Joshua Suchon, former Bay Area sports writer who just released the book "Murder in Pleasanton: Tina Falez and The Search for Justice."
Joshua Suchon, former Bay Area sports writer who just released the book "Murder in Pleasanton: Tina Falez and The Search for Justice." (Photo courtesy of Joshua Suchon)

PLEASANTON -- Sports journalist Joshua Suchon was a 10-year-old paperboy for the Tri-Valley Herald in 1984 when he delivered the news that Tina Faelz, a 14-year-old girl from his Pleasanton neighborhood, had been brutally murdered while walking home from Foothill High School.
Suchon and other Pleasantonians who grew up in the shadow of the long unsolved murder waited 30 years before Tina's former schoolmate Steven Carlson was convicted based on DNA evidence at a trial where no motive was presented. 
The convicting jury heard there had been little contact between the teens before Tina was found stabbed and slashed 44 times at the foot of a culvert near the Carlson family home.
The jury never heard what Suchon learned in his reporting for his newly released book, "Murder in Pleasanton: Tina Faelz and the Search for Justice."
"Murder in Pleasanton" reveals a shocking and little-known connection between Tina and Carlson that provides for a possible motive to the killing for which Carlson still claimed innocence when he was sentenced in January to 26 years to life in prison.

"The last remaining question for people in this case is 'why,' " Suchon said. "We'll never absolutely know why. This is the closest piece of evidence to a possible motive."
Carlson, who was 16 when Tina was killed, had long been suspected in the slaying by some peers and at least one Foothill High teacher, in large part because he would frequently say he was responsible and then claim to be joking. He lived so close to the killing scene that his was the first door that two boys came to after discovering Tina's body shortly after school on April 5, 1984. A teenage alcoholic and drug abuser, Carlson's addictions worsened after Tina's murder and he spent the next three decades in and out of jail and prison for offenses that included lewd acts on a 13-year-old girl.
But it wasn't until 2011 when an FBI lab linked Carlson's DNA to a small spot of blood on Tina's purse that he was arrested and charged with Tina's murder. The arrest inspired Suchon, a former Oakland Tribune-Alameda Newspaper Group sports reporter, to make the murder that had captivated his childhood the subject of his next book.
Suchon, 42, interviewed more than 100 people for the book during his spare time from his current job as a play-by-play radio broadcaster for Albuquerque Isotopes, the Triple-A affiliate of the Colorado Rockies.
Steven John Carlson, a suspect in the 1984 murder of 14-year-old Tina Faelz of Pleasanton, Calif., awaits a pre-trial hearing at Alameda County Superior
Steven John Carlson, a suspect in the 1984 murder of 14-year-old Tina Faelz of Pleasanton, Calif., awaits a pre-trial hearing at Alameda County Superior Court, Monday, June 18, 2012 in Oakland, Calif. (D. ROSS CAMERON)
He vividly recalls talking about Tina's murder the next day at Donlon Elementary School, discussing with his friends what they heard and who might have done it. His best friend lived on Tina's street, which as a child he visited and imagined a dark cloud over Tina's house. After her murder, he didn't dare go near the creek near where Tina was found. Once he got to Foothill High School himself, he passed the memorial tree in her name daily.
"I've had a lot of former classmates tell me how terrified they were, how they slept with a knife or baseball bat near their bed, how they weren't allowed to go out at night after the murder or had an earlier curfew," Suchon said. "I'm sure there were a lot of parents who were more strict to their kids. It was definitely an uneasy feeling and there was more emphasis on being careful, traveling in groups."
At the time of Tina's murder, Pleasanton was a sleepy, 42,000-person town that had only had five murders since World War II. Compounding the tragedy, detectives had little evidence to point to a killer, frustrating Tina's family, the police department and the community at large.
Suchon has three book-signing events in the valley this week where he'll talk about the book, which gives an in-depth look at those frustrations, and shows the reader who Tina Faelz and Steven Carlson were in the minds and hearts of their friends and family. The book is available through Amazon and the publisher, The History Press, and at select valley bookstores.
Contact Malaika Fraley at 925-234-1684. Follow her at Twitter.com/malaikafraley.
Book-signing dates for "Murder in Pleasanton": Tuesday -- Official book launch party: McKay's Taphouse & Beer Garden, 252 Main St., Pleasanton, 6 to 9 p.m.
Thursday -- Bay Books, 2415 San Ramon Valley Blvd., San Ramon; 5 to 6:45 p.m.

Saturday -- Barnes & Noble Hacienda Crossings, 4972 Dublin Blvd., Dublin; Noon-2 p.m.