Slain Boy’s Parents File Defamation Suit

The mother and stepfather of a toddler who was found smothered near their home last summer sued the Orange County Sheriff’s Department on Tuesday, alleging they have been defamed by investigators determined to treat them as suspects.

Feilong and Edith Marie Wu allege investigators began hounding them before the body of their 2-year-old child, C.T. Turner, had even been discovered. Later, they alleged, deputies ignored and attempted to discredit leads provided by their private investigator.

“Instead, the real killer or killers are still at large while the Sheriff’s Department engaged in a ham-fisted effort to incriminate the Wus,” their attorney, Jeffrey Wilens of Irvine, said in a press release. “‘When that failed, they just decided to destroy their livelihood and reputation.”

Sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Ron Wilkerson, who is named as a defendant in the suit along with Sheriff Brad Gates and three deputies, said the department could not comment on the pending lawsuit, filed in Orange County Superior Court in Santa Ana.

Sheriff’s authorities have said in the past that they have no suspects in the slaying, and that they have followed up on information provided by the Wus’ private investigator.

The toddler’s nude body was found Aug. 13 in a ravine near his family’s Mission Viejo apartment a day after his mother and stepfather reported him missing, prompting a massive search.

In the lawsuit, the parents allege that they were defamed by authorities in statements to the press and that their civil rights were violated in lengthy and humiliating interrogations.