A Davis man missing since April 13 has been found safe, just over a week after getting lost in the Lake County wilderness following a car accident, his family said Monday.

Daniel Brian Thompson, 25, embarked on a solo camping trip in a rented Zipcar, which apparently became disabled in a rural area northwest of Clear Lake, his father Brian Thompson said in a phone interview.

“He lost control on gravel, and (the car) went off the road,” Thompson said. With no cell phone reception or other assistance, “he was lost wandering for seven days.”

Daniel Thompson, who reportedly survived on water runoff and pine nuts as he searched for help, surfaced at about 2:30 p.m. Sunday in the area of the Blue Oaks Campground, a Bureau of Land Management property near Clearlake Oaks, according to Davis police Lt. Paul Doroshov.

Friends and family became concerned last week after Thompson, who is known for keeping in regular contact with them, failed to show up for a dinner meeting with a friend and later his job at the Mondavi Center at UC Davis.

Searchers thought he may have encountered trouble during a bike ride to the Lake Berryessa area until learning this past weekend that Thompson had rented a Zipcar out of downtown Sacramento.

Berkeley resident Luke Macaulay discovered the abandoned car Saturday evening as he hunted wild pigs in an area of thick brush off Walker Ridge Road, a dirt roadway located off Highway 20.

“It was way down a steep embankment,” about 100 yards down from the road, Macaulay, 32, said in a phone interview. The car was clean, with its passenger door open and the key still in the ignition, indicating the accident had just recently occurred.

Macaulay took photos of the vehicle, registered its GPS coordinates and checked the glove compartment, which contained a wallet and driver’s license. He took the items back to his camp, where his girlfriend — who happens to be a UCD postdoctoral student — googled the name on her cell phone and learned the car’s renter had been reported missing. The couple then called Davis police to report the find.

“I’m just glad he’s OK,” Macaulay said.

Thompson declined an interview request from The Enterprise. But he posted a status update on a Facebook page dedicated to the search for him before it was taken down Monday:

“Y’all, A: Tell people when you camp by yourself. B: Drive carefully on gravel. C: Learn edible plants in your area, because when you find yourself lost on BLM land without a car, cellphone, or kit, runoff and pine nuts make a (lousy) diet.”

Brian Thompson said his son grew up learning about edible plants in his native Utah, and pine nuts were a particular favorite.

“That was a treat for us growing up, always,” he said. But after the events of the past week, “he may never want to eat them again.”

— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene

A Dixon man faces felony drunk driving charges following a Sunday-morning crash that injured both him and his passenger, according to the California Highway Patrol.

Cyle W. Harris, 20, was driving a Toyota Camry southbound on County Road 106 west of Road 36 when “when due to his level of intoxication he made an unsafe turning movement, causing the car to leave the roadway and roll over in a field,” CHP Officer Cindy Leal said. The crash occurred at about 12:45 a.m.

The Davis Fire Department reported that Harris was thrown from the car, while his passenger, 28-year-old Debra Akins of Dixon, had to be extricated from the wreckage.

Both were transported to the UC Davis Medical Center — Akins with a broken right leg and Harris with pain to his left hip and leg, Leal said.

Davis police continue to sift through numerous leads — some more promising than others — as their search for the killer of an elderly couple enters its second week.

“We’re pursuing with a vengeance those ones that have a high potential,” Police Chief Landy Black said in an interview Monday following the Yolo County District Attorney’s annual crime victim tribute in Woodland, where the names of Oliver “Chip” Northup and his wife, Claudia Maupin, were the first of dozens of victims’ names that were read aloud during the ceremony.

“There are leads going in all sorts of different directions — from that group of people that are known to the victims, and then we’re also pursuing people unknown to them, with that happenstance sort of association,” Black added. “We’re continuing to make progress.”

Officers performing a welfare check found Northup, 87, and Maupin, 76, fatally stabbed in their Cowell Boulevard condominium on the night of April 14. The couple had not been seen since the day before, when Northup performed at the Davis Farmers Market with his band, the Putah Creek Crawdads.

When they failed to appear at both a memorial service and a Crawdads benefit performance the following day, concerned family members summoned police to the South Davis condo. Investigators have described encountering a violent scene, with no indications of a burglary gone awry.

Detectives continue to receive assistance in their investigation from the FBI and state Department of Justice, among other law-enforcement agencies. Last week, the police department also established a tip line — 530-747-5439 — for the public to phone in any clues they might have about the case.

While not voluminous in number, “some of the leads that have been called in have been very valuable and we have been following up on those,” Black said.

Meanwhile, relatives of Northup and Maupin have planned a memorial service for 3 p.m. Saturday at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Davis, 27074 Patwin Road, where Northup was a charter member, and where the couple first met before marrying 15 years ago.

Northup’s daughter, Mary Northup, said Monday she feels assured that authorities “are working as hard as they can on this case.”

“I have confidence that they will find the person who did this, but I also understand it might take a while, and that part of it is difficult for a variety of reasons,” she said. “I would like the perpetrator off the streets — I would hate for anybody else to go through this.”

Northup said she’s considered the possibility that the killer may have been known to her father, who practiced law for 63 years and most recently handled criminal defense appeals for the California Appellate Project, which reviews cases for prison inmates.

“That makes me feel bad, because it would mean poor Claudia was brought down for no reason whatsoever,” Northup said. At the same time, “I can’t imagine that anybody that knew either of them would do this.”

Despite their heartache, the family has been uplifted by the outpouring of condolences and support from community members whose lives the victims had touched.

“That’s really helpful to hear,” Northup said. “It helps me to keep them alive in my heart, that pieces of them move on.”

— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene

WOODLAND — The evening of April 10, 2012, started out like any other for Magdalena Marquez.

After closing up her family’s check-cashing business in Woodland, Marquez deposited the day’s receipts at the bank before heading home with her 9-year-old son.

What happened next, however, “was not business as usual for this family,” Yolo County Deputy District Attorney Deanna Hays said.

Unbeknownst to Marquez, two men had followed her home from the bank. As Marquez unlocked her front door, a masked man came up the driveway, assaulted her and demanded her bank bag — which he apparently didn’t realize had been emptied.

As Marquez called out for help, her young son hid behind the family car, getting a good look at the suspects as they sped away from the scene. An older daughter called 911, while Marquez’s husband, Efrain Sr., chased after the fleeing car.

After a five-week, multi-county search, Woodland police — led by Detective Richard Towle — tracked down the robber, whose July 2012 trial ended in a conviction after Magdalena and Efrain Sr. testified against him in court, according to Hays.

“This is a brave family,” Hays said.

Representing her family, Magdalena Marquez was one of seven people honored Monday at the seventh annual crime victim tribute in Woodland, an event the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office holds each year in conjunction with National Crime Victims’ Rights Week.

This year’s theme: “New Challenges. New Solutions.”

Held at the historic Woodland Opera House, the ceremony began with survivors, prosecutors, investigators and victim advocates reading aloud the names of Yolo County crime victims whose lives were cut short.

It also offered a moment of silence for all victims and their survivors, including those hurt and killed during the Boston Marathon bombing and its aftermath one week earlier.

Other crime victims receiving honors Monday were:

* Lucia Camarena, who despite her grief over her 18-year-old son Erick Gutierrez’s death in an Aug. 26, 2011, car accident near Woodland, attended court hearings for the driver as he was being prosecuted by the District Attorney’s Office.

* Cristina Jaime, a convenience-store clerk who after being robbed at gunpoint assisted police in the identification of the getaway driver, and later the robber himself. The robber later took a 12-year plea deal, while the female getaway driver — who also had cased the store prior to the crime — was convicted at trial.

* A woman who in 2011 reported to the Davis Police Department that her stepfather had molested her between the ages of 9 and 16. After numerous delays in the case, the woman offered such convincing testimony at the preliminary hearing that the defendant took a plea agreement resulting in a 28-year prison sentence.

(The Enterprise is not naming the woman because she is a sexual assault victim.)

* The 2013 “Hero of the Year” award went to three employees of Liberty Safes in West Sacramento — Douglas Foster, Shawn McMahon and Andrew Wing — who on Oct. 27, 2012, chased and cornered a man who robbed an 86-year-old woman of her purse outside their business.

One of the men was sprayed in the face with mace during the encounter, and all three testified in court during the suspect’s trial, according to Deputy District Attorney Ryan Couzens, who prosecuted the case.

“They were faced with circumstances that they didn’t know, and they charged in anyway,” Couzens said.

— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter @laurenkeene

Two men were robbed of their wallets and cell phones early Sunday on the UC Davis campus, according to a crime alert bulletin issued this week.

According to the bulletin, the two victims were walking on California Avenue south of Russell Boulevard at about 12:45 a.m. when they were approached by two suspects, one of whom brandished a handgun. They fled south on California Avenue, possibly toward a red sedan, after taking the men’s property.

Both suspects were described as African-American men in their early 20s. The armed man was about 5-foot-10 and 180 pounds with a muscular build, wearing a dark hoodie and blue jeans. His accomplice was 6-foot-2 to 6-foot-4 and 220 pounds, with a short scruffy beard, dark clothing and black shoes with white sides.

The car was a dirty red 4-door sedan in poor condition and appeared to be an early 2000s model, police said.

Anyone with information about this case is asked to contact the UC Davis Police Department at 530-752-1230.

A 23-year-old Woodland man was jailed Tuesday after allegedly attacking a motorcycle officer in what police are calling a “spontaneous crime of opportunity.”

Sgt. Steve Guthrie said the assault occurred shortly after 1:30 p.m. on East Main Street near Industrial Way, where the unidentified officer had just conducted a traffic stop.

“As the officer was dismounting the police motorcycle, he noticed a subject walking down the sidewalk toward the area of the stop,” Guthrie said in a news release. “When the officer began to approach the stopped vehicle, the pedestrian approached him from his blind side, and punched the officer on the right side of his head.”

Guthrie said the officer’s helmet absorbed the blow from the suspect, who fled northbound across East Main Street and was nearly struck by a big rig as he headed toward Industrial Way.

The officer, who was not injured, radioed for help before pursuing the suspect on his motorcycle. A second officer responded, and both policemen apprehended the suspect in front of the YoloBus offices, Guthrie said.

Identified as Daniel Thomas Milliman, the suspect was taken to Woodland Memorial Hospital for treatment of a cut to the side of his mouth — which he apparently sustained during the arrest — before being lodged at the Yolo County Jail.

Guthrie said Milliman faces charges of obstructing a peace officer, a felony, and violating the terms of his probation from an earlier conviction.

Each year, the Davis and UC Davis police departments collectively issue more than 1,000 citations for low-level misdemeanors and infractions, sparking a process that can result in multiple court hearings and costly legal fees. Starting next week, however, some of those incidents will be handled quite differently.

