These jewel-like olives await pressing at the Kelseyville Olive Mill in Kelseyville, Calif., in November 2011. Photo by Esther Oertel.

On a beautiful fall day in late November of last year, I spent an amazing afternoon at the Kelseyville Olive Mill to witness an olive pressing.

The olives, ripe little jewels that they are, wooed me from their bins as they awaited a crushing fate, their metamorphosis into the rich, tasty oil that tickles our taste buds and promotes good health. I thank them for their sacrifice.

Lake County is home to a growing number of boutique olive oil producers, and I’d encourage you to treat your palate to oils crafted in our own backyard.

While some olive growers have their own press (The Villa Barone near Hidden Valley Lake, for one), chances are good that the olives in the local oil you enjoy were pressed at the Kelseyville Olive Mill. Olives for many lake county growers are pressed there, as well as olives from Napa, Sonoma, and Mendocino counties. The day I visited, olives from Ceago del Lago’s orchards in Nice were being pressed. Ceago’s oil won the People’s Choice Award at last year’s Kelseyville Olive Festival.

Olives on the tree at Kelseyville Olive Mill in Kelseyville, Calif. Photo by Esther Oertel.

I’ve been waiting for just the right time to share the best of the more than 200 photos I took that day, and a weekend trip to see my sister’s new baby provided the right excuse.

While I’m savoring my new nephew, I hope you’ll enjoy this photo essay of a day in the life of an olive press.

I’ll leave you with my recipe for mixed olive risotto presented at my 2009 “All About Olives” culinary class. It highlights both olives and olive oil, and I was certainly in the mood for it after sorting through all those olive photos! If you can get your hands on a Meyer lemon, I’d recommend using its gentle zest for this recipe; otherwise, any lemon will do. Enjoy.

The olive press room at the Kelseyville Olive Mill is where all the action takes place. Photo by Esther Oertel.

Risotto with mixed olive medley

4 cups chicken stock

2 tbsp olive oil

1 large leek, well cleaned, green and white portions thinly sliced

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 cup Arborio rice

1 cup high-quality mixed pitted olives (such as Kalamata), quartered

Grated zest of ½ lemon

½ cup Asiago cheese, grated

½ cup prosciutto, diced, OR ½ cup Feta cheese, crumbled, OR 4 slices crisp bacon, crumbled

Bring broth to boil in a medium saucepan. Reduce heat so that broth stays at a constant gentle simmer.

In a large, deep skillet, heat the olive oil. Add leeks and cook five minutes, stirring occasionally. Add garlic and rice; cook one minute, stirring frequently.

Using a large ladle, transfer about one cup of the simmering broth to the rice mixture. Cook until most of the liquid is absorbed, stirring occasionally. Continue adding broth, one ladleful at a time, until rice is slightly firm to the bite, 20 to 25 minutes, stirring occasionally and keeping the rice mixture at a constant simmer.

Stir in olives and prosciutto; heat through. Remove from heat and stir in cheese. Grate lemon zest into risotto and stir to combine. (You may wish to add ½ cup sun-dried tomatoes, reconstituted or packed in oil, and/or ½ cup artichoke hearts, roughly chopped. They should be added along with the prosciutto.)

Esther Oertel, the “Veggie Girl,” is a culinary coach and educator and is passionate about local produce. Oertel teaches culinary classes at Chic Le Chef in Hidden Valley Lake, Calif., and The Kitchen Gallery in Lakeport, Calif., and gives private cooking lessons. She welcomes your questions and comments; e-mail her at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

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Bins of olives from Pina Napa Valley are being off loaded for pressing at the Kelseyville Olive Mill. Photo by Esther Oertel.

This impressive skyscraper of bins, each full of olives ready for pressing, is just a portion of what

Judge Richard Martin ruled Friday that 30-year-old Robby Alan Beasley will stand trial for the shooting deaths of former Augusta residents Yvette Maddox, 40, and her husband, Frank Maddox, on the side of a remote road near Lower Lake, Calif., on Jan. 22, 2010.

