WOODLAND — The Yolo County District Attorney’s Office has obtained a grand jury indictment for the man accused of fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend in downtown Winters last November, three weeks before she was to testify against him in a felony stalking case.
Held on Saturday, the grand jury proceeding resulted in a four-page indictment charging William Carl Gardner III with first-degree murder, stalking following a domestic-violence conviction and being an ex-felon in possession of a firearm.
The murder charge also carries four enhancements, two of which are special circumstances alleging that Gardner murdered a witness and killed by means of lying in wait when he shot 32-year-old Leslie Pinkston on the morning of Nov. 18, 2013, as she sat in her parked vehicle outside her Railroad Avenue workplace.
The other two enhancements charge the 30-year-old Gardner with intentional and personal discharge of a firearm causing great bodily injury and committing a felony while on bail.
Either of the special circumstances makes Gardner eligible for the death penalty or life in prison without the possibility of parole, but the District Attorney’s Office has not yet announced whether to pursue capital punishment in the case.
Grand jury indictments eliminate the need for a preliminary hearing, where a judge rules whether there is sufficient evidence for a case to proceed to trial. A preliminary hearing previously scheduled for Wednesday was vacated, and Yolo Superior Court Judge David Rosenberg ordered Gardner back to court on April 22 for setting of a trial date.
Yolo County Chief Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven declined to comment on the reason his office took the case to the grand jury, citing a gag order Rosenberg imposed on the parties that prohibits them from speaking publicly on the matter.
Gardner’s attorney, J. Toney, could not be reached for comment. A transcript of the grand jury hearing — a proceeding typically held behind closed doors without the defense present — is not expected to be made public until 10 days after the hearing, unless it’s ordered sealed.
Court documents indicate Pinkston was one of several witnesses slated to testify against Gardner in the stalking case, which stemmed from a Jan. 13, 2013, incident at Pinkston’s mother’s home in Winters where Gardner allegedly threw a lawn chair through a front window, vandalized Pinkston’s car and threatened to kill his former girlfriend.
Gardner was in Yolo County Jail custody for violating his probation in a Sacramento County domestic-violence case — which involved a different victim — until three days before Pinkston’s death.
He fled the scene after the shooting, eluding authorities for several weeks until Dec. 9, when Winters police and the U.S. Marshals Service — one of several agencies assisting in the investigation — received a tip that Gardner was staying at an apartment complex in Las Vegas.
Gardner was extradited back to California on Dec. 31 and returned to the Yolo County Jail, where he was arrested just 16 days later on suspicion of possessing and manufacturing a weapon. Jail officials described the weapon only as “a sharp object.”
The weapon charges are still pending, along with those from the 2013 stalking case, court records show.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene