Quiet Sierra County: Murder Wave Puts a Pinch on the Wallet

Tiny Sierra County has no stoplights, no jail and, normally, not much crime.

But in the last 18 months, seven people have been murdered here, and the costs of investigating and prosecuting the crimes is pinching the county’s budget.

“We have laid off three county employees already this year and may have to fire another five next year because of the incredible rash of murders in this county,” Don Hemphill, the 37-year-old Sierra County auditor, said. The county had 45 employees before the layoffs.

None of the murder victims or suspects lived in Sierra County, the state’s most sparse in population. In fact, there hasn’t been a county resident murdered in more than 20 years.

‘Threat to Pocketbooks’

“It isn’t that people here are unduly frightened,” said Tom McIntosh, the county’s $120-a-month librarian (the library is in his home), bail bondsman and record searcher. “So far Sierra County people haven’t been threatened physically in any way by the killers. But the murders are sure a threat to our pocketbooks.”

The investigations, coroner’s expenses, housing of prisoners, hearings and trials stemming from the seven killings have cost the county nearly $70,000 and are expected to exceed $120,000 next year. The county budget is only $3.2 million a year.

“We have problems enough as it is, what with a huge increase in insurance premiums and skyrocketing welfare payments,” said Earl Withycombe, 37, the county Board of Supervisors chairman. “We never expected murders to throw a monkey wrench into our budget.”

North of Lake Tahoe in the Sierra Nevada, Sierra County prides itself on being a quiet, peaceful, virtually crime-free area dotted with 45 pristine lakes. National forests cover 90% of its territory. With 3,300 residents, it is the state’s second-smallest county in population.

Population 365

It has no stoplights. To reach the county seat of Downieville, population 365 and about 75 miles northeast of Sacramento, one has to cross four one-lane bridges over the Yuba River. Main Street is a narrow thoroughfare with boardwalks lined by quaint shops built in the 1850s and ‘60s.

A sign over the dispatcher’s desk in the sheriff’s office typifies the laid-back life style here:

“People who believe that the dead never come back to life should be here at quitting time.”

“The county has so few people that we’re nearly all on a first-name basis,” Undersheriff Dave Marshall, 44, said. “People here are very supportive of the Sheriff’s Department. They respect law and order. . . . (But) in the last 17 months this place has gone crazy with killings.”

The strange sequence of homicides started May 12, 1984, when the body of 30-year-old Reno mechanic Jesse R. Ponce was found in the brush off U.S. 80, 15 miles west of Reno just inside Sierra County. He had been stabbed several times in the chest. Sierra County sheriff’s deputies did the preliminary investigation. The county coroner’s office worked the case.

The case cost Sierra County $5,000.

But fortunately for Sierra County, the crime had its beginnings in Nevada and the victim may even have died in that state. So the trial was held in Reno. Two men and a woman were convicted of killing Ponce.

Then, on July 4, the bodies of two 17-year-old high school girls, Tina Shrader of Sacramento and Melissa Mattingly of Fresno, were found in a remote area along the Little Truckee River two miles inside Sierra County. Their skulls had been crushed with a blunt object. A couple of weeks later, Raymond Lee, 32, a Sacramento doughnut shop manager, was arrested on suspicion of murdering the pair. Since there is no jail in Sierra County, only holding cells, Lee is being held in the Colusa County Jail at Sierra County’s expense. His trial has been set for next spring.

Cost to Sierra County in the Lee case: $20,000.

Transient Convicted

Last Feb. 18, Scott E. Moulder, 24, a mechanic who lived in Camptonville in adjoining Yuba County, was killed just inside the Sierra County line. Transient Greg Elliott, 32, was convicted of manslaughter.

In that case, Sierra County spent $12,000.

On Aug. 21, 17-year-old twins Darren and Dean Rowell of Sacramento were found shot to death at their campsite along Kanaka Creek three miles inside the Sierra County line. The suspect in that case, Lewis L. Bradbury, 24, of Sacramento, is also being held in Colusa County Jail. He pleaded innocent by reason of insanity but was judged competent to stand trial. No trial date has been set.

That case has already cost Sierra County $20,000.

On Sept. 17, the body of Ricky Van Zandt, 28, from Brisbane in the Bay Area, was found just inside Sierra County. His head had been smashed, apparently with a rock. Van Zandt reportedly had picked up three hitchhikers in his van and was driving through Sierra County. Three suspects from Sacramento, Bruce W. Morris, 25, Avette Barrett, 18, and a 17-year-old girl, were arrested in Van Zandt’s van in Nebraska. The three were flown back to California and are awaiting trial.

This case has cost Sierra County $10,000.

Sierra County Sheriff Ken Alexander, 53, the father of nine, is one of five county department heads who have turned down pay raises during the crisis. The salary increases were granted before the murders. Alexander earns $26,000 a year. Beginning July 1, he was to have received a $5,000 annual raise.

“I refused the raise so that the county would not lay off any more of my deputies. One of my officers resigned and, because the murders are costing the county so much money, his position was not filled,” the sheriff said. “We’re down to nine deputies because of financial problems. In 1981 we had 15. There isn’t one deputy on duty in the county anywhere on the overnight shift.”

With the murder trials expected to cost the county twice as much next year, after all seven murders costing Sierra County $67,000 so far, the sheriff fears that his staff may be reduced even more.

“We’re being penalized for the murders at a time when we need more people” he said. “I don’t see how we can let more deputies go, being spread so thin already.”

County Pays 1st $12,000

Hemphill said the county pays the first $12,000 of expenses involved in a homicide and 10% of the costs thereafter. The state picks up the rest. He said murder trials such as those pending will cost at least $250,000 each, with about $40,000 of that paid by the county.

“We have been wrestling with how to pay for these murders all year at our Board of Supervisors meetings,” Supervisor Craig McHenry, 35, a Loyalton attorney, said. Board members discussed the feasibility of increasing property taxes, but agreed that there’s no way two-thirds of the voters would approve, he said. “So, we decided to try to come up with revenues by the imposition of fees. . . . But given our population base, increasing fees just doesn’t provide the necessary revenue to deal with this.”

The board did increase building permit fees July 1, hoping to bring in an additional $10,000 during this fiscal year.

“We end up with a lousy $10,000, which isn’t enough to cover the up-front money needed to pay for one murder. I’m telling you, it’s tough. We have no way to turn but to the Legislature for help,” McHenry said.

Wants a Cap

Withycombe has appealed to the Legislature to put a cap on homicide expenditures for his county.

As for the murders themselves, residents have differing reactions.

“The murderers and victims are not indigenous to our county. This dire situation does not reflect any fundamental change in the character of Sierra County residents,” county historian James J. Sinnott, 78, said.

But Rita Kinder, 47, the county payroll clerk, said times have changed in Sierra County.

Before the murders, she said, “No one locked their doors or windows. Now everybody locks up. We eyeball with suspicion anybody that looks out of place and call the sheriff to check that person out.”