LAKEPORT, Calif. – Testimony in the double-murder trial of a former Maine resident continued on Wednesday, with an alleged accomplice and a forensic pathologist taking the stand.
Robby Alan Beasley, 32, is on trial for shooting to death Frank and Yvette Maddox of Augusta, Maine, along the side of Morgan Valley Road in January 2010.
The prosecution asserts that Beasley killed the couple because he believed they had stolen marijuana from him after he brought them west to work for him in his marijuana growing and trafficking business.
The day would see Beasley’s alleged accomplice in the case, 30-year-old Elijah Bae McKay, return to the stand.
McKay, not currently set for trial, is alleged to have loaned Beasley the 9 millimeter handgun that the prosecution says he used to shoot each of the Maddoxes twice in the head before dragging their bodies down a nearby embankment. McKay also is alleged to have helped Beasley get rid of clothing, his cell phone and move the Maddoxes’ pickup.
Also on the stand Wednesday was Dr. Thomas Gill, the forensic pathologist who performed autopsies on the severely decomposed bodies of the couple.
Before testimony started Wednesday morning, prosecutor Art Grothe, defense attorney Stephen Carter and Judge Andrew Blum went over evidentiary issues, in particular, Carter’s desire to exclude testimony about Beasley holding his finger to his lips in a gesture to McKay during their time in holding, as well as Beasley scratching on his cell wall that, among other things, McKay was a snitch.
Blum also excused one juror due to a death in the family but kept another who had concerns about a workplace hardship.
On the stand Wednesday, McKay said he had kept the 9 millimeter handgun he loaned Beasley under a shed in his marijuana garden.
He went to New York in late September 2009 for a fishing trip and had Beasley oversee his garden while he was gone, paying him with a pound of marijuana for the work.
The Maddoxes and four others were working in the garden, and a few days after he returned McKay said he fired the couple, who were bickering with other trimmers and demanding money for trimming they didn’t do.
He said the couple “didn't make a good impression right from the start” and had been hitting him up for downers.
Pathologist discusses findings in autopsies
There was an afternoon break in McKay’s testimony while Dr. Gill took the stand.
Gill explained finding nonfatal trauma on Frank Maddox’s body, specifically, a bullet wound to the upper part of his left thigh. While the wound on the front of the thigh was only a quarter of an inch in diameter, the exit wound on the back of the leg was about 5 inches by 5 inches.
The pathologist said that larger wound could have been a result of predation by scavenging animals or other decomposition.
The Maddoxes were shot on Jan. 22, 2010. They were found by two passersby on March 4 of that same year, with sheriff’s officials at the time reporting that the bodies were partially decomposed.
Gill said Frank Maddox had two gunshot wounds to the head. The first entered behind and below his right ear and exited near the top of his head, and the second entered through the thin, fan-shaped temporal bone behind the left eye and exited through the back of the head.
Brain tissue tends to break down and decompose early, so there was no brain tissue recovered from either of the bodies, said Gill, although he added there were fragments of the bullets’ lead cores.
Yvette Maddox’s skull was badly fragmented and Gill said he requested that forensic anthropologist Dr. Alison Galloway of University of California, Santa Cruz, examine the skull.
Galloway testified last week to receiving Yvette Maddox’s skull in a few dozen pieces from Lake County Sheriff’s evidence technicians and then piecing it back together, concluding that there had been two bullet wounds.
Grothe showed a limited number of autopsy photos and asked Gill for explanations. Included in the photos was one of Frank Maddox’s left forearm, showing a tattoo of his last name, as well as the wounds on his leg and skull, and views of Yvette Maddox’s skull, which was in fragments as a result of the gunshot wounds.
Under Carter’s cross-examination, Gill said he had no doubt that the husband and wife died of multiple gunshot wounds to the head.
Gill said he had formed an opinion as to their causes of death before sending Yvette Maddox’s skull to Galloway to get a second opinion based on her expertise putting back together skulls.
While Gill said he could not tell the time between the shots, he said from the time the Maddoxes were shot until their time of death would have been less than an hour.
More questions about alleged murder weapon
When McKay returned to the stand, Carter questioned him more about the 9 millimeter handgun implicated in the murders.
McKay said he had two 15-clip magazines and a holster with the handgun, which he said he and Beasley had practiced shooting in his marijuana garden.
Carter had McKay draw a picture of the handgun, which he said he last saw after October 2009. McKay said he had a Glock and a Ruger, both of which are now in law enforcement custody.
After Beasley allegedly shot the couple in early 2010, McKay said it was “too hot out here” to sell his marijuana in Lake County, so he had several pounds mailed to Atlanta, where a contact put him in touch with a man who escorted him around the city to sell the marijuana.
McKay would be arrested while he was in Atlanta. He said the escort actually had been an informant who stole from him three pounds of marijuana, valued at $3,200 a pound, and $12,000 in cash.
Also during his afternoon testimony, McKay recounted that the Maddoxes had stayed in a tent in his marijuana garden while working for him. He said he required trimmers to come and stay for a week at a time to avoid having a lot of traffic.
He said that several days after he fired them, he paid the Maddoxes $3,200 – $200 per pound for the 10 pounds they trimmed and $1,200 for working on topping while he was gone to New York.
McKay’s testimony will resume at 9 a.m. Thursday.
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