Police may have solved slaying from ‘79

Jace Radke

Thursday, Oct. 14, 1999 | 11:54 a.m.

North Las Vegas Police have dusted the cobwebs off a 20-year-old slaying case after a man came forward and admitted to the crime.

David Ferrell, 39, has been charged with the Nov. 21, 1979, stabbing death of 52-year-old Wilbert F. Wendeburg, after confessing to the crime to police in Long Beach, Calif.

"We don't ever close cases, but to have one solved after 20 years is pretty wild," department spokesman Chris Larotonda said Wednesday.

Ferrell was arrested in Long Beach on Oct. 7 for being drunk in public, Larotonda said.

"We got a call from the Long Beach department and apparently he (Ferrell) said some things to police while he was drunk," Larotonda said. "We went back and researched our open cases and what he was saying matched up with this case."

On Tuesday North Las Vegas detectives picked up Ferrell in California and accompanied him back to North Las Vegas.

Ferrell led detectives to the 20-year-old crime scene at 2522 Arrowhead St., in an old North Las Vegas residential area off Civic Center Drive north of City Hall.

"He knew things from that case that you couldn't know unless you were there," Larotonda said.

Ferrell, who was 18 at the time of the murder, told detectives that Wendeburg had given him a ride and offered to allow Ferrell to sleep on his couch, Larotonda said.

Ferrell explained to detectives that Wendeburg later made sexual advances toward him, and when he was rejected became angry, Larotonda said. Ferrell said he lost control and attacked Wendeburg with a knife after he fell asleep.

Larotonda said that Ferrell also told detectives that the guilt over the killing had eaten at him for 20 years and that he wants to be punished for his crime.

Ferrell has been booked into the North Las Vegas Detention Center on a charge of murder with a deadly weapon. He declined to comment this morning.