Supes appoint Linda Atkins to North Coast Railroad Authority
http://www.times-standard.com/localnews/ci_12686197
Jessie Faulkner/The Times-Standard
Posted: 06/25/2009 01:15:37 AM PDT
Eureka City Councilwoman Linda Atkins will take a seat on the North Coast Railroad Authority board of directors at the end of the month.
The Humboldt County Board of Supervisors voted 4-1 to approve the appointment this week, with 5th District Supervisor Jill Duffy dissenting and adamantly stating her opposition -- not to Atkins, but to the application process.
Among her primary objections was the treatment of long-time NCRA board member Charles Olivier, whose seat Atkins will assume, as well as the lack of complete information on the applicant's philosophies and the related discussions held out of the public process.
Duffy said such handling of the matter creates strife on the board and in the community, and is insulting to the incumbent.
”In my opinion, it feels like a real slap in his face,” she said.
Third District Supervisor Mark Lovelace broached the subject earlier in the meeting, noting that he had heard comments in the community complaining about the suddenness of the appointment. Lovelace denied that contention, noting that the term's end was publicly posted as required on Dec. 16 and that he had met with all the applicants -- including incumbent Olivier -- and had read all the associated letters and supporting documentation.
”This hasn't been something sudden,” Lovelace said.
Lovelace later said that he had spoken with Olivier and was told that the incumbent wasn't interested in requesting
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reappointment. However, on Monday, Lovelace said he had received a letter of interest from Olivier and applicant Dan Hauser, the latter throwing his support to the incumbent.
Second District Supervisor Clif Clendenen, who with 4th District Supervisor Bonnie Neely sponsored the agenda item, said he wasn't aware of a two-step process in making the appointment and had limited his discussions about the appointment to those with the item's co-sponsor due to Brown Act rules. Clendenen, who represents the board on the North Coast Railroad Authority, said he had spoken with the authority board's Chairman Allan Hemphill at the last meeting and learned at that time of Olivier's interest in staying on the board.
At the invitation of the board, Olivier took to the podium, citing his broad experience on West Coast ports and strong belief in the potential for the area pending improvements to what he described as 19th century infrastructure.
Olivier said he wasn't like Napoleon Bonaparte.
”We can all be replaced,” he said, “including me. If my term is over, I've enjoyed it all .... Either way, I'm a cheerleader. I'll continue to be a cheerleader of creating jobs here.”
Duffy wasn't alone in her concerns about the process. McKinleyville resident Dennis Mayo questioned how the recommendation for Atkins had come forward, why the board was considering replacing Olivier and, if so, why wasn't that replacement Dan Hauser, a former executive director of the North Coast Railroad Authority.
”To me,” he said, “the decision would be very clear, you choose Charles Olivier ... . I'd like to see this thought out a little more thoroughly.”
Ken Skaggs, a self-described resident of the greater Eureka area, said his vision was one of a Humboldt County with good-paying jobs. The railroad and harbor bring in industry that makes sense for Humboldt County, he said. The county needs a strong supporter of the railroad, he said.
The majority of the board remained at odds with Duffy's assessment that the process had gone wrong.
”I feel comfortable with the process and the recommendation to the board,” Neely said.
5.20.2009
Voting NO is not enough
◼ California voters kill budget measures
The "big five" elected leaders -- Schwarzenegger and the legislative chieftains from both houses -- are slated to begin closed-door meetings today...
There's the source of your problem, and it is going to be more of the same. These are the people whose job it has been to keep the state financially healthy, whose job it was to make sure that they did not spend more than they had, and whose job it was to plan for a rainy day.
Instead they spend, and spent and spent, and they fought the Governor when he tried to make needed cuts. Again and again and again. They have had their chance. This last ditch attempt to get the voters to allow them to keep spending has failed. Their caucusing to defeat the opposing party has kept them from working for the people.
Now it is time to remove every last one from office - and failing that, since it cannot and will not happen, strip them of their party associations and affiliation for as long as they hold elected office. Force them back to work for the people they so wanted to serve, and not the party the ended up serving.
The "big five" elected leaders -- Schwarzenegger and the legislative chieftains from both houses -- are slated to begin closed-door meetings today...
There's the source of your problem, and it is going to be more of the same. These are the people whose job it has been to keep the state financially healthy, whose job it was to make sure that they did not spend more than they had, and whose job it was to plan for a rainy day.
Instead they spend, and spent and spent, and they fought the Governor when he tried to make needed cuts. Again and again and again. They have had their chance. This last ditch attempt to get the voters to allow them to keep spending has failed. Their caucusing to defeat the opposing party has kept them from working for the people.
Now it is time to remove every last one from office - and failing that, since it cannot and will not happen, strip them of their party associations and affiliation for as long as they hold elected office. Force them back to work for the people they so wanted to serve, and not the party the ended up serving.
Police bust McKinleyville pot garden
A large marijuana growing operation in McKinleyville was raided Thursday by Humboldt County sheriff's deputies, who reportedly found more than 900 marijuana plants growing inside the residence.
According to information from the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office, authorities arrested two suspects -- Justin David Anderson, 33, and Melissa Marie Frawley, 32 -- on suspicion of cultivating marijuana for sales.
After authorities raided the residence on the 1000 block of Kinglet Avenue in McKinleyville, where they found a marijuana growing operation inside the garage attached to the residence.
Deputies seized a total of 901 growing marijuana plants ranging in size from sin inches to four feet in height from three separate grow rooms. During the search, deputies also reportedly located four pounds of processed marijuana and two pounds of concentrated marijuana, or hash, from the inside of the residence.
According to HCSO information, police also located $15,710 in cash inside a safe in the residence. That money was seized for asset forfeiture, the Sheriff's Office reported.
Both Anderson and Frawley are being held in the Humboldt County jail on $20,000 bail.
The Times-Standard
Posted: 05/09/2009 02:43:20 PM PDT
◼ Car Chase and Shootout Rocks Humboldt County
◼ Eureka Pot Growing Couple Robbed and Beaten
◼ HCSO Press Release 4300 block of Little Fairfield
According to information from the Humboldt County Sheriff's Office, authorities arrested two suspects -- Justin David Anderson, 33, and Melissa Marie Frawley, 32 -- on suspicion of cultivating marijuana for sales.
After authorities raided the residence on the 1000 block of Kinglet Avenue in McKinleyville, where they found a marijuana growing operation inside the garage attached to the residence.
Deputies seized a total of 901 growing marijuana plants ranging in size from sin inches to four feet in height from three separate grow rooms. During the search, deputies also reportedly located four pounds of processed marijuana and two pounds of concentrated marijuana, or hash, from the inside of the residence.
According to HCSO information, police also located $15,710 in cash inside a safe in the residence. That money was seized for asset forfeiture, the Sheriff's Office reported.
Both Anderson and Frawley are being held in the Humboldt County jail on $20,000 bail.
The Times-Standard
Posted: 05/09/2009 02:43:20 PM PDT
◼ Car Chase and Shootout Rocks Humboldt County
◼ Eureka Pot Growing Couple Robbed and Beaten
◼ HCSO Press Release 4300 block of Little Fairfield
3.14.2009
Pot grows and repercussions
◼ The Long Thirst
Northern California’s Environmental Magazine
The Long Thirst
By LINNEA DUE
At a meeting in Mendocino County’s town of Willits in late October, what seems a fairly narrow topic—illegal water diversion on public lands—rapidly transmogrifies into a frightening evening of dying fish, dry rivers, and out-of-control toxic algae. On that chilly night, the event attracts more than a hundred people covered in fleece outer garments, many wanting to pick a bone with state regulators. It turns out at least one of the speakers has the same agenda.
Ron Pugh, a US Forest Service special agent in charge of illegal activities on public lands, has spent the past few years concentrating on illegal marijuana grows. Marijuana “gardens”—a misnomer on a grand scale—are responsible for the majority of thirsty straws draining rivers and creeks that cross public lands. Pugh flips up a slide showing the spread of illegal grows across the nation. “This, “ he says ominously, meaning Mendocino and Humboldt counties, the crown jewels of US marijuana production, “is not even one of the heaviest pockets.”
