I attended this trial every Tuesday in Martinez, and I question the validity of Shannon Edmonds as a witness in the first place. I question how District Attorney Jon Hopkins could use a suicidal criminal’s testimony to charge someone with murder.
Edmonds has an expired medical marijuana card. Witnesses, even Edmonds’ own mother, testified that Edmonds does not tell the truth. Edmonds used minor children to sell marijuana and hired children to trim marijuana, paying them with marijuana instead of money. Children, now young adults, testified to this during the trial. This is a crime Edmonds could go to jail for, according to Stuart Hanlon, Hughes’ attorney.
Hanlon attempted repeatedly in the absence of the jury to have Edmonds impeached as a witness.
Edmonds himself testified that he shot Christian Foster as Foster lay, already shot four times, helpless and twitching.
The jury found Renato Hughes not guilty of most charges, including the murder of his two friends who Edmonds admits he shot after an alleged home invasion.
It was not a home invasion, according to Hughes’ testimony, but an attempted purchase of marijuana that ended in violence and the death of his two friends, shot by Edmonds.
If Renato Hughes is not guilty of the murder of his two friends, who is guilty? How can Jon Hopkins take the word of a drug dealer in charging Renato Hughes in the first place?
It is a tragedy that Dale Lafferty was hit in the head and suffers permanent brain damage due to the conflict inside Edmonds' house on Dec. 7, 2005. It is a tragedy that two lives were lost, due to Shannon Edmonds shooting two young men in the back as they ran from his house.
Yet evidence and testimony proved unclear as to whether or not Lafferty was in the act of assaulting some one else with the metal bat when he himself was struck in the head.
Two eyewitnesses, Karl Taget and Justin Sutch, have yet to be on the stand as to the events on Dec. 7, 2005.
It was proven that a change of venue was necessary for a fair trial. Can Hughes receive a fair sentencing in Lake County when he was granted a change of venue for his trial?
This whole case is a mess, clouded with lost evidence, a black jacket, the fact that Edmonds had already attempted suicide in 2003 and the hammer used as evidence that was not present in the photographs of the scene of the incident the day it happened.
Lori Tyler, Edmonds’ live-in girlfriend at the time of the incident, testified Edmonds tried to get her to kill herself and write a suicide note just this last summer.
Clearlake Police Officer Michael Ray gave two conflicting accounts on the witness stand on the number of vials of blood taken from Renato Hughes the day he was taken into custody. First Ray said four vials were taken, then later he testified there were more than four.
Shannon Edmonds even threatened Dale Lafferty’s grandfather, Frank Kester, and told him not to testify, according to Kester’s testimony.
I admit to being possibly biased due to the fact that I visited Renato Hughes once a week when he was housed in the Lake County Jail. We did not discuss the case. We discussed the Lake County Jail.
Even Dale Lafferty’s grandfather is not convinced how Dale was injured, or who struck him on the head with the metal bat.
Can this be resolved in a just, fair manner?
Joan Moss lives in Kelseyville.
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