WOODLAND — Yolo County prosecutors are seeking a second-degree murder conviction against the driver in Wednesday’s fatal crash on Second Street that killed Davis resident Cynthia Jonasen.
Shackled at the wrists, his right hand bandaged from apparent crash-related injuries, 32-year-old Steven Hendrix did not enter a plea at his arraignment hearing Friday afternoon. A deputy public defender asked that the hearing be postponed until Wednesday so that Hendrix’s attorney in a recent domestic violence case, Deputy Public Defender Teal Dixon, could be present.
Yolo Superior Court Commissioner Kent O’Mara also increased Hendrix’s bail from $360,000 to a no-bail hold in light of the open murder charge. Dixon, reached after the hearing, declined to comment.
A six-page criminal complaint filed Friday alleges that Hendrix killed Jonasen “with malice aforethought.” It cites the so-called Watson implied malice rule, which involves several elements: a death resulting from an intentional act, the defendant’s likely knowledge that the consequences of that act are dangerous to human life, and the defendant acting with conscious disregard to that fact.
In this case, the murder charge is based upon the Davis police investigation, which described Hendrix’s excessive speed and the illegal passing of another vehicle just prior to the collision, Chief Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven said.
Hendrix also faces felony counts of gross vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated, driving under the influence of drugs causing injury with an enhancement for multiple victims, and four counts of child endangerment; a misdemeanor count of driving on a suspended license; and case enhancements for having prior felony convictions and committing a felony while on bail.
Prior convictions
A review of Hendrix’s court records in Yolo and Sacramento counties shows an extensive adult criminal history dating back to 2002 on charges including vehicle theft, burglary, domestic violence, child abuse, being a felon in possession of a firearm, and various drug-related counts.
Hendrix received a two-year prison sentence in 2012 after violating the terms of his probation in a felony burglary conviction, court records show.
He was out by 2015, when West Sacramento police arrested him on suspicion of strangling his girlfriend during two separate arguments in April and June of that year. He was convicted on Feb. 19 of two counts of felony domestic violence as well as a “strike” for the prior burglary conviction, but allowed to remain free on bail pending his April 7 sentencing at which he faced a 13-year, eight-month prison term.
Six days later, Jonasen was dead, her Honda sedan broadsided by Hendrix’s allegedly speeding vehicle as she pulled onto Second Street from Cantrill Drive while on her way to shop at Target.
The collision also caused minor injuries to Hendrix and the six unrestrained occupants of his vehicle, one of them identified in court documents as Beshia Shoate-Peppars, the alleged victim in the Yolo County domestic violence case who recanted the abuse claims at Hendrix’s trial, prosecutors indicated in a news release announcing the conviction.
Also in the vehicle was the girlfriend’s sister, Wyeshia Shoate, and the women’s four children whose ages ranged from 6 to 12, according to the criminal complaint. The sisters and children reportedly had been staying at a local homeless shelter.
In court Friday, Supervising Deputy District Attorney Garrett Hamilton requested a correction to the charging document to show that “the accident occurred on February 24″ and not the 25th as it originally stated. He then quickly corrected himself.
“I shouldn’t say accident,” Hamilton said. “I should say horrific crash.”
If successful, the Yolo DA’s pursuit of a second-degree murder conviction for a fatal traffic collision would be its second in recent years involving a Davis incident.
Last April, a jury convicted Woodland resident Armando Gonzalez Jr. of second-degree murder for a Feb. 1, 2014, seizure-related crash on East Covell Boulevard that killed 85-year-old Darlene Morales of Vacaville. Jurors ruled that Gonzalez’s history of four prior collisions, all caused by seizures, made him aware of his public safety risk.
Gonzalez is serving a prison sentence of 18 years to life at the R.J. Donovan Correctional Facility in San Diego.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene
