Opinion ID: 2581358
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sadler murder

Text: Around 4:00 o'clock on the morning of February 9, 1992, police officers found the body of Ernest Sadler lying on the pavement in the 2200 block of Menalto Avenue, East Palo Alto. Sadler's head was severely battered and three bloodstained, broken pieces of board were found near his body by officers responding to a 911 call. Because Sadler's distinctive shoe prints were visible on the damp soil in the front yard of the house at 2250 Menalto, San Mateo County Sheriff's Detective William Osborn interviewed the 11 occupants of the residence, none of whom admitted to having seen Sadler killed. Only months later did several occupants of the house admit that they had known about Sadler's killing. In June, Shawnte Early gave police a recorded statement in which she reported seeing defendant fighting with Sadler and continuing to attack Sadler with a stick after Sadler was on the ground. She described coaxing defendant into her car and driving him around the corner only to have him jump out and run back to resume beating Sadler. At trial, Early repudiated her taped interview, testifying that she did not remember having made the detailed statement, and that it was untrue. A tape recording of her June 1992 interview was played for the jury. Ernest Woodard, who lived at 2250 Menalto, testified that he was awakened that night by someone who told him there was a fight outside. He saw defendant, whom he knew by sight, engaged in a fist fight, and told the combatants to move on down the street. Woodard, a convicted felon, feared a police investigation of the fight would bring them to his house. At the time of trial, Woodard was serving a prison term for selling cocaine. Some time after the fight, Velisha Sorooshian, a relative by marriage of Woodard's, came to 2250 Menalto with Leonard Holt to buy crack cocaine. While the pair sat in their car smoking a pipe of crack cocaine, a car containing defendant pulled alongside, and he laughingly asked Velisha to go see if the man lying in the street was all right. She assumed defendant was joking until she returned to 2250 Menalto to buy more cocaine and Woodard told her the man was probably dead; Woodard asked her to call 911, which she did. Holt testified that earlier in the evening, about 8:00 or 9:00 o'clock, he had run into Sadler. When Sadler said he wanted to buy a $5 dollar rock of cocaine, Holt told him to try the Woodard house. The day after Sadler's death, Shannon Senegal, defendant's cousin, ran into defendant, who reported that he had beat someone down last night on Menalto, identifying his victim as Sadler. Defendant explained that Sadler had taken some of defendant's crack and tried to run off with it. When Senegal asked if Sadler had died, defendant said he did not know and expressed no concern over that possibility. (At the time of trial, Senegal was in custody, charged with being an accessory after the fact to the murder of Ronald Morris.) According to the pathology report, Sadler's death was the result of having aspirated blood into his lungs from extensive injuries to his face and head, including ruptured eyeballs and broken facial bones. These injuries were consistent with a severe beating. Sadler had a blood-alcohol level of .09 percent and tested positive for both cocaine and cocaine metabolite. Sadler was 44 at the time of his death.