In those cases, the offenders will receive yellow slips of paper inviting them to participate in Neighborhood Court, a diversion program launched by the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office in which certain misdeeds are addressed in confidential hearings involving the perpetrator, the victim and a trained panel of local citizens, rather than through the traditional court system.

Offered both in the city of Davis and at UCD, the program will be only the second of its kind in California. Inspired by a similar initiative launched two years ago in San Francisco, Neighborhood Court is based on the concept of “restorative justice” — focusing on the needs of the victim, the offender and the community, all of whom take an active role in repairing the harm.

“It’s a radically different approach to dealing with low-level crimes,” District Attorney Jeff Reisig said in a recent interview.

Neighborhood Court is designed for first-time adult offenders of what Davis Police Chief Landy Black calls “quality of life” violations, such as noise complaints, some alcohol-related misdemeanors and infractions, petty theft, property damage and public urination, to name a few of the roughly 20 offenses that qualify.

“These situations will be resolved quickly,” Black said, rather than take weeks or even months to work their way through the courts. City cops begin handing out the yellow “tickets” — Black calls them “advice and election cards” — on Wednesday, while UCD police got started during last Saturday’s Picnic Day festivities.

Each case must meet certain criteria to be eligible for Neighborhood Court. In addition to involving a low-level crime that’s not a repeat offense, both the victim and the offender must agree to participate, and the offender can’t use the forum to contest his or her guilt.

“They’re essentially admitting they did the crime, and now they’re making it right,” Reisig said. “They’re accepting responsibility.”

Working cooperatively, the victim, offender and citizens’ panel create an agreement that is tailored to reflect the harm that was caused. Possible outcomes could include community service, counseling, or something as simple as a letter of apology from the offender to the victim.

In San Francisco, the program has grown to include 10 neighborhood court panels throughout the city, which collectively handled nearly 700 cases last year.

Neighborhood Court has the potential for removing hundreds of cases from the Yolo court docket as well, though Reisig stressed that’s not the driving force behind the program. While the victim is made whole, the offender also benefits by avoiding the time-consuming and expensive process of going to court, as well as the stigma of a conviction on their record.

“It’s not about shaming the offenders,” Reisig said. “It’s about treating them with respect and dignity, but also making sure there’s an awareness of the harm the behavior has caused.”

Reisig said he recently attended one Neighborhood Court session in San Francisco’s Bayview neighborhood in which the offender, an out-of-town visitor, had been caught urinating in a public park. After offering an explanation for his offense and hearing first-hand its impacts on the park’s neighbors, the man contributed to the community by volunteering at a local homeless shelter.

“It takes the focus off of punishment and puts it back on restoration,” potentially reducing recidivism rates too, Black said. “This is the sort of thing that really fits Davis.”

UCD Police Chief Matt Carmichael agreed. He said his officers handed out about a dozen of the yellow Neighborhood Court “tickets” on Picnic Day, mostly for alcohol-related offenses such as public intoxication and open containers.

“Our community’s extremely excited about the potential of Neighborhood Court and restorative justice,” Carmichael said. “We have support from all members of the community.”

If successful, the program could branch out to other Yolo County communities, Reisig said.

The DA’s Office is currently recruiting volunteers from Davis to serve on the neighborhood panels, who will receive 20 hours of formal training in restorative justice, problem-solving and cultural sensitivity issues, Reisig said. Participants should be prepared to commit one or two hearings per month, with each session lasting four to six hours.

Each panel will comprise anywhere from two to five citizens, who will receive guidance from a neutral facilitator extensively trained in mediation.

A diverse cross-section of the community, including residents, business owners, students and retirees are encouraged to apply. For more information, visit www.yoloda.org, call 530-681-6323 or email neighborhoodcourt@yolocounty.org.

— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene

Davis police are searching for Luis Miramontes, 24, in connection with several residential burglaries that occurred in Davis earlier this year.

Miramontes is described as a Hispanic male with dark hair and brown eyes, 5 feet 11 inches tall and about 170 pounds. Police officers also have associated Miramontes with a vehicle of unknown make and model with Washington state license plates.

Anyone with information about Miramontes’ whereabouts is urged to call the Police Department at 530-747-5400. No attempt to detain him should be made, police said, as “he is potentially dangerous.”

WOODLAND — James Elron Mings arrived at the Davis police station wearing dingy clothes and with long, disheveled blond hair, talking of love, charity and the virtue of putting others’ needs before one’s own.

“Love conquers all, and there’s nothing more important than love,” Mings said during the Oct. 1, 2011, interview with Detective Ariel Pineda, a video recording of which was played Wednesday in Yolo Superior Court.

Then came the confession: that Mings helped end the life of a chronically ill Kevin Gerard Seery, whose body was found that morning in his apartment at 945 J St.

“He asked me to help him out of his misery. … I did exactly what he asked me to do,” Mings said. He described placing Seery in a choke hold until he lost consciousness, then stuffing his mouth with gauze to finish the job.

“I’d never done something like that before,” Mings said, shortly before Pineda placed him under arrest.

Seventeen months later, Mings is standing trial on a charge of murder in connection with the 42-year-old Seery’s death. He has pleaded not guilty.

What his defense will be is unclear, with defense attorney Dan Hutchinson deferring his opening statement until the start of his case.

