OJAI : Man to Stand Trial in Woman’s Slaying
A Lake County man was ordered Wednesday to stand trial on charges that he murdered a traveling companion whose decomposed body was found in Matilija Canyon near Ojai in 1986.
Ventura County Municipal Judge Bruce A. Clark held Thomas Gottchalk, 49, to answer charges that he shot Jean Ellen Eubanks, 34, twice in the head and left her body under a crude cairn in the canyon.
Gottchalk is being held in lieu of $500,000 bail in Ventura County Jail pending arraignment in Superior Court, which is scheduled for Nov. 14.
Earlier Wednesday, firearms experts testified that the two .25-caliber bullets found in Eubanks’ body came from the same kind of gun that her daughter, Jeanine Copus, testified she saw in Gottchalk’s van just after her mother disappeared on July 31, 1986.
However, no murder weapon has been found, Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard E. Holmes said.
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