LAKEPORT, Calif. – Testimony in the trial of a former Maine resident accused of shooting to death a couple from his home state got under way this week.
Robby Alan Beasley, 32, is on trial for the murders of Frank and Yvette Maddox.
He’s charged with two counts of murder, and 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 and using a 9 millimeter firearm.
Beasley is accused of shooting the Maddoxes to death alongside Morgan Valley Road in January 2010.
He had hired them to work in his marijuana trafficking business, and allegedly believed they had stolen marijuana from him.
Opening arguments and testimony in Beasley’s trial, which is taking place in Judge Andrew Blum’s courtroom, began on Wednesday. The trial is expected to continue into next month.
So far testimony has come from the man who found the bodies as well as Beasley’s alleged accomplice, Elijah Bae McKay, 30, who also is facing murder charges but whose trial has not yet been scheduled.
McKay, also from Maine, originally had invited Beasley to move to Clearlake to grow and sell marijuana. He testified in Beasley’s 2011 preliminary hearing.
McKay’s testimony Wednesday led to a mistrial motion by Beasley’s defense attorney, Stephen Carter, but Blum is waiting for more information before making a ruling.
Prosecutor Art Grothe presented witnesses on Thursday including Christopher Hernandez. He spoke about cell phone evidence in the case, including texts allegedly sent by Beasley to Yvette Maddox in the hours before the murders.
Forensic anthropologist discusses skull
Key testimony came on Thursday from Alison Galloway, a forensic anthropologist, author and professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
She said she examines skeletal remains of individuals, considers their biological profiles and looks for evidence of trauma and the interval since the time of death.
In the spring of 2010 the Lake County Sheriff’s Office asked Galloway to examine Yvette Maddox’s cranium and mandible. Three sheriff’s staffers took the skull to Galloway.
Galloway was asked to analyze the skull for trauma. When she got the skull, it was already “relatively skeletonized” and in dozens of pieces. She cleaned it, put the skull back together and then looked for the primary focus of the impacts that caused the skull’s fracturing.
Grothe showed exhibits of the cranium and mandible on a projector, and Galloway explained the various views of the remains and the injuries the photos showed.
She pointed out that on the left side of the skull there was evidence of at least two entry points. When something hits a skull from the outside, it causes a larger fracture on the inside, Galloway explained. “That’s how we know what something is an entrance wound.”
Galloway said she hadn’t been able to completely reconstruct the left side of the skull because of the extent of fracturing from the bullet wounds.
During cross-examination, Carter asked if it was possible that there hadn’t been a second bullet wound but that the skull had been damaged some other way. Galloway said the fractures were through very dense bone and not likely to have resulted from evidence mishandling.
She said she was fully confident that one of the injuries, closer to the temple, was consistent with a gunshot. The second wound also was consistent with a high energy impact that would have occurred from a gunshot injury.
Testimony will continue at 9 a.m. Friday, when McKay will return to the stand.
Elona Porter, an evidence technician with the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, also is scheduled to testify on Friday.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.