Suspect Arrested in 2 Slayings in Upscale Area

SANTA ANA — Investigators announced Saturday they have arrested a 19-year-old Anaheim woman for the double murder of John Tyler Hancock and his elderly mother and the burning of their million-dollar rented home in upscale Lemon Heights.

A sheriff’s spokesman identified the suspect as Tynickia Sherikia Thompson of Anaheim. A neighbor described her as unemployed and in financial trouble.

The bodies of Hancock, 49, and his mother, Helen B. Hancock, 77, were discovered May 8 when 65 firefighters responded to the million-dollar blaze on Dannen Drive at the 4,200-square-foot house the mother had leased in the posh Lemon Heights community near Tustin.

Investigators found Hancock’s body in the backyard and his mother’s in the kitchen, both severely burned. Autopsies showed they had been shot and had died of strangulation and bleeding.

Hancock, a onetime Newport Beach businessman, lived a luxurious life but had served prison time for swindling lenders and was being investigated for credit card fraud.

Thompson’s neighbor in an Anaheim apartment, Kimberly Wakefield, 27, said she had introduced Thompson to John Hancock in March. Sometime after that, Hancock told Wakefield that Thompson had demanded $200 from him and he had paid it.

Investigators said Thompson and Hancock had been involved in a “financial dispute” but declined to elaborate. They said Thompson had been at Hancock’s house the day before the slayings.