CLEARLAKE, Calif. – Three Clearlake Police officers who investigated a fatal June shooting took the stand during Friday's session of the preliminary hearing for the three men accused of the crime.
Tim Alvarado, Ryan Peterson and Tim Celli testified in the preliminary hearing of Kevin Ray Stone, 29, of Clearlake, and Paul William Braden, 21, and Orlando Joseph Lopez, 23, who are charged with murder, mayhem, several counts of attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon, and numerous special allegations in connection with a June 18 shooting that killed a child and wounded several family members and friends.
Braden, Lopez and Stone are alleged to have driven to the Lakeshore Drive apartment of Ross Sparks and Desiree Kirby late on June 18, where the prosecution alleges they participated in a shooting that killed Kirby's 4-year-old son, Skyler Rapp, seriously wounded Kirby, and and left Sparks and his brother Andrew, and Ian Griffith and Joseph Armijo with gunshot wounds.
District Attorney Don Anderson is personally handling the case's prosecution, with attorneys Stephen Carter, Komnith Moth and Doug Rhoades representing Lopez, Stone and Braden, respectively.
Alvarado started off the day on the stand, finishing testimony regarding his work on the case and interviews with witnesses that he had begun offering on Thursday afternoon.
The day's second witness was Peterson, who testified to speaking with a UC Davis Medical Center doctor who had treated Kirby.
He said she sustained numerous gunshot wounds to her right arm and right leg, resulting in broken bones in her arm and a ruptured artery in her leg that the doctor said could eventually have required amputation had it not been treated.
Not long after he responded to the scene of the shooting, Peterson interviewed Sparks' and Kirby's neighbor, Curtis Eeds.
Witnesses and shooting victims who have testified in the hearing so far have placed the alleged shooters in Eeds' back yard, shooting over and through the fence that separated his home from the apartment where the couple lived with their two young children.
Peterson said Eeds had been detained by Officer Alan Collier and was in the back of Collier's patrol car when he first interviewed him.
Eeds, who witnesses said was at Sparks' residence briefly in the hours before the shooting, confirmed that to Peterson. While there he and another man who went by the nickname “Goofy” – who has been identified in court testimony as James Jordan – were standing together at the fence line. Eeds did not mention Goofy leaving Sparks' property with him.
Eeds told Peterson that at some point that evening he had left his home and went to a friend's residence on Lupoyoma, which is where he said he was when he heard five gunshots. After hearing the gunshots he saw a maroon vehicle – which he said resembled a 1980s Volkswagen Rabbit – speeding down Lupoyoma and away from the scene.
According to Peterson, Eeds said he ran back to his residence and saw Sparks on a cell phone screaming at someone, “You killed him,” referring to Skyler Rapp, who was lying dead on the ground. After that Eeds said he left and went back to the Lupoyoma residence.
Peterson said during testimony that he interviewed Leighann Painchaud, Stone's girlfriend, three times during the course of the investigation, the first time on June 19.
Painchaud would later be arrested for vehicle theft after she was found with Stone in a stolen vehicle in Santa Rosa about two weeks after the shooting, as Lake County News has reported.
On June 19 Peterson questioned her about a 1989 Nissan Axxess she had borrowed from her cousin, Crystal Painchaud, who had testified on Thursday to finding her vehicle crashed at the intersection of Lupoyoma and Koloko not long after the shooting. Crystal Painchaud stated that she had found an unexpended shotgun shell on the passenger seat.
Leighann Painchaud said she believed that she had borrowed the vehicle around 9:30 p.m. and driven around town with Stone – going to McDonald's and Walmart – before returning the vehicle and then going to a bar while Stone went elsewhere.
However, after telling that story to Peterson in the June 19 interview, she changed her story, he said.
“As I was speaking with her I advised her that her story wasn't matching things that we had discovered during the investigation,” he said.
Peterson said he asked her if she was willing to be honest, and she said she was, explaining that she had borrowed the vehicle and driven with Stone to an area on Boyles Avenue, where they picked up two subjects, who she described as a white male and a dark-skinned male, both wearing dark clothing.
