Invite Me Next Time

Jerred Hernandez

Reading the local papers, you’d think there were no more child molesters at large in the community, that they’d all been rounded up. But over the past few months, the courts have been tied up in a series of chomo jury trials, the most recent one ending last Wednesday with guilty verdicts on five counts against a father, Conrad Arthur Aten, for molesting his own daughter. A few weeks before that another jury trial ended with guilty verdicts on three counts against James McClellan who “annoyed and molested” two boys from Willits. Axius G’Acha (Got ya!) from Laytonville, was found guilty of five counts of molesting a teenage girl. These cases all were prosecuted by Deputy DA Heidi Larson under Section 288 of the Penal Code, the designation for “lewd and lascivious acts with a child.”

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A busy week at the County Courthouse ended with a hearing, an Order To Show Cause from the state appellate court in the case of Timothy “Coke” Elliott, found guilty in a 2011 jury trial for the 2008 stabbing death of Sam Billy on the Hopland Rancheria. At issue was whether Mr. Elliot’s defense lawyer, Public Defender Linda Thompson, blew the case by not questioning the contentious statement by County Medical Examiner Dr. Jason Trent that a knife measuring under two inches could have caused the six inch-plus fatal wound. Last week Dr. Trent reasserted his belief that “with enough force” it indeed could have.

But the most arresting episode of the week was the prelim for Jarred Hernandez, recently extradited from Mexico to face first degree murder charges in the August 2, 2000, murder of Michael Edward Williamson. It looks like Mr. Hernandez beat Mr. Williamson to death with an aluminum baseball bat for not having him over for a barbecue. And it looks like the snubbed Mr. Hernandez, in lieu of the barbecue he hadn’t been invited to, barbecued Mr. Williamson then packed up and left for Mexico.