Beasley received the news while sitting alongside his defense attorney, Stephen Carter.

Throughout the proceedings Beasley – dressed in a black and white striped jail jumpsuit – has looked stern-faced, with few changes in his expression.

The ruling came one day short of the one-year anniversary of the killings.

At the Friday morning hearing in the court's Lakeport division, Martin found there was sufficient evidence to hold Beasley to answer to two counts of murder, as well as a charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm.

He said he was not required to make a finding at this time on Beasley's previous felony convictions in Maine.

The judge also ruled there was evidence showing that Beasley committed the crimes with the intent to inflict great bodily injury on the victims, having shot Frank Maddox first in the leg and then in the head, and shooting him in the head a second time after it appeared he was still alive.

Likewise, Martin noted that Yvette Maddox was shot once in the head, with Beasley allegedly shooting her a second time when she, like her husband, showed signs of life.

Martin's decision came after three days of testimony from several witnesses, including Elijah Bae McKay, Beasley's 28-year-old friend and co-defendant in the case.

McKay, like Beasley, came to the West Coast from Maine, and originally invited Beasley to come to California to work for him growing marijuana.

The Maddoxes' shootings occurred at a turnout on the side of Morgan Valley Road outside of Lower Lake, according to McKay's statements on the stand.

Beasley – who had allegedly asked the Maddoxes to drive him to the airport, having told them that his grandmother had died – is alleged to have drug their bodies off the road and down an embankment, where he shot them each a final time, McKay testified.

Prosecutor Art Grothe on Friday morning called McKay's two-hour testimony on Tuesday “very comprehensive.”

Grothe said McKay's statements corroborated and confirmed several items of physical evidence, including the couple's manner of death and the 9 millimeter handgun used. McKay had given Beasley the gun to protect himself after the Clearlake apartment where Beasley had an indoor marijuana grow was burglarized and several pounds of marijuana were stolen.

Grothe said cell phone calls and texts submitted by investigators also supported the allegations against Beasley, and an examination of Beasley's computer yielded evidence of an Internet search for guns as well as his marijuana growing activities.

One e-mail message Beasley sent a friend warned to watch out for the Maddoxes, which Grothe said was evidence of Beasley's belief that the couple had stolen marijuana from him.

That belief, Grothe had argued on Thursday, had been the “final push” to kill the couple, who he said were already causing concern for Beasley and McKay's marijuana growing and sales activities.

In addition to witness and investigator statements and cell phone records, Grothe said a Wal-Mart surveillance camera showed Beasley on the day after the murder, purchasing cell phones – to replace the cell phones McKay testified to burning, along with Beasley's blood-covered clothes, the previous night – as well as Armor All wipes.

The prosecution alleges the wipes were used on the couples' pickup, which Beasley and McKay moved from Lower Lake to a remote area near Middletown on Jan. 23, the day following the murders.

Carter offered no arguments against the findings Friday.

Beasley will appear before Judge Stephen Hedstrom in Lake County Superior Court's Clearlake division on the morning of Feb. 8 for an arraignment on the charges in preparation for trial.

On Martin's order, Beasley will continue to be held without bail in the Lake County Jail in Lakeport.

Judge reviews hearsay evidence to be stricken

At the start of the court session, before issuing his holding order for Beasley's trial, Judge Martin went over witness testimony involving hearsay statements by the Maddoxes that Carter had made a motion to exclude earlier in the proceedings.

Martin had indicated Thursday that he would grant Carter's motion based on the importance of the confrontation clause, which allows a defendant to confront and cross-examine his accusers.

Grothe had argued that the testimony should be admitted under a new California evidence code that allows hearsay evidence to be used when a defendant has attempted to procure a witness' absence, which he said Beasley had done by killing the couple and hiding their bodies.

Martin reviewed transcripts provided by the two court reporters who worked during the preliminary hearing in deciding which testimony to exclude from consideration.

On Tuesday, Elvin Sikes and Tyreshia Celestin-Willis were the hearing's first two witnesses. Both had been friends of the couple, with Sikes stating he had taken them in and allowed them to live with him in December 2009.