Painchaud told Peterson that she went to her cousin's apartment in the same complex where she lived on Old Highway 53 to return her cousin's keys – minus the vehicle key. When she returned to the apartment she shared with Stone, he was leaving, with what appeared to be a rifle-type firearm under his jacket.
Later, she received a text from Stone that Peterson said was something along the lines of, “I love you and I'm sorry I can't be with you.”
While working patrol on June 23 Peterson received a call about loud music at Painchaud's apartment. By the time he arrived the music already had been turned down, but he asked if she would speak with him further, and she said yes.
During that interview, Painchaud's story changed again, Peterson said.
At that time, Painchaud told Peterson that she recognized the two male subjects she had picked up on the night of June 18 as Lopez and Braden, whose pictures she saw on the sheriff's Web site.
Peterson said police conducted a consensual search of Painchaud's apartment – during which he was not present – in which officers saw a 12-gauge semiautomatic Browning shotgun.
After securing a search warrant, police returned to the apartment and Peterson – who took part in that search – recovered the shotgun himself.
During the course of the investigation, Peterson also participated in arresting Braden on a state parole violation at the direction of Braden's parole officer.
During cross-examination, Stone's defense attorney, Komnith Moth, questioned Peterson closely on how he secured the crime scene after arriving there shortly before 11 p.m. June 18.
In particular, Moth questioned the decision to move the child's body from the scene. Peterson testified that he had the child's body placed in one of the ambulances, which he stood guard over while the rest of the shooting victims were tended.
However, Kirby needed to be transported to a helicopter landing zone, and due to a shortage of ambulances Peterson and the paramedics decided to transport her in the same ambulance that held her young son's body. “We had no other option.”
He said they covered the child's body with a blanket and placed it on a bench at the rear of the ambulance before loading Kirby.
During his questioning of Peterson – who is the Clearlake Police Department's gang expert – Carter asked him about the Avenue Boys, a gang whose members allegedly were involved in a June 9 fight with Josh Gamble, Sparks' cousin.
Peterson said he hasn't connected them to a larger gang, but they are claiming to be a Norteño subset, wearing red, the same color adopted by the Norteños.
Anderson objected to the questioning, and when Judge Stephen Hedstrom asked for arguments on the issue, Carter said it was extremely relevant, considering that the presentation of the case in chief began with Gamble's account of the fight with the Avenue Boys.
Anderson argued that there wasn't clear evidence that the Avenue Boys were connected to the case.
Hedstrom acknowledged, “There's a loose connection,” which already had been established in testimony. He allowed Carter to continue his line of questioning.
Peterson said he had been able to identify four Avenue Boys, whose graffiti is sometimes found near that of the Norteños.
The last to give testimony on Friday was Sgt. Tim Celli, who said he had interviewed Orlando Lopez's younger brother, Leonardo, three different times.
During interviews on June 19 and June 20 the younger Lopez initially told Celli that Braden and his older brother weren't with him at the home he shares on 16th Avenue with girlfriend, Ashli Athas, their young son, and Athas' grandmother and sister.
But later Leonardo Lopez – like Athas – admitted to police that he had lied out of fear, and admitted his brother and Braden had been at the house that afternoon. They had left for about 40 minutes and when they came back Braden had a black pump action shotgun.
Leonardo Lopez said Braden sawed off the shotgun handle on the workbench of the home's garage and the butt was thrown away in a recycling bin. Later Orlando Lopez and Braden left in a vehicle with Stone.
Leonardo Lopez said his brother and Braden were in an argument on the phone with a female subject who Braden allegedly challenged to a fight.
While Stone was at the residence on June 18, he allegedly had an argument with Whitney Lopez, the sister of Orlando and Leonardo, according to Celli's testimony. During the hearing so far it was reported that Stone was dating Leighann Painchaud and at some point had dated Whitney Lopez, who was pregnant at the time of the shooting.
Celli said that it was related to him by Athas that Stone punched Whitney Lopez in the stomach during the June 18 argument, a statement that Moth objected to on hearsay grounds, pointing out that Athas stated in her Thursday testimony that she had not witnessed the fight but had been told about it by someone else. Hedstrom ordered the statement stricken.
Testimony in the case will continue at 8:15 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 13. It's estimated that the hearing will wrap up either late Oct. 13 or on Friday, Oct. 14.
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
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