In 1995, foreign nationals, mostly Mexicans, began growing marijuana in Southern California mountains and parks. By ’97, grows had spread into every national park on the West Coast. In 2001, those grows expanded from California, Oregon, and Washington into Idaho, and now are spreading like a giant ink stain across the center of the country’s park and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands all the way to the East Coast.
Says Pugh about the sheer volume of grows, “This is not a hippie thing.” He’s come prepared with a list of comparisons between a “hippie”grow and a DTO site—one maintained by a drug trafficking organization. A traditional garden on public lands, Pugh says, has one or two growers and fewer than fifty plants. The gardener, who lives locally, hikes in every other day or so, carrying water for his plants. Firearms are uncommon, and locations are predictable. “They’re within a quarter mile of a road,” Pugh explains, “and they’re rarely uphill. White guys are lazy.”
The DTO sites, on the other hand, are as remote as the growers can get, often three miles from the nearest road. They contain an average of 6,600 plants, tended by an average of seven growers who live in tents the entire season, from May to October. The growers are aided by scanners, radios, night-vision goggles, an arsenal of weapons, and truckloads of plastic pipe to divert area streams to their plants, sometimes from as far as a half-mile away. When they abandon the site in the fall, they leave behind mountains of trash, about as much trash as a small city dump.
What they bring in is just as bad. “They smuggle in pesticides from Mexico,” Pugh says, “more potent than you can buy here. And believe me, they don’t care about the creeks.” When Pugh describes growers mixing chemicals directly in the creek to pump onto their plants, a moan ripples through the audience.
In a later email exchange, Pugh says that he’s had trouble getting people to understand the ramifications of the crisis: “That’s why I go to great effort to point out that we aren’t dealing with `just marijuana,’ but a huge environmental issue,” Pugh says. “Basically everyone cares, to some degree or other, about that.” Pugh gives his presentation about twice a month, he says, to spread the word to new people: “When they become informed,
they become outraged,” he says. “And outraged people demand action.”
The US Forest Service is not a drug agency, though recently DTO sites were reclassified as crime scenes, which allows inter-agency cooperation with local and national law enforcement. The agency can now sift through trash for phone numbers, receipts, and other tips that could extend criminal prosecution past the hired help and up to the drug lords at the top of the chain. Pugh evokes laughs when he quickly corrects himself while explaining how the combined law enforcement effort needs to locate Mr. Big—“or Ms. Big. Well, I’m pretty sure it is Mr. Big.”
Pugh emphasizes that while the marijuana grows are an enormous drain on resources both financial and environmental, they are also a huge safety issue—after all, these are public lands where anyone can hike. If you stumble on a scene, Pugh advises, retreat immediately and call for help; during this past season, DTO growers killed two hunters on BLM land in Humboldt County.
The Forest Service has no funding for cleanup and depends upon volunteers to help out. Pugh estimates that it takes $5,000 per acre to remove DTO infrastructure and another $5,000 to restore the site. “Eradicating these grows is a number-one national priority,” he says, explaining that he’s met with state and federal Congressional delegates
frequently over the past two years and that Dianne Feinstein, a member of the Senate Committee
on the Judiciary, is particularly concerned.
Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman supplies the local picture, noting that the county’s per capita sales of rat poison are the highest in the nation; growers buy rat poison by the pallet because watering the grow sites attracts rodents. This poison ultimately contaminates the soil and creeks while poisoning raptors and other animals that eat the dead vermin. DTO growers also routinely shoot wildlife.
Most of all, they consume water. “As you go downstream on the Eel, the river should grow,” says Allman. “Instead, it gets smaller because people are pumping into storage tanks and directly into gardens.” Allman estimates that 3.6 million pot plants are grown on public lands—“That’s 3.6 million gallons of water a day,” he says, “pumped out of our creeks and rivers.” Allman pledges to respond to anonymous GPS reports of pumps and hose: “I’ll pull pumps,” he promises. “We’ll fly tributaries. I want to see the salmon come back.”
Salmon are equal opportunity victims, not just impacted by foreign nationals growing pot on public lands. As fisheries and watershed scientist Patrick Higgins points out, many of us are killing the creeks and rivers by supporting agriculture that relies on illegal diversions and unpermitted dams. Higgins, from Arcata’s Kier Associates, comes armed with graphs showing the number of illegal diversions and dams outnumber permitted diversions all along the North Coast and in Napa and Lake counties.
Higgins recalls fishing in Mendocino County’s Outlet Creek during the ‘60s, when it was loaded with steelhead. By 1996, because of illegal drafting, parts of the creek were dry in the summer, stranding fish in deep pools—pools from which diesel pumps lift water daily. Higgins says there are 1,700 illegal diversions in Marin County alone. Flyovers show illegal ponds everywhere, for vineyards and other agricultural uses. The Napa River used to have Coho salmon, the Navarro is dry, and so is the Gualala. Creeks dry between pools that often become clogged with algae that grows in the too-warm, too-still water. When the algae blooms, it releases a nerve toxin that has poisoned dogs and wildlife.
By email, Higgins sent a chart showing the difference in fish populations during El Niño and Niña years—populations fluctuate depending upon drought and full water flows. Through drafting and illegal dams, we’ve created a couple decades of drought-like conditions, even though we’ve actually had wet years like 2005. When a real drought comes along—as it has now—the fish are already stressed and in historically low numbers. “We have a regional crisis,” Higgins says. “There’s something called public trust. We all own the fish, and we all own the water. We’ve lost public trust in this culture.”
Higgins has a laundry list of those not “minding the store,” including the California State Water Resources Control Board: “seldom seen and completely ineffective,” he charges. The water board says that because of limited resources, its enforcement style is informal. It tends to respond to violations by issuing retroactive permits for illegal diversions that may have existed for years: “They send people a postcard or an email and call it informal enforcement,” Higgins says. He calls for profound reform, including requiring that all diversions carry a permit and that management of surface and groundwater be turned over to a state agency with public trust as its watchword. Illegal dams should be torn out, he says, and unpermitted diversions penalized by administrative fines of $500 daily. “It’s just a grab,” Higgins concludes. “When you disturb landscapes, the landscape reacts. If you change the nature of a watershed, you change everything.”
Published in Terrain Magazine, Spring 2009
Northern California’s Environmental Magazine
The Long Thirst
By LINNEA DUE
At a meeting in Mendocino County’s town of Willits in late October, what seems a fairly narrow topic—illegal water diversion on public lands—rapidly transmogrifies into a frightening evening of dying fish, dry rivers, and out-of-control toxic algae. On that chilly night, the event attracts more than a hundred people covered in fleece outer garments, many wanting to pick a bone with state regulators. It turns out at least one of the speakers has the same agenda.
Ron Pugh, a US Forest Service special agent in charge of illegal activities on public lands, has spent the past few years concentrating on illegal marijuana grows. Marijuana “gardens”—a misnomer on a grand scale—are responsible for the majority of thirsty straws draining rivers and creeks that cross public lands. Pugh flips up a slide showing the spread of illegal grows across the nation. “This, “ he says ominously, meaning Mendocino and Humboldt counties, the crown jewels of US marijuana production, “is not even one of the heaviest pockets.”
In 1995, foreign nationals, mostly Mexicans, began growing marijuana in Southern California mountains and parks. By ’97, grows had spread into every national park on the West Coast. In 2001, those grows expanded from California, Oregon, and Washington into Idaho, and now are spreading like a giant ink stain across the center of the country’s park and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands all the way to the East Coast.
Says Pugh about the sheer volume of grows, “This is not a hippie thing.” He’s come prepared with a list of comparisons between a “hippie”grow and a DTO site—one maintained by a drug trafficking organization. A traditional garden on public lands, Pugh says, has one or two growers and fewer than fifty plants. The gardener, who lives locally, hikes in every other day or so, carrying water for his plants. Firearms are uncommon, and locations are predictable. “They’re within a quarter mile of a road,” Pugh explains, “and they’re rarely uphill. White guys are lazy.”
The DTO sites, on the other hand, are as remote as the growers can get, often three miles from the nearest road. They contain an average of 6,600 plants, tended by an average of seven growers who live in tents the entire season, from May to October. The growers are aided by scanners, radios, night-vision goggles, an arsenal of weapons, and truckloads of plastic pipe to divert area streams to their plants, sometimes from as far as a half-mile away. When they abandon the site in the fall, they leave behind mountains of trash, about as much trash as a small city dump.
What they bring in is just as bad. “They smuggle in pesticides from Mexico,” Pugh says, “more potent than you can buy here. And believe me, they don’t care about the creeks.” When Pugh describes growers mixing chemicals directly in the creek to pump onto their plants, a moan ripples through the audience.
In a later email exchange, Pugh says that he’s had trouble getting people to understand the ramifications of the crisis: “That’s why I go to great effort to point out that we aren’t dealing with `just marijuana,’ but a huge environmental issue,” Pugh says. “Basically everyone cares, to some degree or other, about that.” Pugh gives his presentation about twice a month, he says, to spread the word to new people: “When they become informed,
they become outraged,” he says. “And outraged people demand action.”
The US Forest Service is not a drug agency, though recently DTO sites were reclassified as crime scenes, which allows inter-agency cooperation with local and national law enforcement. The agency can now sift through trash for phone numbers, receipts, and other tips that could extend criminal prosecution past the hired help and up to the drug lords at the top of the chain. Pugh evokes laughs when he quickly corrects himself while explaining how the combined law enforcement effort needs to locate Mr. Big—“or Ms. Big. Well, I’m pretty sure it is Mr. Big.”
Pugh emphasizes that while the marijuana grows are an enormous drain on resources both financial and environmental, they are also a huge safety issue—after all, these are public lands where anyone can hike. If you stumble on a scene, Pugh advises, retreat immediately and call for help; during this past season, DTO growers killed two hunters on BLM land in Humboldt County.
The Forest Service has no funding for cleanup and depends upon volunteers to help out. Pugh estimates that it takes $5,000 per acre to remove DTO infrastructure and another $5,000 to restore the site. “Eradicating these grows is a number-one national priority,” he says, explaining that he’s met with state and federal Congressional delegates
frequently over the past two years and that Dianne Feinstein, a member of the Senate Committee
on the Judiciary, is particularly concerned.
Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman supplies the local picture, noting that the county’s per capita sales of rat poison are the highest in the nation; growers buy rat poison by the pallet because watering the grow sites attracts rodents. This poison ultimately contaminates the soil and creeks while poisoning raptors and other animals that eat the dead vermin. DTO growers also routinely shoot wildlife.
Most of all, they consume water. “As you go downstream on the Eel, the river should grow,” says Allman. “Instead, it gets smaller because people are pumping into storage tanks and directly into gardens.” Allman estimates that 3.6 million pot plants are grown on public lands—“That’s 3.6 million gallons of water a day,” he says, “pumped out of our creeks and rivers.” Allman pledges to respond to anonymous GPS reports of pumps and hose: “I’ll pull pumps,” he promises. “We’ll fly tributaries. I want to see the salmon come back.”
Salmon are equal opportunity victims, not just impacted by foreign nationals growing pot on public lands. As fisheries and watershed scientist Patrick Higgins points out, many of us are killing the creeks and rivers by supporting agriculture that relies on illegal diversions and unpermitted dams. Higgins, from Arcata’s Kier Associates, comes armed with graphs showing the number of illegal diversions and dams outnumber permitted diversions all along the North Coast and in Napa and Lake counties.