In his cross-examination of Pineda, Hutchinson noted that Mings made no mention of the antibacterial wipes and portion of a tube sock that coroner’s officials also extracted from Seery’s throat. He also suggested that Mings was “high as a kite” on marijuana during the interview, though Pineda said there were no indications he was under the influence.

Earlier that day, Pineda had questioned Mings outside Seery’s apartment, from where Mings called 911 and claimed to have discovered Seery’s body. During that interview — an audio recording of which was played in court — Pineda asked Mings about the material in Seery’s mouth, as well as the reddish-blond hairs that were stuck to his lips.

“If I knew, I’d be more than happy to tell you,” Mings replied.

In his cross-examination, Hutchinson asked why Pineda didn’t ask similar questions of a third dark-haired man who had been in the apartment on the night of Seery’s death, even though crime-scene photos also showed darker hairs around Seery’s mouth.

“To me, it appeared it appeared obvious the hairs were very similar in shape, waviness and color to Mr. Mings,” Pineda said.

Jurors also heard Wednesday from Seery’s mother, Catherine Seery, who described the swift decline in her son’s health in the months before he died.

She said Kevin Seery had enjoyed an active childhood in Davis, particularly biking and rock climbing. He joined the Army after high school, serving as a medic overseas during Operation Desert Storm.

He later worked at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., before returning to California, making his way through dramatic arts school, community college and a number of odd jobs.

“He was having problems concentrating,” Catherine Seery said. Diagnosed with stress related to his Army service, Kevin Seery went on disability and began seeing a psychiatrist who prescribed him with Zyprexa, an antipsychotic medication whose side-effects include weight gain and diabetes.

Catherine Seery said her son’s weight soared to more than 200 pounds when, around Christmas 2010, she noticed symptoms consistent with diabetes. He was diagnosed the following February, along with nerve damage that made even putting his feet on the ground a painful experience.

A breakdown and subsequent hospitalization that summer resulted in prescriptions for multiple pain medications, including the powerful narcotic drugs morphine and hydrocodone, Catherine Seery said. After that, her son’s weight took a dramatic plunge.

Catherine Seery said she would come to Davis several times a week to care for her son, who had befriended several homeless men he had met while volunteering at a local homeless shelter.

“This is Elron,” he said one afternoon as his mother dropped of some newly filled prescriptions. Catherine Seery identified Mings in court, noting, “he’s put on a lot of weight.”

“They were laughing, very jovial,” Seery said of her son and Mings that day — the last time she saw Kevin Seery alive.

Two days later, Catherine Seery received a call from her son’s cell phone. But instead of hearing his voice on the other line, she heard another friend, Tom, who occasionally stayed at Seery’s apartment.

“Kevin has left us,” he said, a tearful Catherine Seery replied. She recalled telling a detective her son would never take his own life, noting that he was intent on battling his illnesses.

“He seemed to be much happier,” she said of his final days.

Prosecutor Martha Holzapfel was expected to continue her case today and Friday, with the defense’s case beginning early next week.

— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene

Woodland police are investigating the city’s second knifepoint robbery in three days.

A 24-year-old Bellflower man reported being robbed at about 1:10 p.m. Wednesday while sitting in his vehicle outside the Autumn Run Apartments, 1180 Matmor Road, Sgt. Jason Brooks said. The suspect reportedly reached through the open driver’s window and took his wallet off his lap.

When the victim followed him, the suspect brandished a folding knife and warned him to back away, Brooks said. The wallet, minus the cash, later was recovered in the apartment complex.

The suspect was described as Latino male in his early 20s, 5-foot-6 and 280 pounds, wearing a red T-shirt and black gym shorts. He also had a tattoo with cursive lettering on his left inner arm.

On Monday night, a 17-year-old boy was robbed at knifepoint in the 700 block of Beamer Street. Anyone with information about either incident is asked to call the Woodland Police Department at 530-666-2411.

A two-car crash on Pole Line Road near Fifth Street on Wednesday sent one vehicle onto its roof but caused no injuries, Davis police said.

Lt. Glenn Glasgow said a vehicle traveling northbound on Pole Line was struck by a second car whose driver was pulling out of the Davis post office’s driveway at about 2:10 p.m. The impact caused the northbound vehicle to roll over onto its roof.

The cause of the collision remains under investigation, Glasgow said.

California’s public safety realignment measure has significantly changed the inmate dynamics at the Yolo County Jail, according to a Yolo County Grand Jury report released this week.

As a result, staff at the jail — formally known as the Monroe Detention Center — have had to use creative measures to avoid overcrowding and other potential conflicts, despite a decrease in its workforce due to budget cuts.

“The staff of the Center are dedicated, experienced personnel who have been vital in making the system work regardless of budget and staff cuts while always keeping the well-being of the detainee population in mind,” the grand jury concluded in the seven-page report.

The panel also found that while the jail is generally clean and well-maintained, many of its facilities — including the kitchen, laundry room and often-busy booking area — are outdated and “in immediate need of improvement.”

“I agree,” said Yolo County Sheriff Ed Prieto, whose department operates the jail. “But if the county doesn’t have additional funding, there’s nothing we can do. We’re struggling all the time.”

Prieto said his department is facing $3.4 million in cuts to its budget for the coming fiscal year.

Planned upgrades to the jail should be given first priority as funds become available, and the county Board of Supervisors should tour the facility by the end of this year to determine any additional staffing or structural needs, the grand jury recommended.

The report also suggests that county officials review the policies under which service contracts are approved without a competitive bid, citing the jail’s $3 million medical services contract that has not undergone a competitive bidding process since 2005.

Opened in 1988, the Yolo County Jail was built to house inmates whose cases were making their way through the court system, or whose resulting sentences amounted to a year or less. Its original capacity was set at 267, but has increased over the years to 455.

Then came AB 109, the public safety realignment measure, which as of October 2011 has called for inmates convicted of nonviolent, nonsexual and nonserious felonies to serve their time at the county level, with the intent of relieving California’s overburdened state prison system.

Today, roughly 150 of the Yolo jail’s 455 beds — about 32 percent — are occupied by AB 109 inmates, whose presence has had several effects on the jail’s dynamics, the grand jury found during its November 2012 visit, including:

* Inmates serving longer sentences — including one with multiple sentences totaling 18 years — resulting in the jail reaching its maximum population more frequently than in previous years. This forces the jail to release some inmates before their full sentences have been served.

* An increase in state prison culture at the local level, including “a more hardened, criminal mentality” among some inmates who require two-officer escorts instead of one.

* Escalating medical and dental care costs for the jail’s more long-term inmates.

In-home custody programs, record-tracking software and a color-coding system to classify different segments of the jail population have been implemented to ease overcrowding and avoid potential inmate-mingling conflicts.

“I think it will get progressively more demanding as time goes on, and we’re going to be even more impacted in the next two to three years,” Prieto said Thursday. “I’m not 100 percent sure how we’re going to handle all this in the future.”

Even as AB 109 went into effect, the Sheriff’s Department saw its jail workforce slashed, with 16 correctional officers alone being laid off last year due to budget cuts, according to the grand jury report. Those remaining have been assigned furlough days and a 7 percent pay cut.

“The Center is operating at a minimum staffing level,” resulting in some mandatory overtime and supervisors stepping in to cover employees who are sick or on vacation, the grand jury reported.

Still, “the staff tries to implement new programs when they feel there is a positive impact for the inmates and a potential decrease in recidivism,” such as counseling, education and vocational programs, the grand jury found.

— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene

Woodland police are investigating the stabbing of a homeless man on Saturday night.

Sgt. Aaron Delao said officers were dispatched shortly after 11:30 p.m. to the 900 block of Court Street, where a 32-year-old man had suffered multiple stab wounds to his chest and neck area. He was taken to the UC Davis Medical Center in Sacramento for treatment of his injuries, which Delao described as life-threatening.

Delao said the victim had set up a camping site behind a shuttered restaurant when two suspects approached him and started an altercation that led to the stabbing. The assailants were described by witnesses as Latino male adults, both heavy-set and wearing dark hooded sweatshirts. Both were last seen headed westbound on Court Street.

The victim was listed in stable condition as of Sunday, Delao said.

Anyone with information about this incident is urged to call the Woodland Police Department at 530-666-2411.

WOODLAND — Stricken with diabetes and a host of other ailments, Kevin Gerard Seery sought an exit to his suffering and misery, the attorney for his accused killer said Monday in Yolo Superior Court.

However, “he knew he couldn’t take his life at his own hand,” Deputy Public Defender Dan Hutchinson said in his opening statement for defendant James Elron Mings’ trial. He said Seery began asking friends from Davis’ homeless community to help him end his life, but — knowing the legal ramifications of assisted suicide — all of them turned him down.

“It’s going to have to be somebody who is more naive, someone he can manipulate, someone he can provoke,” Hutchinson told the six-man, six-woman jury. “He finds a perfect candidate in Elron Mings.”

Mings, 38, is on trial for first-degree murder in connection with the death of Seery, 42, whose body was found in his College Square Apartments unit on Oct. 1, 2011. In addition to strangling him, someone had blocked his airway with a portion of a tube sock, gauze and antibacterial wipes.

But Hutchinson contends it wasn’t Mings who caused Seery to take his final breaths.

Rather, he laid the blame on a third man who was in Seery’s apartment that night — Tom McDermott, a homeless man who introduced Mings to his chronically ill friend.

“Elron wears his heart on his sleeve, and that is clear to anyone who has met him,” Hutchinson said in his opening remarks. The eldest of four children in a broken family, he came to Davis by way of Woodland, where attempts to rekindle a long-lost love had ended badly.

His bad luck continued in Davis, with odd behavior costing Mings a job at a local food store and housing at a homeless shelter, according to Hutchinson.

But McDermott “seems to accept him for who he is,” Hutchinson said. He introduced Mings to Seery, and the two men shared long conversations on subjects ranging from love to telepathy to magic.

Mings “never felt such a connection to another human being,” Hutchinson said. “What he did not realize was this connection was a one-way street.”

Hutchinson claims Seery created an emotionally charged situation that caused Mings to act “under emotion and passion,” squeezing Seery’s neck until he lost consciousness in the bedroom of the J Street apartment while McDermott watched TV in an adjoining room. Mings later walked into the Davis police station and confessed, saying he also stuffed gauze into Seery’s mouth after his body slumped to the floor.

But Hutchinson contends that Seery “was very much alive” when Mings left the bedroom, and that while the shell-shocked defendant sat in the living room, McDermott added the sock and wipes into Seery’s mouth to finish the job without Mings’ knowledge.

“Tom McDermott alone is responsible for the death of Kevin Seery,” Hutchinson said. “Elron Mings was set up, and he was set up from the beginning.”

