Opinion ID: 1199719
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The commission of the crimes.

Text: Shortly before noon on March 15, Chester was home with his wife, Barbara Teater Chester. Mrs. Chester testified she heard her husband answer a call coming from an intercom-telephone located outside the house, stating that he would be out shortly. After her husband proceeded to the garage, she heard him shout, bullshit. Mrs. Chester peered outside a window and saw a white pickup truck parked in the driveway. She then heard other voices becoming loud and angry, the sound of bodies impacting against each other and a wall, and finally a loud crack and the splintering of wood. After hearing her husband say, I'll take you to the safe, she heard another voice threaten, Yes, you take me to the safe. You take me to the safe or I'll blow your fucking head off. Mrs. Chester testified that after listening to a tape recording of a March 23, 1982, conversation between defendant and Centers (see pt. I.A.iv., post ), she recognized defendant's voice, particularly his expletive fuckin', as similar to the voice that had threatened her husband. The voice did not resemble that of Handley, nor did the accent resemble that of an African-American. [4] (Karen Langford, a neighbor, testified that shortly after the shooting, Mrs. Chester told her one of the voices she heard resembled that of a colored man.) Mrs. Chester retreated to the bathroom and escaped through a sliding glass door. Walking toward the front of the house, she heard a loud cracking noise, which jolted her. As she proceeded to walk forward, she observed the back of a Caucasian male approximately 30 feet away, near the front of the house, moving away from her. She testified that, in her opinion, there was insufficient time (between the cracking sound and her observation) for this man to have fled from the master bedroom (where her husband was shot) and reached his location outside the residence. She further described the man as tall, approximately five feet, nine inches, to six feet in height, thin, with dark brown hair. [5] She testified the man resembled Centers and not defendant, whom she had seen for the first time at the preliminary hearing and who had grayish hair. Mrs. Chester recalled the man was wearing a dark green sweater. She also acknowledged that, at the preliminary hearing, she had been unable to identify either Centers or defendant as the man whom she had seen outside her residence. Proceeding to the front door, Mrs. Chester found her keys and then fled in her automobile to the home of a friend, where she contacted the sheriff's office. En route, she noticed a person (apparently male) on Cameron Road, approximately 300 feet from the foot of her driveway, walking in the direction of her residence. He was thin, approximately five feet, nine inches, to six feet in height, with a tan and white scarf wrapped around his head, concealing his face. Within minutes, El Dorado County Deputy Sheriff Thomas Hill arrived at the Chester house, finding a white pickup truck parked in the driveway. After Hill entered the garage, an interior door opened and a man wearing a maroon-colored jacket (later identified as Handley) appeared. After Deputy Hill yelled at Handley to halt, Handley quickly retreated into the house. By this time, other deputies had arrived at the scene. Deputies Hill and Evan Sundby observed two men running from the far corner of the house. Deputy Hill testified that one of the men was Handley, and Deputy Sundby testified that one of the men was wearing a red shirt or jacket. Losing sight of one of the men, Deputy Hill pursued Handley in a northeasterly direction, through thickly vegetated, rugged terrain. On cross-examination, he acknowledged having testified at the preliminary hearing that the two fleeing men had been running together in the same direction. Deputy Brown testified that he joined Deputy Hill in hot pursuit of one suspect and fired a warning shot, after which the suspect dropped into a crouching position. He further recalled the suspect was wearing a black coat, not a red- or maroon-colored coat. [6] The deputies then lost sight of the suspect and halted their pursuit. Meanwhile, Deputy Sundby proceeded to the far corner of the residence from where the two men had fled, and observed an open sliding glass door. Upon entering, he found Chester, dead and handcuffed, on the floor of the master bedroom. The safe had not been opened, but the room had been ransacked. There was a.22-caliber gunshot wound to the back of Chester's head and another gunshot wound in his left arm. Shortly thereafter, Handley was spotted by aircraft near a pond situated to the northeast of the Chester residence. Deputy Hill drove to that vicinity, walked to the pond, and saw Handley motioning to him with his hands. After Handley was taken into custody, the police found in his pockets a latex surgical glove, a golfer's glove, items taken from the Chester residence, and two $100 bills, the same denomination and number of bills that Mrs. Chester had seen in her husband's wallet the previous evening. Centers was apprehended within a half hour, while running through a field less than one mile from the Chester residence. He was wearing a red-maroon sweater-type shirt. Law enforcement officers undertook a roadway and aerial search of the area. Defendant was not located. The white pickup truck parked in the driveway was registered in the name of Rita Neely, defendant's wife. Inside the truck, the deputies found a birth certificate, a bank statement, and a business card, all bearing defendant's name, a .30-caliber military rifle, a magazine with eight rounds, two knives, .12 gauge Remington shells, assorted tools, surgical gloves, a package of marijuana seeds, a notebook containing miscellaneous papers bearing handwriting later identified by an expert as that of defendant, and a tablet of paper on which the Chester address and telephone number had been written. The deputies also discovered in the truck a blue suitcase (later identified as belonging to defendant's wife), containing a clip for a.22-caliber High Standard automatic weapon, and a vest later identified as similar to one belonging to defendant. Also found was a package addressed to Mrs. Bruce Chester, containing old magazines, which, during closing argument, the prosecution argued had been a trick box to gain entrance to the Chester home. Fingerprints matching those of defendant, Centers, and Handley were lifted from the pickup truck. Two bullets were removed from a wall and a floor of the Chester residence. All of the bullets, including the one removed from the victim's head, were fired from the same .22-caliber weapon, a firearm having characteristics similar to those of a .22-caliber pistol manufactured by High Standard Firearms Company. This weapon resembles a Luger-style or Ruger-style firearm. The afternoon of March 15, the sheriff's deputies, with Handley present, searched the area of the northeast corner of the residence for Handley's gun. Only a construction helmet later identified as belonging to Handley was found. On March 16, the deputies conducted an extensive but unsuccessful grid search for weapons in the vicinity of the path taken by at least one of the fleeing suspects. On March 19, members of a metal detector club assisted in a broader search with the aid of their equipment. In an area to the north of the location where Deputies Hill and Brown lost sight of the suspect, approximately four or five feet from the pavement of Cameron Road, a club member detected a metal object. With a screwdriver, she unearthed a.32-caliber gun buried approximately four to six inches underground. This witness testified that the ground bore no traces of having been disturbed or of an object having been buried. Handley's girlfriend and his brother testified they recognized the .32-caliber firearm as belonging to Handley. The bullets recovered from the Chester residence and the victim's body could not have been fired from this gun. The murder weapon never was found. On March 16, a pair of surgical gloves turned inside out (as if they had been pulled off the wearer's hands) was found in the general area of the path taken by Handley. The victim's wife, Barbara, testified that her husband probably had been acquainted with Centers, but to her knowledge had not been acquainted with defendant.