It was an emotional day in court Thursday as the family of a little boy, who was kidnapped and brutally murdered nearly four decades ago got their first look at the man now charged with the crime.
Karen Tabler, the mother of Jeremy Stoner, told NBC Bay Area Thursday it’s bittersweet and she’s grateful the alleged killer has finally been identified. But the pain of it all has come flooding back.
“This is hard for me,” she said.
Tabler left the courtroom shaking after Fred Cain III, 69, who is accused of the brutal killing of her little boy made his first court appearance.
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Cain came to court in a wheelchair to face murder, kidnapping and sodomy charges in the 1987 killing of Stoner, who was 6.
“I think we’re trying to do the right thing and I think we made a commitment to the community to do the right thing by filing these charges,” said Paul Sequeira, Solano County Chief Deputy District Attorney.
Cain was arrested at his home in Oregon last week after the Solano County District Attorney’s cold case team linked DNA evidence to the man.
Tabler told NBC Bay Area she now recalls Cain did visit their Vallejo home once years ago, wanting to ride motorcycles with Jeremy’s father.
But though police talked to Cain early on in their initial investigation, they zeroed in on another man Shawn Melton, who was acquitted by juries two times. Melton’s former defense attorney says Melton, who died 23 years ago always maintained his innocence.
“My hope for the Stoner family is that they get some peace from this and that they’re able to accept that they have identified in the real perpetrator of this crime,” said Peter Foor, Melton’s former defense attorney.
Now, Martinez police are also looking at Cain as a person of interest in the murder of 9-year-old Eric Coy, who was stabbed to death in Martinez less than a month before Jeremy’s killing.
Cain will be back in court next month to answer to the charges in the Vallejo case.
