Skinhead Called Threat to Others in Murder Case

A 27-year-old white supremacist who allegedly worked from behind bars to have witnesses killed will no longer be able to communicate from jail after a judge ruled that he poses a serious threat to people tied to the case.

“The defendant clearly is a danger,” Ventura County Superior Court Judge Art Gutierrez said Thursday. “[He] wanted to kill somebody and was planning to do so.”

The ruling came after prosecutors presented evidence to show defendant David Ziesmer, an Oxnard resident and skinhead gang member, was soliciting outside help from gang members to harm witnesses in his pending murder case.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Ron Bamieh obtained a temporary order last month to monitor Ziesmer’s jail visits, phone calls and mail. Since then, Bamieh said, Ziesmer has continued to try to contact gang members and was recently caught on tape speaking on the telephone with a grand jury witness.

Bamieh told Gutierrez during Thursday’s hearing that more drastic steps are needed to halt Ziesmer’s communication with the outside world.

“There are people’s lives at stake,” Bamieh argued. “And at some point he has to be stopped. . . . He is too dangerous.”

Defense attorney Richard Loftus objected to the proposed order, telling Gutierrez that the prosecutor’s demands were excessive, unnecessary and a violation of his client’s rights.

He also suggested that investigators illegally obtained evidence through informants to “trap” his client into making statements about the case.

“The whole thing was a ruse,” Loftus argued.

But Gutierrez found there was evidence to indicate Ziesmer wanted witnesses dead and was working from his jail cell to make it happen.

The evidence includes sworn statements from two investigators who say Ziesmer offered drugs and money to a jail inmate in exchange for killing one co-defendant and solicited help from a fellow gang member to kill others.

Ziesmer, who stood silently behind a caged partition during Thursday’s hearing, is accused of fatally stabbing 17-year-old Nichole Hendrix of Ventura in October 1998.

Prosecutors say Ziesmer and co-defendants Michael Bridgeford, 24, of Oxnard and Bridget Callahan, 28, of Ventura killed Hendrix in a downtown Ventura motel room. The indictment further alleges that Ziesmer conspired with two gang associates to cover up the slaying.

Hendrix was reported missing after failing to show up at her mother’s house on Oct. 16, 1998. Her remains were found six months later in a steep ravine in the mountains above Ojai.

According to court documents, Ziesmer, who was on parole at the time of the slaying, confessed to killing Hendrix during interviews with investigators. He allegedly told them in August that he killed Hendrix because he feared she would “rat” on him to police about recent criminal activity.

Ziesmer’s family has denied that he killed Hendrix and suggested he is “taking the blame for other people.” Ziesmer pleaded not guilty to murder, conspiracy and related charges Oct. 2.

Under Gutierrez’s order, only defense lawyers or investigators can visit Ziesmer in jail. He cannot place or receive phone calls and all his mail will be monitored by law enforcement.

The order is identical to one granted last year against white supremacist and murder suspect Justin Merriman, 28, after he allegedly sent letters to other skinheads asking them to harm witnesses in his case.

Merriman and Ziesmer are members of the same Ventura gang, the Skin Head Dogs. But authorities say their cases are unrelated.