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Murdered Miamisburg man hoped to see long-lost son

Charles Zan was saving money to reunite with son in Germany.

Charles S. Zan II was stabbed more than 40 times and died Saturday, Oct. 17.

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By Tony Black 6:37 PM Wednesday, October 21, 2009

Less than two years ago, Charles Zan of Miamisburg reconnected with Charles Ernst, his long-lost son in Germany. They exchanged emails, using the Piketon woman who helped them to reunite as an interpreter. Zan learned enough German to speak with Ernst on the phone, 5,000 miles away. He was saving money to fly to Germany to meet the son he hadn’t seen in 18 years.

It was not to be. Miamisburg police say Zan’s 19-year-old stepson, Cody Wayne Henderson of Middletown, entered Zan’s studio apartment about 6 a.m. Saturday, Oct. 17, and stabbed him more than 40 times as he lay in bed. Henderson is in the Montgomery County Jail on charges of aggravated murder, aggravated robbery, felonious assault and tampering with evidence.

“Chuck was real happy” about reconnecting with Ernst, said Darren Mustard, a fellow state prison corrections officer and friend of Zan’s. “He didn’t get a chance to see his son — because of this. It’s just unfair — (Ernst) has just found his daddy and now he’s lost him.”

It was through Mustard and his wife, Josette, that Zan located his German son.

Mustard said Ernst was born 22 years ago of a marriage between Zan and a German woman he met while he was stationed in Germany with the U.S. Marine Corps. Zan told the Mustards he tried to get custody of the boy and later worked with the U.S. embassy to arrange some kind of visitation, to no avail. The boy eventually was placed in foster care, and Zan lost touch with him.

“He was a warm-hearted man,” Josette Mustard said of Zan. “Even though he hadn’t seen (Ernst) in 18 years, that boy was in his heart and on his mind every day.”

Zan and Mustard got to know each other a few years ago because both were prison guards assigned to transport inmates from their respective prisons to the state prison hospital. Zan worked at Warren Correctional Institution in Lebanon, Mustard at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility at Lucasville.

When Zan told Mustard about Ernst, Mustard asked his wife, a Netherlands native who speaks German, to do some digging. Using the Internet and international phone calls, Josette Mustard located the correct foster care agency and connected father and son in November 2007. “He said I can never repay you,” Darren Mustard said.

Mustard said Zan hoped to travel to Germany with his other son, Adrian. “Chuck said, ‘I can’t wait to get my boys together and be a family,’” he said.

Mustard declined to discuss Zan’s relationship with Henderson, citing the open murder investigation. Mustard said he knew Zan had family problems, including the 2003 incarceration for a year of his wife, Pandora, on an armed robbery conviction. It was Pandora Zan who called 911 after her husband was stabbed.

Mustard said Zan’s decision to stick with his wife after the conviction was evidence of his sense of loyalty. “He hung in there. How strong would a man be to do that?”

Last week, Josette Mustard had the painful duty of telling Ernst that his father had been slain. “He first thought inmates did it,” Darren Mustard said.

“Stabbed 40 times at 6 o’clock in the morning — why would you be so grudging against somebody to do that? I guess we’ll never know.”

Contact this reporter at (937) 225-2264 or tbeyerlein@DaytonDailyNews.com.

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