WOODLAND — A former Davis man’s failure to properly care for an elderly man, who prosecutors say died as a result of the neglect, amounted to second-degree murder, a Yolo County jury ruled Thursday after less than a day of deliberations.
The panel also found James Matthew Mattos guilty of elder abuse and financial theft from an elder in connection with the Oct. 27, 2102, death of Cecil Wachholtz, a 67-year-old mentally impaired man who had been in the care of Mattos’ family for decades.
“Today we got justice for a victim who had no voice,” the case’s prosecutor, Deputy District Attorney Jay Linden, said of the verdicts read at 2 p.m. Thursday in Yolo Superior Court Judge Stephen Mock’s courtroom.
Mattos lowered his head, looking at the counsel table in front of him, as Mock polled jurors individually regarding their decision. His attorney, Deputy Public Defender Emily Fisher, declined to comment on the verdict today.
With a strike already on his record for a prior child-molestation conviction, Mattos faces up to 35 years to life in state prison at his sentencing hearing, which Mock set for May 16. In the meantime, he is being held without bail at the Yolo County Jail.
Thursday’s verdicts marked the near-end of a case that began on Oct. 13, 2012, when emergency personnel responding to a 911 call from Mattos discovered an emaciated, bedridden Wachholtz in a bedroom of Mattos’ trailer on Hedy Way, inside the Royal Oak mobile home community adjacent to South Davis.
First responders described a filthy home environment strewn with trash and animal feces, where despite having a trust fund specifically for his care, Wachholtz slept on a bare and soiled mattress, was fed only soup and cereal and hadn’t received medical care for years.
Wachholtz arrived at the Sutter Davis Hospital intensive-care unit weighing just 70 pounds, his body malnourished, dehydrated and covered with 18 bedsores both fresh and healed, authorities said. Coroner’s officials ruled the case a homicide, one caused by caretaker neglect.
Mattos “let that man rot, lie in his bed and starve to death while he took his $2,500 a month and gave him nothing in return,” Linden said in his closing argument Wednesday afternoon.
Yolo County sheriff’s detectives later arrested Mattos along with his mother, Darlene Mattos — Wachholtz’s legal conservator and previous caretaker — who initially was charged with involuntary manslaughter but admitted to felony elder abuse in a plea agreement reached earlier this month.
Defense attorney Fisher maintained during the two-week trial that it was Darlene Mattos and other relatives who were to blame for Wachholtz’s death because they led James Mattos to believe he was doing an adequate job despite his inexperience and dismal housekeeping skills.
“He knew he was in over his head and tried to reach out for help,” Fisher told jurors during her closing remarks this week. “Mr. Mattos isn’t doing anything because everyone’s telling him it’s fine until … the medical issue is in his face.”
For onetime friends of Wachholtz, the case is a tragic one from any point of view.
“I just want people to know that Cecil had a life,” said Mary LaComb, a former Davis resident who knew Wachholtz for 20 years, having met him through the now-defunct Davis Moose Lodge. “He loved animals, he loved people and he loved food.”
LaComb described Wachholtz as “a fixture” in Davis who was often seen biking about town and collecting aluminum cans to earn pocket money.
“He was a kind, gentle man, somebody that everyone took under their wing,” she said. “Had we known how difficult his life was becoming, we all would have stepped up.”
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene
