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COBB, Calif. – A Friday night fire did significant damage to a Cobb home.
The fire at 9466 Pamela Drive was first reported at about 7:30 p.m., according to radio reports.
South Lake County Fire Battalion Chief Greg Bertelli said when firefighters with Cal Fire and South Lake County Fire arrived at the two and a half story home, it already was fully involved.
“There were exposure problems with other structures in the area,” he said.
The home was occupied but the residents were able to get out uninjured, Bertelli said.
Bertelli said firefighters did an interior attack to get the fire under control.
“It ran across the attic pretty quickly,” Bertelli said.
Altogether, it took about an hour to knock down the fire. Bertelli said the house sustained significant damage to the roof, half of which was burned off, and the upper stories.
Shortly after 10:30 p.m., Bertelli estimated firefighters would be involved in mop up for another three hours.
He said the fire’s cause is under investigation.
Firefighters were helping the home’s renters remove their personal belongings. Bertelli said the displaced residents had housing arrangements set up for the night.
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CLEARLAKE OAKS, Calif. – A vehicle overturned on Highway 20 on Friday morning, blocking a portion of the roadway.
The crash was reported at 8:46 a.m. on Highway 20 at Hillside Lane, according to witnesses and the California Highway Patrol.
The overturned vehicle was blocking the westbound lane, the CHP said.
A witness said the female driver was pulled from the wreck and appeared to be all right.
Information was not immediately available as to what injuries, if any, the driver suffered.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – At the end of another full day of testimony in the double-homicide trial of a former Maine resident, the judge on Thursday afternoon denied a mistrial motion that had been pending since the proceedings began last week.
Defense attorney Stephen Carter filed the motion last week on behalf of his client, 32-year-old Robby Alan Beasley, accused of shooting to death Frank Maddox, 32, and his wife, Yvette, 40, of Augusta, Maine, along the side of Morgan Valley Road on Jan. 22, 2010.
Carter’s motion resulted from prejudicial statements made on the first day of trial Nov. 7 by 30-year-old Elijah Bae McKay, Beasley’s alleged accomplice.
Judge Andrew Blum had heard arguments last week both by Carter and prosecutor Art Grothe on the mistrial motion and then took time to review additional case law. He ruled Thursday that the trial could move forward.
Beasley allegedly believed the Maddoxes – who he had invited to California to work for him in his marijuana growing and trafficking business – had stolen marijuana from his apartment, which allegedly formed the motive to kill them.
Likewise, Beasley had been invited to California by McKay, who he had grown up with in Maine. McKay, who has not yet stood trial, is facing murder charges as well, and is accused of being Beasley’s accomplice, having provided him with the 9 millimeter handgun and ammunition allegedly used in the murders.
McKay, however, has testified to believing that Beasley was only going to get the couple to give him a ride to the airport, and intended to stop along the way, interrogate them and get them to admit the theft. Beasley would tell him that the situation changed and he shot both of the Maddoxes in the head after a confrontation.
During a rambling narrative on Nov. 7, McKay had stated, “and you know, I’ve known Robby for a long time and he’s talked about killing people before and he’s never done it,” according to the transcript of the statement Blum read Thursday afternoon.
Blum said there is the potential for prejudice from that statement, but the presumption under the law is that such prejudice can be cured in most cases.
“The statement by itself, if left alone, could be seen as very prejudicial,” Blum said, adding, “But we didn’t leave it at that.”
Jurors were admonished twice that McKay had improperly volunteered the information. “I think with that clarification made to the jury, they know that it’s not serious,” Blum said.
Blum said he hadn’t found a single published case that held such statements were incurable when their triviality was explained to a jury.
“I have no doubt whatsoever that they can set this aside,” said Blum, noting he also had asked the jury if they had understood his admonitions, and they said they they understood.
“For all those reasons the mistrial motion is denied,” he said.
McKay testimony continues Thursday
McKay has continued to testify intermittently since the trial began last week, with the prosecution having to interrupt his testimony in order to allow for the other witnesses who have been scheduled to come to the stand.
When McKay’s testimony resumed Thursday morning, Carter continued his questioning about the marijuana growing business that McKay and Beasley had been involved in at the time of the murders.
Beasley had worked for McKay at his marijuana garden on Morgan Valley Road and also had grown clones in an apartment in Lower Lake, the proceeds of which he split with McKay.
Carter also reviewed with him details of conversations he had with Beasley about trying to scare the Maddoxes in the days before the murder. Beasley was to tell the couple that his grandmother died and he needed to return to Maine, so he needed a ride to the airport, with McKay to pick him up after he confronted them.
“I didn’t think it would ever work,” said McKay, who recalled that Beasley had only talked of killing the couple during a conversation on Jan. 20, 2010. Beasley had marijuana stolen from the Lower Lake apartment sometime during the previous 10 days, McKay said.
A difficult witness
During the morning session, Ryan Gilman, who had been a neighbor of Beasley’s at the Lower Lake apartments, took the stand. He had lived at the apartments full-time and then part-time while he traveled to the Mt. Shasta area for work.
“We didn't get along too well,” Gilman said of he and Beasley.
He said he had been out of town at the time of the marijuana theft, and there was “no possible way” he could have been involved.
Gilman was asked by Carter to draw a diagram of the apartment complex after Gilman had pointed out that a diagram McKay had made on Wednesday was wrong.
Gilman proved at times a frustrated and frustrating witness, getting upset about questions about his past and if he had been conducting a marijuana business. He said he had grown six plants.
After the lunch break, with McKay back on the stand, Carter asked him to draw a diagram of Morgan Valley Road, and where his home was in relation to where Beasley shot the Maddoxes and left their bodies.
On the day of the murders, McKay was at his brother’s birthday party in Clearlake when he got a call from Beasley asking him to pick him up near a gate on Morgan Valley Road. When they spoke, Beasley made a point of saying that “it hadn’t gone as it should have.”
McKay said when he pulled over on Morgan Valley Road, Beasley came running toward his Range Rover. “He was very distressed looking and his eyes were big,” said McKay, adding that Beasley was “freaking out.”
Beasley told McKay that he had shot the couple and afterward, “He made the comment he was going to go to hell,” McKay said.
Considered a danger
Beasley refused to bury the bodies after seeing passing vehicles. McKay said it wasn’t until the next morning, when they moved the Maddoxes’ pickup down toward Middletown, that Beasley gave him the full story.
Carter asked him if he had been glad the couple was dead. “I wasn’t glad they were dead but I felt safer,” he replied. He felt they had become dangerous to his family, which included his circle of close friends – among them Beasley, who he said was like a brother to him.
McKay recalled driving Beasley home from dropping off the Maddoxes’ pickup. He told Beasley he was angry about how things had unfolded and wanted to know what happened.
“He basically tried to make his case on why it was all right that he shot them and why he had to,” McKay said.
Beasley told McKay that he shot the couple after he pulled them from the truck and they refused to answer his questions. He then shot Frank Maddox in the leg, Yvette Maddox fainted, and Frank Maddox told Beasley he would kill him if he didn’t finish him off.
According to McKay, Beasley then shot Frank Maddox in the head before shooting his wife. He drug them down a nearby embankment, and when he saw they were still alive, shot them both in the head one more time.
Beasley would offer McKay $20,000 to go back and bury them. “I don’t need money that bad,” said McKay.
In the days afterward, McKay would continue to ask Beasley if he buried the couple, but Beasley refused to go back.
Carter asked McKay if his life then proceeded as normal. “If you can call the life I live normal,” McKay said.
He recalled going into town in early March and seeing the newspaper, with the front page story about the Maddoxes’ bodies being discovered. He went to Beasley’s home to angrily show him the paper.
McKay also answered questions about the immunity agreement he has with the District Attorney’s Office to testify. Any new information he gives won’t be used against him, but he has not been promised a deal in exchange for his testimony.
“For all I know, I’m screwed,” he said.
After he was arrested in late 2010, McKay said he was told by his attorney at the time that his girlfriend was going to be arrested and their young son put into the care of Child Protective Services if he didn’t come clean.
Carter asked him if he killed the Maddoxes. “If I killed the Maddoxes we wouldn’t be here right now,” he said, adding that, no, he didn’t, nor did he take part in a conspiracy to murder them.
Late on Thursday, outside of the jury’s presence, testimony was given by jail staff about a drawing Beasley is alleged to have sent a couple he knew that Grothe said had threatening overtones. It suggested they were going to jail and said, “Don't lie … liar.”
Blum decided to exclude that evidence but agreed to wait until Friday morning to get more information from the prosecution in order to determine if he would allow testimony from a correctional officer who found the words, “Elijah McKay is a rat punk bitch snitch New England” scratched on the painted metal door of Beasley’s jail cell.
Blum released the jury shortly before 4 p.m. and asked jurors return at 9 a.m., when testimony is set to resume.
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CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Firefighters responded to a burning travel trailer and downed power lines in Clearlake on Thursday night.
The fire was was reported at about 8:25 p.m. Thursday in the 5900 block of Cottage Avenue at Mohican Place, according to reports from the scene.
Lake County Fire Protection District Chief Willie Sapeta said the fire was in a travel trailer that had been abandoned on the corner of Mohican Place.
At the scene, Sapeta said firefighters found the trailer was almost completely burned by the time they arrived.
In addition, there were downed power lines that were arcing. He said the trailer fire led to the downed lines.
Initially Sapeta had requested Cal Fire to respond, but that mutual aid request later was canceled.
Reports from the scene indicated that the fire was contained at 8:46 p.m., with 20 minutes of overhaul needed.
Sapeta said they got the fire knocked down with two engines and about six firefighters.
He said the cause of the fire is under investigation.
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KELSEYVILLE, Calif. – A reckless driving report last week led to the arrest of a Kelseyville couple found to have a large marijuana growing operation at their home and another property.
Traci Krista Goodroe, 31, and Zeb Charles Goodroe, 36, of Kelseyville were arrested in connection to the case, according to the California Highway Patrol’s Clear Lake Area office.
The CHP said that at 12:02 p.m. Nov. 7 Ukiah CHP Communications Center broadcast a “be on the lookout” from a 911 call of a reckless driver in a green Ford pickup headed northbound on Highway 29 from Lower Lake.
The Ford had reportedly hit cones in a construction zone, was weaving and driving into oncoming traffic. The CHP said a short time later the Ford turned onto Highway 281 where it ran off the road and collided with an embankment.
A witness who had been following the Ford saw a solo male driver, later identified as Zeb Goodroe, exit the Ford with a shotgun. The CHP said Goodroe, originally from Ohio, now lives in Kelseyville.
CHP officers responded and arrived on scene at approximately 12:14 p.m. as Zeb Goodroe was removing items from the wrecked Ford F-150.
Also at the scene was his wife, Traci Goodroe. The CHP said a loaded shotgun was found in her vehicle.
Zeb Goodroe exhibited signs and symptoms of drug impairment and was taken into custody. The CHP said he was covered in marijuana resin and the Ford had evidence inside linking him to a possible marijuana grow off of Morgan Valley Road and possibly at his residence in the Clear Lake Rivieras.
The Lake County Narcotics Task Force was contacted with the information regarding a potential marijuana grow at Goodroe's residence.
Using information developed by CHP officers in this investigation, the LCNTF was able to obtain search warrants for the Goodroes’ home and of a property in Lower Lake resulting in multiple arrests and a large seizure of processed marijuana.
Traci Goodroe later was booked into the Lake County Jail on felony charges of possessing marijuana for sale, selling or furnishing hashish and committing a felony while armed with a firearm, and misdemeanors of destroying or concealing evidence and giving false information to a peace officer. Her bail was set at $15,000.
Zeb Goodroe was booked on felonies charges of possessing marijuana for sale, selling or furnishing hashish, committing a felony while armed with a firearm, carrying a loaded firearm in public and obstructing or resisting an executive officer, and misdemeanor charges of being under the influence of controlled substances, resisting a peace office and driving under the influence. His bail was set at $25,000.
Both Traci and Zeb Goodroe later posted bail and were released, according to their booking sheets. They are set to next appear in court Jan. 29.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. – Forecasters are predicting wet weather this weekend and into the Thanksgiving holiday week for Lake County.
The National Weather Service said two storms systems are expected to move through interior Northern California from Friday through Sunday.
Lake County is predicted to have rain beginning on Friday and lasting through Saturday night, with daily rain amounts ranging as high as half an inch to three quarters of an inch.
The forecast calls for breezy and gusty southernly winds to accompany the rain, possibly lasting into Monday. Winds on Friday and Saturday are expected to be between 8 and 17 miles per hour.
After the two main storm systems pass, still more rain is possible, with the Lake County forecast calling for a chance of showers beginning on Sunday and lasting through Thanksgiving.
Nighttime lows are forecast to be in the high 30s, with daytime highs in the high 40s, the National Weather Service said.
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