Higgins recalls fishing in Mendocino County’s Outlet Creek during the ‘60s, when it was loaded with steelhead. By 1996, because of illegal drafting, parts of the creek were dry in the summer, stranding fish in deep pools—pools from which diesel pumps lift water daily. Higgins says there are 1,700 illegal diversions in Marin County alone. Flyovers show illegal ponds everywhere, for vineyards and other agricultural uses. The Napa River used to have Coho salmon, the Navarro is dry, and so is the Gualala. Creeks dry between pools that often become clogged with algae that grows in the too-warm, too-still water. When the algae blooms, it releases a nerve toxin that has poisoned dogs and wildlife.
By email, Higgins sent a chart showing the difference in fish populations during El Niño and Niña years—populations fluctuate depending upon drought and full water flows. Through drafting and illegal dams, we’ve created a couple decades of drought-like conditions, even though we’ve actually had wet years like 2005. When a real drought comes along—as it has now—the fish are already stressed and in historically low numbers. “We have a regional crisis,” Higgins says. “There’s something called public trust. We all own the fish, and we all own the water. We’ve lost public trust in this culture.”
Higgins has a laundry list of those not “minding the store,” including the California State Water Resources Control Board: “seldom seen and completely ineffective,” he charges. The water board says that because of limited resources, its enforcement style is informal. It tends to respond to violations by issuing retroactive permits for illegal diversions that may have existed for years: “They send people a postcard or an email and call it informal enforcement,” Higgins says. He calls for profound reform, including requiring that all diversions carry a permit and that management of surface and groundwater be turned over to a state agency with public trust as its watchword. Illegal dams should be torn out, he says, and unpermitted diversions penalized by administrative fines of $500 daily. “It’s just a grab,” Higgins concludes. “When you disturb landscapes, the landscape reacts. If you change the nature of a watershed, you change everything.”
Published in Terrain Magazine, Spring 2009
3.08.2009
Detective testifies in Groh murder trial
☛ TS Detective testifies in Groh murder trial 2/26/09
The Times-Standard
Posted: 02/26/2009 01:16:15 AM PST
The trial of Rodney Groh continued Wednesday with testimony delivered by a Eureka Police Department detective who investigated the death of George Giguere, a Eureka man killed in May.
Groh, 55, is accused of killing Giguere, a longtime friend, inside their Budget Hotel room in May 2008. He has pleaded not guilty.
EPD Detective Terry Liles testified Wednesday he found blood smeared on Groh's hands and spattered on his clothing the night of the alleged murder. That evidence, he said, was collected and sent to a state crime laboratory for examination.
Liles said he also took a large metal flashlight from the scene of Giguere's alleged murder into evidence.
Groh's trial is expected to continue today.
The Times-Standard
Posted: 02/26/2009 01:16:15 AM PST
The trial of Rodney Groh continued Wednesday with testimony delivered by a Eureka Police Department detective who investigated the death of George Giguere, a Eureka man killed in May.
Groh, 55, is accused of killing Giguere, a longtime friend, inside their Budget Hotel room in May 2008. He has pleaded not guilty.
EPD Detective Terry Liles testified Wednesday he found blood smeared on Groh's hands and spattered on his clothing the night of the alleged murder. That evidence, he said, was collected and sent to a state crime laboratory for examination.
Liles said he also took a large metal flashlight from the scene of Giguere's alleged murder into evidence.
Groh's trial is expected to continue today.
Murder trial continues for Groh
☛ TS Murder trial continues for Groh 2/12/09
Sean Garmire/The Times-Standard
Posted: 02/12/2009 01:16:42 AM PST
Rodney Groh, a 55-year-old Eureka man accused of killing his long-time friend and roommate, entered the third day of trial Wednesday, as police and a coroner testified about the scene of George Giguere's death.
Deputy District Attorney Ben McLaughlin has alleged Groh killed Giguere on the night of May 22 during an argument at the Budget Motel, where the two lived together in room 117.
Eureka Police Sgt. Steve Watson testified he responded to the scene of Giguere's death, to find Groh pacing outside the room.
Watson said Groh told him he and Giguere had been in a fight with two unknown men in the parking lot near the room. After the fight, Groh said they returned to the room, where Giguere passed out from his injuries.
Groh said they had been assaulted by the two men and fought back in self-defense, but Watson said when he questioned Groh further about the incident, he was unable to give descriptions of the alleged assailants, or say exactly where the fight took place.
”He was very vague and unable to give specifics,” Watson said.
Officers went to the parking lot and using flashlights searched the ground twice for evidence of a fight, but found “absolutely none,” Watson said.
Watson said he almost immediately noticed blood drying on Groh's hands, but he did notice any on his face.
Groh, Watson said, was considered a suspect at that point in the investigation. He was arrested and transported to the Humboldt County jail.
Humboldt County Deputy Coroner Charles Comer also testified at the trial, explaining he found bruising, abrasions and blood covering Giguere's body. Comer's testimony ended with the recess, but he will return to court when the trial resumes. Groh's trial is expected to continue Friday, but may be delayed due to maintenance issues in the courthouse.
Sean Garmire/The Times-Standard
Posted: 02/12/2009 01:16:42 AM PST
Rodney Groh, a 55-year-old Eureka man accused of killing his long-time friend and roommate, entered the third day of trial Wednesday, as police and a coroner testified about the scene of George Giguere's death.
Deputy District Attorney Ben McLaughlin has alleged Groh killed Giguere on the night of May 22 during an argument at the Budget Motel, where the two lived together in room 117.
Eureka Police Sgt. Steve Watson testified he responded to the scene of Giguere's death, to find Groh pacing outside the room.
Watson said Groh told him he and Giguere had been in a fight with two unknown men in the parking lot near the room. After the fight, Groh said they returned to the room, where Giguere passed out from his injuries.
Groh said they had been assaulted by the two men and fought back in self-defense, but Watson said when he questioned Groh further about the incident, he was unable to give descriptions of the alleged assailants, or say exactly where the fight took place.
”He was very vague and unable to give specifics,” Watson said.
Officers went to the parking lot and using flashlights searched the ground twice for evidence of a fight, but found “absolutely none,” Watson said.
Watson said he almost immediately noticed blood drying on Groh's hands, but he did notice any on his face.
Groh, Watson said, was considered a suspect at that point in the investigation. He was arrested and transported to the Humboldt County jail.
Humboldt County Deputy Coroner Charles Comer also testified at the trial, explaining he found bruising, abrasions and blood covering Giguere's body. Comer's testimony ended with the recess, but he will return to court when the trial resumes. Groh's trial is expected to continue Friday, but may be delayed due to maintenance issues in the courthouse.
Trial begins for man accused of killing his roommate
☛ TS Trial begins for man accused of killing his roommate 2/10/09
The Times-Standard
Posted: 02/10/2009 01:15:24 AM PST
Opening statements were made Monday in the first day of the trial of Rodney Groh, who is accused of killing George Giguere, his roommate at the time at the Budget Hotel.
An investigation by the Eureka Police Department alleges that Groh killed Giguere by beating him to death in a fight that originated over the television.
In testimony given at Groh's preliminary hearing, EPD Detective Patrick O'Neill said that throughout interviews with him, Groh maintained that “he and George were good friends, and they loved each other, and they looked out for each other and cared for each other.”
The trial continues today and Deputy District Attorney Ben McLaughlin will be submitting evidence for the prosecution.
The Times-Standard
Posted: 02/10/2009 01:15:24 AM PST
Opening statements were made Monday in the first day of the trial of Rodney Groh, who is accused of killing George Giguere, his roommate at the time at the Budget Hotel.
An investigation by the Eureka Police Department alleges that Groh killed Giguere by beating him to death in a fight that originated over the television.
In testimony given at Groh's preliminary hearing, EPD Detective Patrick O'Neill said that throughout interviews with him, Groh maintained that “he and George were good friends, and they loved each other, and they looked out for each other and cared for each other.”
The trial continues today and Deputy District Attorney Ben McLaughlin will be submitting evidence for the prosecution.