LAKEPORT, Calif. – On Friday, several more witnesses testified in the trial of an East Coast man accused of shooting to death a Maine couple in early 2010.
Robby Alan Beasley, 32, is on trial for the January 22, 2010, murders of Frank and Yvette Maddox, who had come from Augusta, Maine, to work with Beasley in growing marijuana.
The Maddoxes’ bodies were dumped alongside Morgan Valley Road, not far from where Beasley is alleged to have shot them, believing they had stolen marijuana from his Lower Lake apartment.
His friend, Elijah Bae McKay, 30, whose testimony wrapped up on Thursday, is Beasley’s alleged accomplice, and has admitted to loaning Beasley the 9 millimeter handgun used to kill the couple and helping him get rid of evidence after the shootings.
First on the stand Friday was Lake County Jail Correctional Officer James Dunlap, who testified to finding the words “Elijah McKay is a rat punk bit snitch New England” scratched on the painted metal door of a jail holding cell on the night of May 18, 2010.
Dunlap said graffiti that included the words “New England” was found in several of the cells in the jail where Beasley had been housed.
Heather Tomchick, a DNA analyst with the Department of Justice’s Sacramento crime lab, briefly testified to testing multiple items for the case.
Elvin Sikes testified to taking the Maddoxes in mid-December 2009 after Beasley had kicked them out.
He said the couple were planning to return to Maine in early January and already had their bags packed.
When Sikes first met the couple, he wasn’t aware that they were drug users, otherwise he said he wouldn’t have let them stay in his spare room. He said he later learned they were doing pain pills.
When they disappeared Jan. 22, 2010, and didn’t return, “I thought it was kind of weird,” Sikes said.
Sikes said Frank Maddox admitted to him that he took part in thefts, and had stolen marijuana. Maddox told Sikes he had ripped off his friend – the only person he called his friend was Beasley – and had taken marijuana Beasley was holding for someone else.
Shortly before the couple disappeared, Frank Maddox asked to wash his Toyota pickup in Sikes’ driveway. He told Sikes that he needed to take his friend to the airport; Beasley had told McKay that he planned to lure the couple into giving him a ride to the airport on the pretense that he needed to return to Maine due to a death in the family.
Testimony on Friday also was given by Roderick Hilliard, the code enforcement officer who had red-tagged the Maddoxes’ pickup, which Beasley and McKay had left on Jerusalem Grade Road.
Art Trety, who lives near where the pickup was abandoned, testified to seeing it parked there for several weeks before it was moved farther down the road.
Wade Holley, who lives on Jerusalem Grade, said he first saw the pickup parked in the Jerusalem Grade Road area in late January. The following month it had been moved to Noble Ranch Road. By that time in was in very bad condition, and had been vandalized and stripped.
He inquired with a tow company about the truck, and they said it would be crushed if they took it, so they advised him to take it if he wanted.
Holley said he and a friend “went and got it and we shouldn’t have.”
He towed it to his house, where it was dismantled. Later, after they saw pictures of the pickup in the newspaper, Holley and his father called the sheriff’s office, which was seeking information on the vehicle.
When the sheriff’s office came to his home, they took photos and the remains of the vehicle, and also took a statement from Holley and his father. Neither were prosecuted.
With the courts on furlough next week, testimony in the case won’t continue until 9 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 28.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.