By Lauren Keene and Debra DeAngelo
A day after celebrating their loved one’s life at a memorial service, family and friends of Winters murder victim Leslie Pinkston questioned reports that the slain woman paid a $130 bail fee that resulted in her alleged killer being released from the Yolo County Jail three days before her death.
“As far as I know, she didn’t (pay the fee),” said Richard Haywood, Pinkston’s cousin, though he did acknowledge that Pinkston was having difficulty breaking off her dating relationship with William Carl Gardner III and occasionally would bring him things, such as cigarettes, while he was in jail custody.
“She did things for him she shouldn’t have done, out of the kindness of her heart. Leslie was a good person. She would help people out. I can’t put it past her to say that she gave him $130,” Haywood said in an interview Wednesday.
According to the Yolo County District Attorney’s Office, Pinkston paid a bail reassumption fee on Nov. 13 for Gardner, who was facing charges of stalking and threatening Pinkston and her mother. He was remanded to the Yolo County Jail on Oct. 22 on a no-bail warrant out of Sacramento County, where he was accused of violating the terms of his probation in an unrelated domestic violence case.
The payment of the bail reassumption fee resulted in Gardner’s bail status being reinstated, and he was released from the jail two days later, Assistant Chief Deputy District Attorney Michael Cabral confirmed this week.
“At this stage in the investigation, and with the dynamics that often surround domestic violence relationships, all of the details concerning this crime are still under investigation,” Cabral said this week. “However, obviously our focus is on apprehending the person responsible for this murder, not on the issues concerning how and why William Gardner was released from custody.”
But Haywood, asked if Pinkston was fearful enough of Gardner that she may have cooperated with his demands, admitted that this is possible. He also noted that while his cousin never bailed Gardner out of jail on any occasion, she did attempt to have pending stalking and threats charges against him dropped.
The felony counts stemmed from a Jan. 13 incident outside Pinkston’s mother’s home in Winters, where Gardner allegedly threw a lawn chair through a window of the house and threatened Pinkston, who was in the house with her daughter, verbally and by text message. But prosecutors and Pinkston’s mother, Carla Crane, refused to dismiss the case.
“There was nothing she could do. If the DA has a case, they’re not going to let go of it,” Haywood said.
Even in light of all of this, Haywood said he still doubts that the signature on the bail fee paperwork is really Pinkston’s, theorizing that had she known Gardner was free, she would have alerted her mother, who was included in a restraining order against Gardner. Pinkston wouldn’t have endangered her mother and daughter by keeping Gardner’s freedom a secret, he emphasized, and he said he takes issue with implications that Pinkston was somehow responsible for her own death.
Gardner’s release from jail occurred on the evening of Nov. 15, resulting in notification being emailed to a victim advocate at the District Attorney’s Office after work hours that Friday night. The advocate didn’t receive the email until the morning of Nov. 18, according to Cabral.
Crane has said she registered for notification but received none.
Pinkston, 32, was fatally shot at about 9:30 a.m. Nov. 18 as she sat in her vehicle outside her Railroad Avenue workplace. Gardner, now the focus of a nationwide manhunt involving the U.S. Marshals Service, still remains at large.
Pinkston’s friend Katie Winkler said while she also is skeptical that Pinkston paid the reassumption fee, “if it is proven to be accurate, I would say that it is indicative of an even bigger problem plaguing victims of domestic violence and makes this case all the more tragic.”
“Domestic violence is a circular pattern and deeply intertwines victim and attacker on many different levels,” Winkler said. “A system which allows victims to post bail and/or assist in any way with their attacker’s release is a system that further perpetuates that circular pattern.”
Winkler also noted the need for a victim notification system that is structured so that jail releases are carried out upon “the confirmed notification of a victim, which is not the case.”
Lynnette Irlmeier, executive director of the Yolo County Sexual Assault and Domestic Violence Center, said while she could not comment on the Winters case specifically, she noted that domestic violence victims can face complicated pressures “on multiple fronts” when it comes to making choices involving their personal safety.
“They can be under pressure from friends or family who want to protect them, and they may be under pressure from their batterers who may have threatened them or coerced them into acting in ways that might not make sense to others,” Irlmeier said.
“Finally, there are the internal pressures victims face, and the guilt they may feel when their abusers are arrested. They may not want their abusers sent to jail or to ruin their abusers’ lives. They just want the violence to stop.”
Irlmeier said it’s also important to remember that some abusers, despite repeated contacts with the judicial system, are eventually released. Reviews of Gardner’s court files in Yolo and Sacramento counties showed he was able to repeatedly be freed on bail even with a lengthy record of failing to appear in court and violating his probation terms.
“Many victims are legitimately in fear for their lives, knowing that as soon as they are released from jail, their abusers will come after them in revenge,” Irlmeier said. “Sometimes their actions are an effort to minimize the abuse that may come later. What may seem illogical to some people may be a strategy to stay safe to others.”
— Debra DeAngelo is the editor of The Winters Express, a McNaughton newspaper. Reach her at debra@wintersexpress.com. Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene
