Serial Killer Theory
In February 2008, 24 years after Tina died, a new detective named Dana Savage, looked into Tina’s case. She went over the crime scene photos and 20,000 pages of notes.
She discovered that in the 80’s, there were three serial killers in the area. In November 1984, Lisa Monzo, a teenager, was killed by Michael Ide. In 1983, Kelly Poppleton was killed by Robert Rhoads. In 1989, Vanessa Sampson was sexually assaulted and killed in Tahoe by James Daveggio and his girlfriend, Michelle Michaud.
James Daveggio had actually attended Foothills High School, and knew the same shortcut that Tina had taken.
The police went to speak to James, who was now in prison for the rest of his life. James said that he would confess if he was the one who killed Tina, and he pointed the finger at his friend Walter Nyman. However, there was no evidence that either of them killed Tina.
The Real Killer Emerges
Dana Savage was shocked, she thought for sure either James or Walter killed Tina. After going over the crime scene photos again, one thing stuck out to her: Tina’s purse. She believed that Tina would’ve used her purse to protect her, and that the killer must have been the last one to touch her purse.
The purse had only been looked at for fingerprints in 1984, and it was sent to the FBI in Quantico for testing.
On March 14, 2011, 27 years after Tina died, Dana received a call from the FBI. They said that they had found four blood drops on the purse, and that the killer was Steve Carlson.
Steve was the 16 year old that the police had questioned the day after Tina was killed. On the day of the murder, he had invited several people to go to his house to party because his parents weren’t home. No one wanted to. He was also thrown into the dumpster, and told the police that the person who did that to him was at the culvert with Tina.
Steve was pissed about what happened to him. After school, he returned home, got into his mom’s car, and drove around. He would later say he was driving around, and Tina gave him a dirty look. He was upset, and killed her.
The purse in the tree was to mark his territory. Steve was seen by multiple neighbors on his roof, watching the investigation. He had a good view of the culvert from his home.
Steve Carlson
Justice For Tina
On July 26, 2011, Steve was now in prison for an unrelated drug charge. Steve was once an innocent 16 year old, and was now a hardened criminal. He had been arrested numerous times for drug violations and even sexual assault. He was also covered in tattoos, and appeared cold.
The police interviewed Steve, and when they brought up Tina, he became ill. There is a video in this episode of him getting sick in a trash can.
Two weeks later, Steve was set to be released, but he was arrested for murder instead.
Convictions
In 2014, Steve was convicted for first degree murder and sentenced to 26 years in prison.
In 2017, his charge was changed to second degree murder by the First District Court of Appeal in San Fransisco. Ten years were also removed from his original sentence.
Steve eventually said that he was upset that he was being made fun of, and knew that his dad would punish him for having a party. He said:
“I don’t remember the stabbing motions, “I just remember standing over her bloody body holding a bloody knife.”
Other
Just before Steve’s trial, Shirley died from a heart attack, but Tina’s aunt said she died from a broken heart.
Shirley with a picture of Tina
FINAL THOUGHTS
I actually thought it was going to be a serial killer until I got to the end of the episode. Sometimes I look up what happened before I watch the episode, but this time I didn’t. It happens a lot, but it’s still shocking that another kid did this to Tina. He must have been an angry, angry person, because she was brutally killed, and she was so innocent. She was truly in the wrong place at the wrong time.
It’s also so sad what happened to Tina’s mom. She hung on for dear life to find out what happened to her daughter, and now she can finally be with Tina again.
Sources
https://patch.com/california/pleasanton/steven-carlson-convicted-first-degree-murder-tina-faelz-0
https://crimecapsule.com/what-happens-when-the-dead-begin-to-speak/
