See the update at the end of this post on Lucie Wardell's arraignment for the fatal stabbing. Also, Garden Grove Police Department corrected the victim's name.
ORIGINAL POST, FEB. 24, 7:04 A.M.: Firefighters were called to a board and care home in Garden Grove about a reported heart attack victim late Friday morning.
What Garden Grove Fire Department personnel discovered instead was deceased 50-year-old Hoa L. Hui, who had lacerations around her face and neck.
Lucie Wardell, Hoa's 49-year-old roommate, was later questioned and confessed to the killing, according to police.
]
The call to the fire department came from the care home at 10811 Chapman Ave. around 11:05 a.m, according to Garden Grove Police Lieutenant Ben Stauffer.
It was firefighters who asked police to investigate, Stauffer added.
Wardell was booked into Orange County Jail on suspicion of murder, but the motive for the killing was not initially known, Stauffer said.
An autopsy was scheduled, according to the police spokesman, who said he could not comment on the medical issues that had the women housed in the board and care home due to “privacy concerns.”
UPDATE, FEB. 25, 1:59 P.M.: Lucie Wardell is scheduled to be arraigned today in Westminster, where prosecutors will ask a Superior Court judge to set her bail at $1 million.
She is accused of stabbing her roommate repeatedly, killing the woman, according to a statement from the Orange County District Attorney's office.
Wardell is charged with felony murder with a sentencing enhancement for the personal use of a knife and faces up to 26 years to life in state prison with a conviction.
Email: mc****@oc******.com. Twitter: @MatthewTCoker. Follow OC Weekly on Twitter @ocweekly or on Facebook!
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.