The State - News from June 10, 1988

A man on trial in Sacramento for allegedly kidnaping, molesting and garrotting a 6-year-old boy tearfully confessed to the killing, saying everyone should be glad the child is in heaven, a fellow jail inmate said. But Shawn Melton, 27, who is on trial for the murder of Jeremy Stoner, denies he ever talked to the inmate. Melton, a former security guard and amateur detective, was arrested after he went to police with what he said were the results of his own investigation into the boy’s death. Police said he revealed information only the killer could know. The boy disappeared from his Vallejo home in February and was found dead four days later near the Sacramento River. Melton has pleaded innocent. Timothy McCapes, 32, a convicted forger, told jurors that Melton described how he lured the boy into a truck with a $1 bill, tried to have sex with him, stabbed him with a pair of scissors and then strangled him with a wire.