A Solano County Superior Courtroom choose on Friday ordered a 71-year-old defendant, charged with the 1987 homicide of a 6-year-old Vallejo boy, to return for extra proceedings within the capital case.
Throughout the temporary morning continuing in Division 8 in Fairfield, Decide Wendy Getty advised Fred Marion Cain III to look for one more continuing at 8:30 a.m. June 6, when the choose and the attorneys within the case will air a California Appeals Courtroom’s pretrial ruling and in addition seemingly end in a preliminary listening to setting.
A beforehand convicted felon, Cain is charged with the Feb. 21,1987, killing of Jeremy Floyd Stoner, against the law with particular circumstances. They embody kidnapping, sodomy and committing lewd and lascivious acts on a baby underneath 14 years of age. At his jail arraignment in 2023, with Chief Deputy Public Defender Oscar Bobrow at his aspect, Cain pleaded not responsible and denied all enhancements. He is also represented by co-counsel Denisse Tanasa, a deputy public defender.
Chief Deputy District Lawyer Bruce Flynn represents the DA’s Workplace.
Throughout the continuing, Cain sat shackled as soon as once more in a wheelchair on the protection desk, his wispy white hair and beard grown longer over time.
Though Cain was arrested on the costs in September 2023, ahead motion within the case over the months has been stalled by the DA’s assertion that the Public Defender’s Workplace illustration of Cain offered a doable battle.
The perceived battle stemmed not solely from the case’s particular circumstances, carrying the potential of the dying penalty, but in addition from the truth that a earlier suspect within the case, Shawn Melton, who was twice acquitted of the cost a number of many years in the past, was represented by the Public Defender.
Flynn and different prosecutors consider Bobrow may argue “third-person culpability” to a jury, asserting that Melton, regardless of the acquittals, was the precise killer as a substitute of Cain. Flynn needed the Public Defender to recuse itself from the case and have the trial courtroom appoint an alternate counsel certified to deal with capital instances.
However Bobrow has argued that nobody right now within the Public Defender’s Workplace has any connection to the earlier trial, Melton has since died, and the protection lawyer within the Melton case, then Public Defender Peter Foor, who later grew to become a Superior Courtroom choose, has since retired.
Decide Getty granted the DA’s movement for another writ of mandate, a sort of courtroom order to adjust to the DA’s request or clarify why they shouldn’t be pressured to conform.
Cain then filed an “instant petition for extraordinary relief from that order,” in line with a doc from the First Appellate District Courtroom of California. In response, the courtroom, on April 11, granted Cain’s petition “because no conflict of interest currently exists.”
A beforehand reported, jail information present Cain was arrested a second time, after being first taken into custody close to Medford, Oregon, on a warrant served Sept. 27, 2023, in Crimson Bluff by Solano County Sheriff’s deputies. He was booked into custody in Fairfield with out bail shortly after midday that very same day.
Earlier than Cain’s second arrest, some further particulars concerning the case emerged throughout a press convention referred to as by Solano County District Lawyer Krishna Abrams.
Abrams additionally offered new details about the case not talked about within the ready assertion, together with Stoner’s title. In accordance with the felony criticism, Stone was killed on or about Feb. 21, 1987, in Solano County.
Moreover, she cited earlier felony convictions towards Cain in Contra Costa County Superior Courtroom on Might 22, 1979. He was discovered responsible of sodomy, rape by way of an intoxicating substance, housebreaking, and first-degree housebreaking.
Abrams additionally famous she reinstated the Chilly Case Unit in her workplace after being first elected in 2014 and credited new DNA evaluation and two chilly case investigators, Steve Howisey and Kevin Coelho, for “working tirelessly” to unravel a case she described as “every parent’s worst nightmare.” Stoner’s dying “wracked” the Vallejo group, she added.
Howisey, mentioned Abrams, “took another look at the case” in October 2022, acquiring proof that confirmed a match for the preliminary suspect within the case, Shawn Melton. Nevertheless, after a trial and retrial, with juries unable to succeed in unanimous verdicts, he was launched from custody and ultimately exonerated.
So investigators decided DNA may result in one other suspect, and it led to Cain, who, Abrams mentioned, was initially interviewed after the killing, on March 3, 1987, however was not taken into custody.
Cain, she mentioned, “did know the child” and was not dwelling in Vallejo on the time of the alleged killing.
Howisey and Coelho, with members of the Jackson County Sheriff’s Workplace, arrested Cain at his residence in Central Level, simply north of Medford on Interstate 5. Coelho mentioned Cain was “compliant” with officers’ instructions.
A former Vallejo police officer, Coelho described the investigation as “very lengthy,” recalling that the case has been “talked about for years” by Vallejo officers and others. He mentioned he “took a personal interest in this case.”
Within the preliminary press assertion, Abrams famous Stoner was kidnapped close to his residence in Vallejo. 4 days after he went lacking, his physique was found on Sherman Island in Sacramento County. An post-mortem revealed that the boy had been sexually assaulted.
On the press convention, she offered further particulars about why Melton initially was named as a suspect within the case and arrested. She mentioned Melton walked into the Vallejo Police Division and appeared to have his personal investigative service and offered info, as Abrams defined, “only the person responsible for the child’s death would know.”
Abrams advised The Reporter that, given the costs towards Cain, he “is eligible for the death penalty at this time, but we will not make the final decision until after the preliminary hearing is concluded.”
