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Robby Alan Beasley, 30, is facing two murder charges for the Jan. 22, 2010, shootings of Frank and Yvette Maddox of Augusta, Maine, who he allegedly invited to California to work with him in his marijuana growing organization.
He's also charged with special allegations of committing multiple murders in the first or second degree, committing the offenses with the intent to inflict great bodily injury on the victims, using a 9 millimeter firearm in the commission of the crimes and having a previous felony conviction in Maine for
criminal threatening with a firearm.
On Tuesday, Beasley's co-defendant in the case and another former Maine resident, 28-year-old Elijah Bae McKay, took the stand to testify against Beasley.
Beasley, wearing his black and white jail jumpsuit, listened attentively during the hearing Wednesday, which took place at the Lake County Courthouse in Lakeport. He is being defended by attorney Stephen Carter.
Prosecutor Art Grothe's first witness of the day was Elona Porter, an evidence technician with the Lake County Sheriff's Office.
Porter responded to a turnout along Morgan Valley Road near Lower Lake in early March 2010 after the discovery of the Maddoxes' bodies, found at the bottom of a nearby embankment.
At the top of the embankment she found three spent 9 millimeter cartridges and one spent cartridge just down the embankment. Near the bodies were found three live 9 millimeter rounds and one spent cartridge, with one live round and another spent cartridge found under the bodies.
She said the bodies were very decomposed.
McKay's Tuesday testimony had alleged that Beasley had asked Frank and Yvette Maddox to give him a ride to the airport, his alleged ruse to get them alone.
Beasley allegedly had them drive down the remove Morgan Valley Road outside of Lower Lake, where he asked them to stop at a turnout while he urinated. Frank Maddox had reportedly gotten out to do the same, and the shootings followed a brief confrontation, according to McKay's Tuesday testimony.
Porter said Frank Maddox's body was found with his pants down around his ankles, with his boxer shorts pulled down to about his hips.
He was wearing a sweatshirt and one Timberland hiking boot, with another boot found not far away from his body at the bottom of the embankment, she said.
Yvette Maddox was fully clothed, with the top of her sweatpants partly turned down. Her top was torn, said Porter, noting a pair of women's underwear and a baseball cap with “NY” on it were near the bodies.
When investigators brought the couple's bodies up the hill, they emptied the pockets of the clothing, finding things like a driver's license, Chapstick and a Wal-Mart receipt, although photos of some of that evidence wasn't admitted due to its blurry quality.
In Frank Maddox's pockets they also found a lighter, coins and other currency, cigarettes and a bag of marijuana. His wife's pockets included two Social Security cards, one under the name Maddox and one under her maiden name of Colon, and a Maine-issued state identification card.
Also near the bodies was an overturned, empty box, with a lot of clothing on the ground nearby, said Porter.
She said the rocky terrain made it difficult to tell if there were traces of the bodies being drug down the embankment.
Also on the stand Wednesday was Lake County Sheriff's Det. John Drewrey, who discussed cell phone records and went over the couple's autopsy results.
He said he attended the autopsies, conducted by Dr. Thomas Gill, with the cause of death for both Frank and Yvette Maddox being gunshot wounds to their heads.
Drewrey said Gill found two gunshot wounds in Frank Maddox's skull, and believed there may have been a third wound to his stomach. However, due to the advanced state of composition, Gill couldn't be sure about the stomach wound.
Sheriff's Det. Jim Samples followed Drewrey to the stand, testifying about bringing Dr. Alison Galloway, a forensic anthropologist at University of California, Santa Cruz, on to assist with the case.
Samples said that due to the damage to Yvette Maddox's head, he approached Galloway – one of only five forensic anthropologists in California – for assistance with reconstructing the skull.
Following the autopsy, Samples transported the skull in a sealed evidence box to Santa Cruz, where Galloway cleaned the bones and reconstructed them. He said she was immediately able to put the bones together to show him one of the bullet wounds.
Altogether, Galloway identified two gunshot wounds to Yvette Maddox's head, entering from the left side and exiting through the right.
Samples, who oversaw the investigation at the site where the bodies were discovered near Lower Lake, said investigators went back several times to screen for bone and bullet fragments.
He said most of the fragments they found were tangled in Yvette Maddox's hair. “There was so much trauma to Yvette's head that anything that was there was very, very small,” he said.
It was for that reason that Dr. Gill suggested going to Galloway, because he couldn't say for sure that there were bullet wounds, Samples explained.
Deputy Lyle Thomas, another investigator on the case, recalled taking Beasley from the Lake County Jail for a blood draw last March.
Thomas served a search warrant for the blood draw, which Beasley refused to give without his lawyer present. Several correctional officers and detectives took Beasley to St. Helena Hospital in Clearlake, where – as he was being escorted into a room – Beasley attempted to run past a California Highway Patrol officer who was there for another case.
It took five officers to place Beasley facedown on a hospital bed and hold him there following what Thomas called a “fairly violent” struggle.
Thomas also testified to working with a county code enforcement officer to track down the Maddoxes' pickup, which McKay had testified Tuesday Beasley had moved from its Lower Lake location to Jerusalem Grade Road near Middletown following the murders.
Code enforcement had red-tagged the vehicle, which later was moved by a resident in the area, who then took the vehicle and parted it out. Thomas went over pictures of the pieces of the truck that were left, including its drive train assembly and driver's door.
Thomas also served a search warrant at Beasley's Lower Lake apartment last March, where he found a white envelope with Beasley's name and a post office box in Maine, receipts for a money gram and about 80 marijuana plants in two bedrooms.
Det. Tom Andrews was recalled to the stand at day's end, testifying to speaking with a woman who knew the Maddoxes and who told him that Beasley had problems with them because of his belief that they had stolen marijuana from him. “Rob told her he was going to nix those kids,” Andrews stated.
At day's end a hearing also was held ordering this reporter to remove video clips from the Internet that had been initially approved as part of a media request on Tuesday.
Carter argued that he had not received proper notice of the request and stated that it was harming Beasley's right to a fair trial.
Lake County News argued that the jury selection procedure – in which potential jurors would have to divulge what they knew of the case – was the best way to balance Beasley's right to a fair trial with the public's right to know what was happening in the proceedings.
After an hour and a half of arguments, Judge Richard Martin ordered the videos be taken down by Wednesday night, and additional ordered that the materials could not be disseminated, although they could be used to create still images. All videos were completely removed shortly before 7 p.m. in compliance with the order.
Testimony is expected to continue at 10 a.m. Thursday.
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