Kenneth Felchle

Kenneth Felchle was last seen alive on April 4, 2008 around 10:30 p.m. on foot in the area of Cardinal and Elvin Avenue in Stockton. On April 11, 2008 his body was found in a cannel near Fremont and Cardinal Avenue. The police suspect foul play into his death. This case remains unsolved and the family needs answers.
If you have any information concerning this case please contact Detective Paul Mear of the San Joaquin Police Department at 209-468-4403

  

News article found on recordnet.com on May 4, 2013

When the body of 17-year-old Kenneth Felchle was pulled from the shallow, murky water of the Stockton Diverting Canal at Fremont Street, a keening sounded from friends and relatives gathered behind a chain-link fence on the west side of the canal. “It’s B.J.” someone said, calling Felchle by his nickname. Felchle, who was last seen by his family a week earlier, was reported missing to the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Office on Sunday. His body was spotted by passers-by around 1:30 p.m. Friday.

He was found about 18 feet from the canal’s east bank, just north of the Fremont Street bridge, Deputy Dave Konecny, a Sheriff’s Office spokesman, said. The Sheriff’s Office was withholding Felchle’s name until his family had been notified. But several of Felchle’s relatives and friends at the scene, and Felchle’s mother, Tammy Morrow, confirmed his was the body recovered from the Delta. Reached at her home Friday evening, Morrow said she was overwhelmed with grief and gave the phone to a friend, who asked to remain unidentified but fielded questions on Morrow’s behalf. Felchle grew up in Stockton and briefly attended Franklin High School before moving to American Canyon, in southern Napa County.

He and his girlfriend, Brittany Smithson, 18, returned to Stockton a few months ago and moved in with Morrow in the neighborhood around Cardinal Avenue north of Main Street, Smithson said. An avid athlete, Felchle hoped to play varsity football in Stockton once he had enrolled in school here, Morrow’s friend said. He and Smithson had both been working hard and looking forward to starting a family together, she added. Smithson, leaning into the chain-link fence and staring into the water, said she recognized Felchle by his clothing – blue jeans and a brown shirt, the same clothing described in a flier his family had distributed days earlier. Terri Kyes, who had once been married to Felchle’s father, said the young man was dearly loved in her home.

She still considered herself Felchle’s stepmother, and he was like a little brother to her daughters. “He comes over all the time,” she said. Kyes, Smithson and others among Felchle’s friends and relatives are convinced his death was not an accident, but his mother, through her spokeswoman, said she didn’t want to speculate. As investigators surveyed the scene where Felchle was found, a shoving match broke out between two groups of young men nearby when one of them accused another of knowing something about Felchle’s death.

Deputies interrupted the dispute before punches were thrown, and the crowd dispersed. The Sheriff’s Office did not have any information to release Friday night about the cause or circumstances of Felchle’s death. It was still too early in the investigation, Konecny said. Felchle’s mother said she was grateful to those who helped in the search for her son and asked that her privacy be respected during her period of grief.

Reporter Christian Burkin at (209) 546-8279 or cburkin@recordnet.com.