Hutchinson also pointed fingers at the Davis Police Department, saying the agency ignored evidence that pointed away from Mings as a suspect. He said while his client is indeed guilty of a crime, it’s attempted voluntary manslaughter, not murder.

McDermott has been subpoenaed as a witness in the trial, but whether he will testify or assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination remains to be seen.

The first defense witness, John Chester, said he befriended Seery about 10 years ago, in his healthier days. One day, he recalled, Seery approached him and asked “how would I go about asking friends to help him quit living?”

“I said, friends don’t ask friends those kinds of questions, and I turned around and walked out his door,” Chester said. “I don’t think that’s a position you put your friends into.”

Subsequent testimony Monday morning focused largely around the piece of sock found lodged in Seery’s throat — the tube portion of an athletic sock, the bottom part of which eventually was recovered from the dead man’s apartment.

Clean and new in appearance, the sock was mostly white, with black and red striping near the toe area — similar to other socks found in Seery’s bedroom dresser, testified Lauren Hartfield, a Davis Police Department community services officer who assisted with the crime-scene investigation.

Later that month, Davis police detectives searched a homeless encampment near the former Hunt-Wesson plant north of Covell Boulevard, where they found a campsite with Mings’ belongings, as well as a blue tarp and other items that one detective identified as being McDermott’s, Hartfield said.

Near the tarp, Hartfield said, was a discarded pile of socks — one of which had black and red striping similar to the ones in Seery’s apartment, Hartfield recalled. But while she photographed the socks, none were collected as evidence.

“We didn’t feel it had any evidentiary value to this case,” Hartfield said. Also, “we weren’t positive it was (McDermott’s) campsite.”

Under cross-examination by prosecutor Martha Holzapfel, Hartfield recalled seeing as many as a dozen campsites in the area that day, and the socks weren’t the only personal items that were strewn about.

“So did you have any information that connected those socks to that tarp?” Holzapfel asked.

“No,” Hartfield replied.

Testimony continued today in Judge Timothy Fall’s courtroom. The case is expected to go to the jury by the end of this week.

— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene

A UC Davis professor and 11 students pleaded guilty on Monday to a disturbing the peace infraction for their role in protests that resulted in U.S. Bank closing its Memorial Union branch.

In a plea deal made with the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office, the protesters agreed to each perform 80 hours of community service.

“What we wanted was for them to take responsibility for protesting in an illegal manner, and we think that’s what we got,” said Michael Cabral, Yolo County assistant chief deputy district attorney.

The protesters maintain that UCD administrators and police singled them out of a larger group because they were known activists. In a statement, they claimed their own measure of victory: “no convictions, no bureaucratic revenge and no bank.”

“The absurd case is now history,” the statement reads. “The questions of the university’s increasing entanglement with finance; the catastrophe of student debt; and the systematically brutal, excessive, and wasteful criminalization of protest remain very much of the moment.”

The protesters began blocking the bank branch, causing it to shut down daily, in January 2012. Three months later, the branch closed for good.

Arrests were not made on the scene. Instead, those arrested — called the “Banker’s Dozen” by supporters — received letters in the mail ordering them to court.

The protesters faced a June 17 trial date on 20 counts each of obstructing movement on a street or in a public place and one count each of conspiracy to commit a misdemeanor. The conspiracy charge carries a maximum penalty of one year in jail. Obstruction, also a misdemeanor, carries a penalty of up to six months in jail.

On Monday, they accused UCD and the DA’s Office of wasting taxpayer money.

Cabral said the defendants could have ended the case long ago. The plea offer had been on the table “for over a year,” he said. “We didn’t do anything but file responses to their motions.”

Defendant Joshua Clover, an English professor, said that wasn’t true.

“The only previous offer featured a misdemeanor plea, which no one among the dozen was interested in taking, given our position that no misdemeanor was committed, and the gathering wealth of evidence indicating a sort of elaborate (if sort of incompetent) effort by the administration and bank to concoct such charges,” Clover wrote in an email message.

Attorney Alexis Briggs said the defense waited to accept the deal until it had direct assurances that neither the university nor the bank intended to seek restitution. Both had earlier announced they would not.

The infraction and number of hours of community service each defendant would serve also were not hashed out until last week, Briggs said. The final number of hours, 80, is the same that in Cabral told The Enterprise in May 2012 that he had offered the defendants.

Briggs said the university’s response to the bank protest further exposed “wholly inadequate” training for campus police and poor decision-making by administrators. The task force that investigated the Nov. 18, 2011, pepper-spraying of Occupy UC Davis protesters on the Quad reached similar conclusions.

Said Briggs, “It appears that after the extremely violent and aggressive tactics used in November, the only tactic that the university would then approve is that absolutely no action was to be taken whatsoever — other than continuing to allow and, in some cases, encourage people to try to enter the bank that had no business there. There were U.S. Bank employees that posed as customers attempting to enter.

“There appears to have been this fairly traditional sense of entrapment, sort of creating these instances of blocking (people from entering the bank branch). If (the police had) started issuing citations to people who had actually been blocking, the entire situation probably would have not extended beyond a couple of days.”

U.S. Bank’s shuttering of the branch halted a 10-year contract estimated to have been worth $3 million earmarked for student services.

The bank and UCD then traded accusations of breach of contract, with the bank claiming not enough was done to end the protest. UCD sued, only to eventually pay the bank $225,000 as part of a settlement.

University spokesperson Claudia Morain declined to comment in detail about the case on Tuesday, saying only, “We very much appreciate the Yolo County District Attorney’s hard work on this case.”

