How to resolve AdBlock issue? LAKEPORT, Calif. – Jurors in the trial of a Maine man accused of a double homicide heard about an hour’s worth of testimony as the defense began presenting its case on Thursday morning.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Art Grothe rested his case on Wednesday in the trial of 32-year-old Robby Alan Beasley, clearing the way for defense attorney Stephen Carter to begin calling witnesses on Thursday.
Beasley is charged with the shooting deaths of Frank Maddox, 32, and his wife, Yvette, 40, of Augusta, Maine, along the side of Morgan Valley Road on Jan. 22, 2010.
Beasley allegedly killed the couple, believing they had broken into his Clearlake apartment and stolen marijuana, according to the prosecution’s theory of the case. The couple came to California after Beasley offered them work in the marijuana business in which both he and McKay were engaged.
Carter first called sheriff’s Det. John Drewrey, the case’s lead detective, to go over call detail records that he had subpoenaed for a TracFone used by Beasley’s codefendant in the case, Elijah Bae McKay, 30.
McKay, who is facing the same charges as Beasley but is not yet scheduled for trial, testified in the case last month that he provided Beasley with the 9 millimeter handgun used to kill the couple, that he helped dispose of Beasley’s phone and clothing after the murders, and had destroyed the TracFone as well.
McKay also testified that, the day after Beasley is alleged to have killed the couple, he helped Beasley move the Maddoxes’ pickup from Morgan Valley Road to the Middletown area, where it was vandalized before a father and son who lived nearby took it and dismantled it.
The call records Carter briefly had Drewrey review on the stand Thursday covered the time period of Dec. 30, 2009, to Jan. 22, 2010.
Carter also asked Drewrey about speaking with Emily Dispennett at the Lake County Jail. Dispennett had told investigators that Beasley threatened the Maddoxes.
Evidence not presented to the jury suggested Beasley may have threatened at one point to kill Dispennett and her boyfriend, and that from jail he sent them a picture he had drawn that allegedly was meant to discourage them from speaking with law enforcement.
Drewrey said he and then-Det. Tom Andrews spoke to Dispennett, with Drewrey asking about her involvement in marijuana sales. Drewrey said she didn’t want to talk to him about the subject.
She also told him about the individuals who were at the birthday part for Taj McKay, Elijah McKay’s brother, on Jan. 22, 2010. Elijah McKay had testified to leaving his brother’s birthday party to go and pick up Beasley from Morgan Valley Road, where Beasley admitted to having killed the Maddoxes.
During brief cross-examination of Drewrey, Grothe asked if there was a time period of no usage on McKay’s TracFone. Drewrey said there were no calls between Jan. 13 and Jan. 22, 2010.
It was during that time period that McKay previously had testified he was visiting the East Coast.
McKay himself was returned to the stand on Thursday so Carter could question him about his trip to Boston in January 2010.
He said he recalled leaving on Jan. 10 and said he did not take his TracFone with him. After looking at the call records for the phone, McKay acknowledged he may have remembered the dates of the trip wrong, as the phone still showed usage three days after he thought he had left for Boston.
On the morning of Jan. 22, 2010, he remembered Beasley showing up to his home. That was the day the phone records showed usage resumed.
McKay also was asked if he remembered eating cake at his brother’s birthday party that day. He said he had recalled eating some after returning from picking up Beasley, where he had learned the Maddoxes had been killed. He said he was trying to act like nothing had happened.
Carter pressed McKay on whether it actually was cake or pie, which McKay couldn’t specifically recall. McKay said his parents often served pie at parties instead, and that he considered a dessert at a birthday party cake even if it was pie. “That’s a technicality,” he said.
Carter also briefly asked McKay about his sister’s marijuana growing activities as well as a head shop she and her boyfriend opened in Ukiah in 2009, and finished by having him identify a number of pictures of Beasley, McKay’s own marijuana garden and his property.
The defense’s last witness was not available on Thursday, and so Judge Andrew Blum told the jury to return to hear the rest of the defense’s case at 9 a.m. Wednesday, Dec. 12.
That same day it’s anticipated that closing arguments and jury instructions will take place, Blum told the jury.
Blum apologized to the jury for such a short day of testimony. “If it makes you feel any better, the attorneys and I don't get to go home,” he said.
Blum, Carter and Grothe met later in the morning to begin going over jury instructions that will be given to the jury before deliberations start next week.
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