By Steve Gorman
LOS ANGELES, June 5 (Reuters) – Prosecutors filed murder charges on Friday against the man arrested in the fatal stabbing of veteran Hollywood actor James Handy, a familiar face in dozens of films and television shows for half a century and the boyfriend of the suspect’s mother.
If convicted, Michael Gledhill, 44, who was jailed as a suspect on Wednesday, faces up to 26 years in prison, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said.
In a separate statement on Thursday, police said Gledhill was arrested after he flagged down police near the murder scene in the city’s Tarzana neighborhood on Wednesday and told officers he was the one they were looking for.
Police said officers were dispatched in answer to a cryptic emergency-911 call from a man who told operators: “I am the son of man. I just killed the man of sin.”
Responding officers found an 81-year-old man unconscious on the front lawn of his girlfriend’s home with a stab wound to the chest. He was pronounced dead shortly afterward at a nearby hospital, the Los Angeles Police Department said. Gledhill lived at his mother’s home, police said.
The victim was later identified as Handy, a prolific character actor whose movie credits included supporting roles in “Brighton Beach Memoirs,” “Arachnophobia,” “Jumanji,” “Unbreakable” and “Logan.”
His last big-screen appearance was playing an older bartender named Jimmy in a bar frequented by military fighter pilots in the 2022 Tom Cruise hit “Top Gun: Maverick.”
Handy also appeared in scores of television shows dating back to the 1970s, often portraying law enforcement characters or authority figures.
Police described the killing as an isolated incident but offered no possible motive for the slaying. Gledhill was slated to make his first court appearance on Friday, but it was not immediately known whether he had obtained legal representation.
The Handy killing marked the second high-profile celebrity stabbing death in Los Angeles in six months. In December, actor-director Rob Reiner and his wife, photographer-producer Michele Reiner, were killed at their Brentwood mansion. Their younger son, Nick Reiner, was charged with two counts of first-degree murder for their slayings.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Editing by Himani Sarkar)
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