4th Suspect in Upland Boy’s Murder Is Deputy’s Son

UPLAND — When Mike Kasbeck returned home from a family camping trip Sunday and turned on the nightly news, he got a real jolt. Just hours earlier, the broadcast reported, 19-year-old Wayne Hobbs had surrendered to police and was being held on suspicion of abducting and murdering a young Upland boy.

Kasbeck, 15, instantly concluded that police had the wrong guy. Hobbs was his neighbor, his buddy, an idol of sorts with whom he shared an interest in snakes, skateboarding and motorcycles.

Hobbs is the son of a San Bernardino County deputy sheriff, a kid who spent several years as a sheriff’s explorer cadet and once thought of pursuing a career in police work himself.

Hobbs was not, his friend was quite sure, a murderer.

“He wouldn’t do something like this. It’s just not him,” Kasbeck said Monday, sitting on the curb along the peaceful Upland cul-de-sac where Hobbs and his parents also live. “I mean, I’ve seen him pick up a bird with a broken wing, take care of it and then let it go.”

Kasbeck’s expressions of disbelief were echoed Monday by others who know Hobbs, the last of four Upland teen-agers arrested in connection with the mysterious death of 9-year-old Jason Matthew Lea.

Jason’s nude, partially decomposed body was found at the foot of a cliff near the Mt. Baldy ski area on Friday. The slight, brown-haired youngster vanished July 29 after leaving home to take an evening bicycle ride.

Few details about the puzzling case have been released, but authorities have suggested that the four youths in custody acted in concert in abducting Jason, who had been seen with several teenagers at a video arcade and a bowling alley on Foothill Boulevard the night he disappeared.

In addition to Hobbs, 18-year-old Richard LaLonde and two unidentified juveniles, ages 16 and 17, are suspects in the case. The four may be arraigned on murder charges as early as Wednesday, Los Angeles County Undersheriff Robert Edmonds said.

Although detectives have yet to establish a motive in the killing, there is “no indication of an occult influence,” Edmonds said. He added that the four suspects are “acquaintances” who frequented Upland Bowl, where Jason was last seen alive.

The Los Angeles County coroner’s office has yet to determine how Jason died, but Edmonds said there was no evidence of a gunshot wound. The body was in such an advanced state of decomposition that an autopsy failed to yield the cause of death. Results of laboratory and toxicological tests, which should shed further light on the mystery, are due in about two weeks.

Hobbs is the son of Sheriff’s Sgt. Gary Hobbs of the Chino Hills substation. The blond youth surrendered at the Upland police station at about 7 p.m. Sunday under an arrangement worked out previously between his parents and sheriff’s detectives.

Despite Kasbeck’s praise of Hobbs as a “nice guy who wouldn’t hurt anybody unless he was forced to,” even he admits that his friend’s life was not free of adolescent angst.

There were arguments with his parents and sometimes Hobbs would leave home temporarily, Kasbeck said. Minor skirmishes--like traffic tickets and a rock thrown through a window--occasionally occurred with authorities.

School was an apparent problem as well. A former Upland High School student, Hobbs dropped out about a year ago, friends said. Since then, he has pumped gas, worked at a pizza parlor and in an assortment of other odd jobs.

An assistant manager at Little Caesar’s pizza parlor on Foothill Boulevard recalled that Hobbs “was a nice, friendly guy” but said “he goofed around a fair amount” and was reprimanded by the boss after a prank involving pizza dough. Finally, Hobbs was fired about six months ago, Richard Buckley said.

Kasbeck and others said they had noticed a change in the friends Hobbs was keeping in recent months.

Doug Goshen, 16, who has lived down the block from Hobbs for about eight years, said the two used to go to the beach together and surf. But the outings ended when Hobbs began hanging out with this new group of friends.

“These new guys were heavy metalers. That’s not my style,” Goshen said.

Kasbeck, too, had seen less of Hobbs recently. “I don’t trust those guys he’s been with lately,” he said. “They have this ‘I don’t care, it doesn’t matter’ kind of attitude. They’re not like Wayne.”

Still, Wayne Hobbs’ friends remain stunned by the murder accusation. Kasbeck recalls that just two years ago, when Hobbs was a sheriff’s cadet, he spent four days doing an anti-drug pitch at the Orange County Fair. Another time, Kasbeck watched his friend go to the aid of a man who was having a seizure at a shopping mall.

“He’s a good kid,” said a neighbor, Rick Nyman, 29. “If he was involved, then he somehow got sucked into it and couldn’t control it. But I don’t think he’s guilty.”

Times staff writer David Freed contributed to this article.