12 years later, DNA link brings charges in woman's rape, murder

April Webb may have lost hope that her mother's killer would be caught, but police did not.

Their persistence led to charges Wednesday in the murder of Lela Warner. DNA tests matched samples found at the crime scene more than 12 years ago to a convicted burglar now in prison.

"They pulled it together," Webb said in an interview Wednesday. "They didn't give up, even when I thought it would never be solved."

Lela Warner, 68, was found dead May 5, 1994, in her bedroom - raped and strangled with a vacuum cleaner cord.

Stanley Johnson, 49, of St. Louis, is charged with first-degree murder and forcible rape in the case. He is serving 20 years at the Farmington Correctional Facility on multiple convictions of stealing and burglary.

Investigators said they also matched Johnson's palm to a print found on a doorway in Warner's home on Winfield Avenue near Hanley Road, according to court documents.

St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch said no decision has been made on whether to seek a death sentence.

Police have presumed the killer got into the home while Warner delivered fresh baked bread to her neighbors. Johnson had no connection to the Warner family or their neighborhood, McCulloch said.

Authorities said Johnson may have randomly picked her home for a burglary and attacked Warner when she interrupted him.

Her death was among the first cases reviewed by the St. Louis County Police Department's new Cold Case Unit, formed about a year ago with a federal grant.

Johnson was 17 when he was arrested in St. Louis in 1973 for assaulting an 82-year-old woman, police said. He snatched the woman's purse and knocked her down, breaking her hip.

Johnson was caught several times stealing purses and wallets from patients' rooms at hospitals. He was arrested for stealing from offices at the University of Missouri at St. Louis, police said. He was sentenced to prison three years after Warner's death.

Said Webb: "My hope was always they would catch the person and he would not be able to do it again."

Webb said she wouldn't advocate a death sentence but wouldn't stand in the way of one either. "I used to think he should have to give up his life, but I've let that go," Webb said.

She said not everyone in the family is ready to relive the emotions of the crime.

"My dad's not ready," Webb said. Thomas Warner, now 78, found his wife's body that day.

"Sometimes he can talk about it; sometimes he can't," she said. "It's going to be a struggle."

Webb still wonders why a stranger would kill her mother, a homemaker who loved to sew, cook and spoil her grandchildren.

"I don't know if we will ever know why," she said.