Attorney Appointed for Murder Victim’s Daughter

A Mission Viejo woman arrested last weekend on suspicion of hiring three people to kill her father appeared in Orange County Municipal Court in Laguna Niguel on Tuesday to have a lawyer appointed.

Municipal Judge Blair T. Barnette appointed Orange County lawyer Jack M. Earley to represent Deborah Ann Werner, 40, who, along with her three co-defendants, is being held without bail in Orange County Jail in connection with the death of her father, David Werner, 72, a retired stockbroker.

The victim was discovered in his Mission Viejo bedroom at 1 a.m. April 16, with a knife plunged through his neck, Orange County Sheriff’s Department officials said. An autopsy showed that Werner had been smothered before he was stabbed.

Deborah Werner was arrested Saturday, a week after she had called police to report finding her father’s body. Investigators said they found inconsistencies in her story.

She is charged with hiring Carrie Mae Chidester, 20, of Huntington Beach; Charles L. Clemmons, 20, of Anaheim, and Miguel Ruiz, 21, of Garden Grove to kill her father so she could collect on “several hundred thousand dollars” from his inheritance, sheriff’s officials have said. The three co-defendants were also arrested last weekend and booked into the jail without bond.

All four were due to be arraigned Tuesday, but only Werner, Chidester and Clemmons appeared in court. Court officials said Ruiz had refused to appear. Barnette continued the arraignment until May 5 after also appointing attorneys for Chidester and Clemmons.