The Region - News from June 5, 1986

A murder trial that had been delayed because a doctor demanded a $500 fee to testify opened in Orange County in the absence of Dr. David Dantes of Santa Monica. Santa Ana Superior Court Judge James L. Smith issued an arrest warrant for Dantes after he failed to appear for the trial of Michael Wesley Reding on two consecutive days. Reding, 27, of Fullerton, is charged with four counts of second-degree murder in an October, 1984, collision that killed Pamela Trueblood, 36, of Fullerton, and her three children. Dantes was the emergency-room doctor at the Fullerton hospital where Reding was taken after the collision and was present when police talked to Reding. Deputy Dist. Atty. Mike Jacobs said Reding drank five or six beers and four mixed drinks at a Brea bar just before the accident. Police said he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.11%. The legal limit is 0.10%.