73-year-old Dana Point man pleads guilty to voluntary manslaughter for killing his mother

A 73-year-old Dana Point man accused of killing his mother for financial gain more than two decades ago pleaded guilty Wednesday to voluntary manslaughter and was expected to be quickly released from behind bars.

As part of a plea deal, a special-circumstances murder charge that John Henry Van Uden III faced for the 1994 slaying of 76-year-old Marjorie Van Uden was dismissed.

Van Uden III was sentenced to three years in state prison, but with credit for time already served in county jail since his 2017 arrest, he was scheduled to be released from custody late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning.

Senior Deputy District Attorney Eric Scarbrough said the decision to offer Van Uden III a plea deal was tied to the age of the case, with some witnesses no longer alive and others with fading memories.

“We are just dealing with the difficulties of trying to litigate something 25 to 30 years down the line,” Scarbrough said. “It was better to have him take responsibility now.”

Orange County Superior Court Judge Patrick H. Donahue repeatedly asked Van Uden III if he was sure he wanted to accept the plea deal. Van Uden’s attorney, Mick Hill, told the judge that he did not agree with Van Uden III’s decision.

“My client has spent more than two years in custody for a crime I truly believe he did not commit,” Hill said.

On March 5, 1994, officers discovered Frances Marjorie Van Uden dead in the living room of her Corona del Mar home, the back of her skull shattered by a blunt object. Neighbors had contacted police after not seeing the widow for several days.

Investigators quickly turned their focus on John Henry Van Uden III, her oldest son, but with little direct evidence the case went cold.

In 2016, Newport Beach city leaders hired two part-time cold-case homicide investigators to look into the killing. A year later, Van Uden III was arrested as he walked off of his boat, a week after what would have been his mother’s 100th birthday.

During Van Uden III’s preliminary hearing last year, a prosecutor said evidence showed that Frances Van Uden appeared to know her killer, in part because the home didn’t show signs of having been broken into, and there was no indication she tried to escape.

According to court records, a neighbor of Frances Van Uden heard a “thumping” or “loud bumping” noise at her home the night she was believed to have been killed. The neighbor also told police that a vehicle he believed Van Uden III drove was parked near the home.

Investigators learned that Frances Van Uden had removed Van Uden III as the executor of her approximately $3 million trust, and placed his brother in the role, court records show. The brother told police that a week or two before her death, the mother had told him she was tired of Van Uden III asking her for money, according to investigators.

During the preliminary hearing, they acknowledged there was no DNA or fingerprints tying Van Uden III to his mother’s killing, and a murder weapon was never found.

Hill accused detectives of ignoring other potential suspects, including contractors who had been working at Frances Van Uden’s home. Hill also named as a potential suspect serial killer Dana Sue Gray, who was convicted in Riverside County of killing elderly women so she could shop with their credit cards. and who the defense attorney alleged had ties to Newport Beach.

Hill also accused Newport Beach police of using unscrupulous tactics while dealing with a then-girlfriend of Van Uden III’s and her son, who both had provided Van Uden III with an alibi for the suspected time of his mother’s murder.

Detectives showed gruesome crime-scene photos to the girlfriend and her 13-year-old son, the defense attorney said. In an effort to convince the girlfriend that Van Uden III was going to have her killed, a detective posed as a potential hit man and chased the girlfriend in a parking garage outside her work, the defense attorney said.

Scarbrough said his office did not condone the “inappropriate tactics” by police that the defense attorney had cited. The prosecutor said the detectives who used those tactics are no longer involved in the case, and any potential evidence that came from those tactics would not have been used at trial.

Hill told the judge that Van Uden III almost died in custody several months ago, and he believed that experience prompted him to accept the plea deal. The defense attorney did not provide any further details of what led to that health scare.

Upon his release, Van Uden was to be ordered to serve three years of supervised probation.