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- Written by: Elizabeth Larson
San Francisco attorney Stuart Hanlon told Lake County News this week that he has filed a motion to have District Attorney Jon Hopkins and his department recused from the case.
Hanlon's 23-year-old client is accused of the homicides of friends Rashad Williams and Christian Foster.
Hopkins alleges that the three men broke into the Clearlake Park home of Shannon Edmonds and Lori Tyler in the early morning hours of Dec. 7, 2005, and assaulted the family while attempting to steal marijuana Edmonds claims to have a medical recommendation to use.
Hughes didn't shoot the men – Edmonds shot them as they ran from his home, according to case records.
However, Hopkins alleges Hughes is responsible for their deaths under a provocative act law, which holds a person responsible for the death of accomplices in a crime that is likely to result in a lethal response.
In this latest action, Hanlon is asking that Judge William McKinstry – the retired Alameda County judge who will preside over the trial – remove Hopkins.
The basis of Hanlon's request is his allegation that the district attorney is refusing to file charges against Edmonds for trying to force Tyler, his common law wife since 2001, to take a pill overdose as part of a suicide attempt on Aug. 3.
Tyler told police that Edmonds divided up about 300 pills of various types – including Methadone and Seroquel – and forced her to take about half of them. She said he threatened that if she didn't take them “something else was going to happen.” Edmonds also made her write out a suicide note.
“It really reads like an attempted murder,” said Hanlon.
The two survived because Edmonds later drove himself and Tyler to Redbud Community Hospital's Emergency Room.
In an interview with police Tyler said that Edmonds has been increasingly angry and isolated. “He's pushed everybody so far away from us since the home invasion,” she said.
Tyler also told police that Edmonds has threatened her before, and once had used a gun to shoot out a door, which scared her older son so badly he stopped coming to see them.
She further stated to police that she wanted Edmonds prosecuted for the incident.
Edmonds told police the suicide attempt was Tyler's idea, although friends of the couple interviewed by police said Edmonds – not Tyler – had been talking about suicide.
On Aug. 20 Edmonds made a second suicide attempt, again with pills, according to court records.
A police report said Hopkins asked to review the police report prior to an arrest being made.
Hanlon said Hopkins isn't filing a case against Edmonds because he's trying to protect him, since he's a major witness in the Hughes trial.
“He has a lot of discretion but it can't be abused,” said Hanlon.
If he can get Hopkins removed from the case Hanlon said he plans to subpoena him as a witness on why Edmonds wasn't prosecuted.
Hanlon's motion also hints that he may seek a delay in the trial, saying he won't know until the hearing if he will have “sufficient time to gather evidence and investigate this matter so that I can proceed adequately prepared and competent to trial in October of this year.”
Hopkins dismissed Hanlon's motion as just another maneuver to stall the trial.
He said his office is investigating the case and no decision has yet been made, but he contradicted Hanlon's claims that he was dismissing the case.
“He's a little premature in arriving at his conclusion,” said Hopkins.
Hopkins didn't want to reveal his plans for arguing against Hanlon until court, and said he is in the process of filing a brief in response.
He said the Attorney General's Office also will file a brief in opposition to Hanlon's motion to have the District Attorney's Office removed.
“There's no legal basis for the motion at all,” said Hopkins.
The motion will be heard at 9 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 11, in Department 3 at the Lake County Courthouse in Lakeport.
Earlier this year Hanlon appealed to both the state First Appellate Court and the state Supreme Court to throw out Judge Arthur Mann's March 2 decision to take the trial out of Lake County. The appellate court upheld Mann's decision, and the Supreme Court would not hear the case.
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A report from Chief Deputy Coroner Russell Perdock said that an autopsy conducted Friday confirmed that the man was 22-year-old Matthew Zanoni.
Zanoni went missing in the lake on Saturday while a passenger on a pontoon boat in the area of Shag Rock, located near Buckingham Point and east of Lakeport, as Lake County News previously reported.
His sister, Jennifer Zanoni, said he had come to Lake County that afternoon to attend BoardStock.
Perdock reported that the autopsy revealed no signs of trauma, injury or foul play.
The cause of Zanoni's death, said Perdock, was drowning.
Zanoni's body was discovered by a group of searchers that included his father, Mike Zanoni, Supervisor Rob Brown and Skip Simkins of Lake Countys' Lakebed Management division, as Lake County News reported Thursday.
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The California Highway Patrol incident logs reported that the accident took place around 9:28 p.m. on westbound Highway 20 at Cora Drive.
The CHP did not stipulate how many vehicles were involved.
However, they did report that emergency personnel transported one person by helicopter to Santa Rosa.
A blood test was conducted and no alcohol was found in the person's system, the CHP reported.
No other information was available Saturday night.
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The Lake County Sheriff's Office confirmed shortly before 5 p.m. that a body with physical characteristics matching those of 22-year-old Matthew Zanoni was discovered at 12:25 p.m.
Rescue divers have searched for Zanoni since Saturday evening, when he disappeared over the railing of a pontoon boat moored about 150 yards offshore from Buckingham near Shag Rock, east of Lakeport.
In a twist that deepens the tragedy, Zanoni's father, Mike Zanoni, was with the party that located the body.
A report from Lt. Cecil Brown of the Lake County Sheriff's Office said that on Thursday Supervisor Rob Brown and Lake County Lakebed Manager Skip Simkins joined the effort to locate Matthew Zanoni's body.
While Marine Patrol deputies searched another area of the shoreline, Brown and Simkins took a boat to a location where Simkins believed that human remains would be likely to surface, based on a description of the search area provided by the Marine Patrol, according to Lt. Brown's report.
On the way, they met Mike Zanoni, Matthew Zanoni's father, in another vessel, Lt. Brown reported.
Together, they went on to the location Simkins wanted to search, where they found the body along the shoreline.
“My dad found my brother,” said Jennifer Zanoni, Matthew Zanoni's sister.
After the body's discovery, Mike Zanoni went to be with his family while Brown and Simkins called the Marine Patrol and helped them recover the body, according to the sheriff's office report.
Lt. Cecil Brown said the sheriff's office can't yet confirm the body is Matt Zanoni's. That, he said, must wait for the results of a coroner's investigation, which will positively identify the man and the cause of his death.
However, Brown added, “Based on the location of the recovery and the physical characteristics of the deceased man, we believe it is likely that it is the body of Matthew Zanoni that was found today.”
He said an autopsy is scheduled for Friday.
Zanoni and the group of people on the boat were visiting the county to attend BoardStock, according to Jennifer Zanoni.
The Lake County Sheriff's Office had issued a Wednesday statement in which it was reported that passengers on the boat said Matthew Zanoni had been drinking alcohol before he went into the water.
However, Jennifer Zanoni said she didn't believe alcohol was an issue, since the information she received in speaking with passengers on the boat was that her brother had only had a few beers.
Jennifer Zanoni, 28, has been highly critical of the local efforts to find her younger brother, which she didn't not feel were aggressive enough. She said she has spoken with an attorney and is trying to have the case turned over to the Sonoma County Coroner's Office.
“I absolutely do not want them involved in the conclusion of this,” she said of the Lake County Sheriff's Office. “I don't want them touching him.”
Sheriff Rod Mitchell said he was grateful to Rob Brown and Skip Simkins for joining in the search, which helped end the family's agonizing wait.
Officials had estimated earlier in the week that it might take weeks more for a body to surface. A drowning victim in that same area in 2004 wasn't discovered until several months later.
Zanoni, who said she called Rob Brown to ask for his help, said she was very grateful to him for his work in the search.
She said finding her brother had eased her family's suffering somewhat. “My dad is confident he's OK now.”
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