The woman suspected of fatally beating a man outside a West Sacramento motel last week pleaded not guilty to a murder charge during her arraignment hearing Friday in Yolo Superior Court.
Kelly Dema Carew, 26, is being held without bail in connection with Wednesday’s beating death of 60-year-old Herbert Ublic Rhodes Jr. of Sacramento. Her next court hearing is July 1.
Police arrested Carew near the Great Value Inn on West Capitol Avenue, where witnesses reported seeing a woman beating a man with a pipe outside the motel’s entrance at about 4:45 a.m. Rhodes, who had been staying at the motel, was pronounced dead at the scene.
The motive for the alleged slaying remains under investigation.
Meanwhile, police and Yolo County coroner’s officials continue to investigate the circumstances surrounding two suspicious deaths discovered in Davis and Woodland on Thursday.
In Davis, police were summoned shortly after 1 p.m. to the railroad tracks behind the Davis Commons shopping center at First and E streets, where a middle-aged man, believed to be a transient, was down on the ground. Coroner’s officials determined he had suffered blunt-force trauma to his body, the source of which was not immediately clear, though it was not believed to have been caused by a train.
The Woodland death involved a body found inside a vehicle at a used-car lot, Woodland Auto Sales, in the 1200 block of East Main Street. Police said it was unknown how long the person had been inside the vehicle, a Chevy Suburban, but noted the body was in a state of decomposition.
Coroner’s officials conducted autopsies in both cases on Friday but did not release their identities pending notification of next of kin.
— Reach Lauren Keene at lkeene@davisenterprise.net or 530-747-8048. Follow her on Twitter at @laurenkeene