OJAI : Charge Contested on Eve of Murder Trial

On the eve of his trial in Ventura County Superior Court for the 1986 shooting of a female traveling companion, a Lake County man tried Monday to have the murder case against him dismissed.

Thomas Gottchalk, 49, is scheduled to go on trial today on charges that he shot Jean Ellen Eubanks, 34, twice in the head with a .25-caliber handgun. Hikers found Eubanks’ body in a crude grave in Matilija Canyon near Ojai on Aug. 23, 1986, three weeks after her daughter reported her missing.

Deputy Public Defender Steven Davidson argued in court papers that the murder charge should be dropped on grounds that crucial prosecution evidence has grown stale in the four years since Eubanks died. Testimony on the motion is scheduled to continue this morning.

Davidson also asked Judge James M. McNally to throw out some of that evidence before the trial if Gottchalk’s request to dismiss the case is denied.

The evidence includes testimony by Eubanks’ daughter, Jeanine Copus, who told investigators that she saw a gun in Gottchalk’s van about the time Eubanks disappeared. Davidson also sought to exclude a report that a .25-caliber handgun was found in Gottchalk’s locker during a narcotics search at Halliburton Services in Oxnard, where he worked in 1983.

The arrest warrant was issued in January, 1990, and Gottchalk was extradited to Ventura from Massachusetts, long after Eubanks died, Davidson argued. “There is no showing of any good reason why this case was delayed that long,” he said.

However, Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard E. Holmes argued that Gottchalk caused the delay by vanishing in July, 1986, just after Eubanks’ disappearance, and living as a fugitive under 25 aliases.