— Reach Cory Golden at cgolden@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8046. Follow him on Twitter at @cory_golden

The ongoing investigation into last month’s double homicide in South Davis recently had Davis police detectives looking to Calaveras County for possible answers.

Lt. Glenn Glasgow said the April 27 stabbing death of 8-year-old Leila Fowler occurred close enough in time and location to the fatal stabbings of Oliver “Chip” Northup and Claudia Maupin that investigators thought there might be a link between the two horrific crimes.

However, “at this point it looks like there’s no connection that we’ve been able to establish,” Glasgow said Tuesday. Fowler’s murder, which occurred in her family’s Valley Springs home, also remains unsolved.

Longtime attorney Northup, 87, and Maupin, his 76-year-old wife, were found dead at about 9:30 p.m. April 14 in their Cowell Boulevard condominium, which police said showed signs of forced entry. Like Fowler, both had died of multiple stab wounds.

Multiple agencies including the FBI, California Department of Justice and other regional police agencies continue to assist in the investigation.

The Davis Police Department also continues to operate a special tip line — 530-747-5439 — for the public to report any information that might be related to the homicides.

— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene

During the Cinco de Mayo “Avoid the 8” DUI saturation patrol, the Yolo County law-enforcement team conducted 32 vehicle stops, put seven drivers through a series of field sobriety tests but made no arrests for drunken driving.

Two vehicles were impounded for 30 days because the driver was driving while their license was suspended or revoked. Fifteen drivers received citations for other various vehicle code violations.

One driver was arrested on a Yolo County warrant for driving on a suspended license because of a prior DUI conviction. A second driver was arrested for being in possession of a controlled substance and operating a motor vehicle with a suspended/revoked license from a previous DUI conviction.

This operation was supported by the AVOID program, a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

WOODLAND — Within days of first meeting in the fall of 2011, Kevin Seery and James Elron Mings spent hours in conversation, delving into subjects ranging from science fiction to telepathy to the mysteries of metaphysics.

“We seemed to have more in common than I had experienced with anybody before,” Mings recalled. “I thought I’d found a rare gem of a friend, someone I could truly relate to.”

One night, however, the men’s talks ventured into darker matters, such as Seery’s unbearable pain from diabetes and other ailments, and — after looking through a box of family photos in the bedroom of Seery’s J Street apartment — his doubts that he’d ever have a family of his own.

It was at that point, during the predawn hours of Oct. 1, 2011, that Seery “stood up and asked if I would kill him,” Mings, 38, said on the witness stand this week in Yolo Superior Court. “He said the cleanest way to do it would be to choke him.”

“I put my arm around the front of his neck … and I choked him,” Mings testified, shaking and weeping at the memory. He said he continued squeezing his friend’s neck until both men fell to the bedroom floor, then stuffed several pieces of gauze into his mouth as Seery had instructed.

“At that point did you believe you killed Kevin Seery?” Mings’ attorney, Deputy Public Defender Dan Hutchinson asked.

“Yes, I did,” Mings replied.

But Hutchinson has claimed it was a third man who was in Seery’s apartment, Tom McDermott, who fatally gagged an unconscious but alive Seery with a sock piece and antibacterial wipes after Mings had left the room. Hutchinson also contends that McDermott and Seery conspired to “provoke” Mings into what he believed to be an act of compassion, then let him take the fall for it.

Mings took the stand in his own defense over a two-day period, hoping to convince a Yolo County jury that he is guilty only of attempted voluntary manslaughter, not the murder count he’s charged with.

Jurors are slated to receive the case Friday after attorneys conclude their closing arguments.

Although he initially subpoenaed McDermott to testify, Hutchinson later opted not to call him as a witness, saying in court he “cannot fathom a situation” in which McDermott wouldn’t assert his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

So that left Mings to do all the talking.

He began by describing the events that brought him to Yolo County — a failed marriage, followed by a 1,000-mile walk from Albuquerque, N.M., to Woodland in an unsuccessful bid to rekindle a long-lost love.

Homeless and dejected, Mings made his way to Davis, where he worked at the Davis Food Co-op and received transitional housing at Davis Community Meals before quirky behavior cost him both opportunities.

It was his former shelter bunkmate, McDermott, who “offered to take me under his wing,” eventually introducing him to Seery and inviting him to his apartment, Mings testified.

He recalled that McDermott was in the apartment bedroom with the two other men that October morning, but walked out shortly before Seery broached the subject of assisted suicide. Seery told Mings he’d asked others to take his life, but all had turned him down.

“If you’re going to do it, now’s the time, before Tom changes his mind,” Seery said, according to Mings — his first indication that McDermott had any involvement in the plan. When he left the bedroom, McDermott was sitting in the living room, wearing earphones, the television volume turned up high.

“It’s done,” Mings said he told McDermott, who responded with a grin. Moments later, Mings said, McDermott got up and went into Seery’s bedroom, emerging after a couple of minutes.

Although Mings believed McDermott was aware of what had occurred, the man “feigned ignorance” the next morning, attempting to wake Seery and instructing Mings to check for vital signs. McDermott then called Seery’s mother and told Mings to call 911.

After being questioned by Davis police, both men left the scene to report Seery’s death to some acquaintances at Community Park. But Mings said McDermott sent him away, saying he didn’t want him around when he broke the news to Seery’s friends.

Mings said he felt “betrayed” — particularly later that day when he learned that word of Seery’s death had spread like wildfire through Davis’ homeless community, along with Mings’ alleged role.

High on marijuana given to him by a friend, “I decided it would be best if I went to the Davis Police Department and told them what I knew,” Mings said. “I honestly … didn’t think there would be any consequences for what I had done.”

Mings was arrested, jailed and charged with murder. It was during his second or third meeting with his attorney that he realized “something was very not right,” he said.

Hutchinson had asked him about a sock and disposable towelettes pulled from deep within Seery’s throat during his autopsy, both of which “I had no knowledge about,” Mings testified. He said he later learned that McDermott had mentioned the sock to someone before the autopsy had even occurred.

“I believe I was set up,” Mings told the jury.

“Do you still believe that Kevin Seery was a friend of yours?” Hutchinson asked.

“No, I don’t think he was,” Mings replied.

In her cross-examination, Deputy District Attorney Martha Holzapfel noted a comparison Mings once made between himself and Dr. Jack Kevorkian, the controversial physician who performed assisted suicides in the 1990s, and questioned whether Mings’ knowledge of Kevorkian had alerted him to the consequences of such acts.

But Mings said while he knew what Kevorkian had done and that some people disagreed with his actions, he was unaware that he had been tried and convicted of second-degree murder.

Holzapfel also asked why Mings made no mention of McDermott entering Seery’s bedroom during his initial confession or in multiple interviews with lead Detective James MacNiven in the days after his arrest.

“At the time I didn’t think it was relevant,” Mings replied. He said he also felt as though he was “protecting” McDermott, who, unlike Mings, had a criminal past.

“I knew that he’d been in trouble with the law before, and I didn’t realize he’d had as much involvement as he did,” he added. Mings acknowledged, however, that he never saw McDermott put anything into Seery’s mouth.

— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene

The Davis Police Department’s Professional Standard Unit launched an investigation this week to determine exactly what occurred when a Davis police officer questioned an African-American resident in front of his West Davis home last month.

On April 17, longtime resident Eli Davis was mowing his front lawn when a police officer stopped in front of his driveway to ask whether he lived there. The officer first had driven by, but then circled back, according to the letter Davis wrote to The Enterprise last week.

Davis said that he did live there, but the officer persisted, saying that he “fit the description” of someone the police were looking for, and asked for identification. Once Davis produced the identification from his home, the officer left, explaining that it was clear he lived there because he had no trouble entering.

Once the officer had gone, Davis called the Police Department to inquire whether a criminal event had taken place nearby involving someone fitting his description: a tall, slender, black male.

But the person who answered the phone was not aware of any such incident.

“I fear that the only description that fit is that of being a black American male, and therefore is an image of his ignorance,” Davis wrote about the officer. “His action was more gut reaction of ‘see a black male’ and think ‘suspect of something.’ ”

Davis police Lt. Glenn Glasgow told The Enterprise on Thursday, however, that the department’s call-taker was mistaken and that an incident involving someone who matched Davis’ description had occurred.

“Community members called in at a little after 2 p.m. (about) a residential burglary occurring at that moment,” Glasgow said. “The person who called described the alleged suspect as an African-American adult male and then also provided a clothing description. Our officers got into the area, set up a perimeter and, during the course of the investigation, contacted several African-American males in the immediate area (who matched the description). … Mr. Davis was one of them.”

Glasgow said it was a miscommunication on the part of the department.

He also added that while Davis has not filed a formal complaint, the department will review the incident thoroughly.

“We are reviewing the circumstances surrounding the incident, as well as his claim of racial profiling,” Glasgow said. “We take these allegations very seriously.”

As for the burglary, Glasgow said the resident who called the police initially had misidentified a solicitor who was walking around the neighborhood.

Davis could not be reached for comment on the matter.

Since his letter was published in The Enterprise, several of Davis’ neighbors also have written to voice their dissatisfaction over the way their longtime neighbor was treated by the officer.

Neighbors wrote that “We also mow our lawns and keep up our yards, but will not be approached by a Davis police officer to show identification and prove we live in our homes. We are appalled that our good African-American neighbor had to endure such treatment recently.”

Leo Gonzalez, who lives just up the street, said Thursday that Davis mostly keeps to himself, but that he and Davis are friendly to one another, often exchanging waves when Davis pedals by on his bike. Gonzalez clearly was perturbed by the actions of the police officer.

Glasgow said the department demands non-biased policing and that it requires officers to take a state-mandated training course for racial sensitivity and profiling, called “Racial & Cultural Diversity Training; Racial Profiling,” every five years.

“The law that governs this training as well as legislatively mandated topics to be covered can be found by reading CA penal code section 13519.4,” Glasgow clarified in an email. “Our department trainers have been certified through (Peace Officer Standards and Training) and have attended The Museum of Tolerance.”

In addition to the internal investigation, the police also have contacted Davis police ombudsman Bob Aaronson, who has contracted with the city for the past six years, to review the case once it’s finished.

Aaronson told The Enterprise on Thursday that because an investigation hasn’t been completed and because he has no first-hand evidence, he can’t make any definitive conclusions about what happened.

“Obviously, one of the goals when police officers make contact with citizens is that, at the end of the contact, the citizens may not be happy with the intrusion, but at least it’s been explained to them in a way they can understand it and they can put it in context,” Aaronson said.

“Based on (the letter), my assumption is that if that was done, it was not done adequately.”

— Reach Tom Sakash at tsakash@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8057. Follow him on Twitter at @TomSakash