As to Sikes' statements about Yvette Maddox approaching him to ask for a place to stay, “The court is not going to exclude that,” said Martin.

But he did go on to strike Sikes' testimony about the couple mailing items to Maine, statements he siad they made about driving Beasley to the airport, his conversation with them in which he asked if they had stolen marijuana and Frank Maddox's request to wash his truck in Sikes' driveway before leaving to drive to the airport.

Martin admitted Sikes' statements about knowing the couples' nicknames and watching Frank Maddox wash his truck, as well as his identification of their vehicle.

He disallowed Carter's lengthy cross-examination of Sikes, which touched on the hearsay evidence.

“We have no dispute with that,” said Grothe.

Sikes' statements telling the couple not to drive Beasley to the airport were to be stricken, Martin added.

Regarding Celestin-Willis' testimony, her statements in which she recounted Yvette Maddox saying Beasley had threatened her will not be admitted, said Martin. Also stricken was testimony regarding an argument between Yvette Maddox and Beasley over issues including a laptop, and Carter's cross-examination.

Allowed for consideration are Celestin-Willis' recollections of meeting the couple and her knowledge of them being married, Martin said.

Much of the testimony of three witnesses from Maine who appeared on Thursday will not be considered in the case, Martin ruled.

That includes the statements regarding the couple given by Starr Larrabee, Yvette Maddox's daughter Yvette Colon and Maria Carrion, he said, although Martin allowed Carrion's testimony about being a friend of Yvette Maddox's.

Martin said that, while not all of the testimony was being considered in his decision to hold Beasley due to its hearsay nature, all of it would remain in the court's final transcript, which he said would enable a higher court to review it later if necessary.

With the ruling to go forward now made, Grothe said Friday he and District Attorney Don Anderson will sit down and decide whether the case will be handled as a death penalty prosecution or another option, such as life without the possibility of parole.

Grothe said he doesn't have a time frame for when that decision will be made but indicated it will have to take place well in advance of McKay's preliminary hearing, the date for which is expected to be set at an April 5 hearing.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews , on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .

LAKEPORT, Calif. – A judge's decision on whether or not a man will stand trial for the January 2010 murders of a Maine couple is expected Friday morning.

Judge Richard Martin will reconvene session in Lakeport at that time and announce his decision in the case of 30-year-old Robby Alan Beasley.

Beasley is accused of shooting Frank and Yvette Maddox to death on Jan. 22, 2010. The couple had reportedly come to California to do marijuana trimming in Beasley's growing operation.

He is facing two counts of murder and special allegations of committing multiple murders in the first or second degree, committing the offenses with the intent to inflict great bodily injury on the victims, using a 9 millimeter firearm and having a previous felony conviction in Maine for criminal threatening with a firearm.

Beasley is alleged to have tricked the Maddoxes into giving him a ride to the airport, directing them down Morgan Valley Road near Lower Lake and asking them to pull over where, after a brief confrontation, he allegedly shot them both.

Testimony alleges that Beasley drug their bodies down an embankment and shot them each in the head once more to make sure they were dead.

Some of that testimony was given on Tuesday by 28-year-old Elijah Bae McKay, Beasley's co-defendant in the case. McKay, also a former Maine resident, is facing two murder charges and several of the same special allegations. His preliminary hearing is expected to take place this spring.

The third day of Beasley's preliminary hearing at the Lake County Courthouse in Lakeport wrapped up early Thursday afternoon and included brief visits to the stand by three young women who arrived from Maine the previous day in order to testify.

Starr Larrabee, Yvette Colon and Maria Carrion gave testimony that, combined, totaled about 20 minutes.

Deputy District Attorney Art Grothe called Larrabee first. Larrabee testified to being friends with Yvette Maddox, who stayed with Larrabee for about a year while her husband was incarcerated.

Larrabee said Frank Maddox was released from custody in August of 2009 and later that fall she drove them to the bus stop on their way to California.

She and Yvette Maddox exchanged occasional phone calls after the Maddoxes came west, with Yvette Maddox telling her friend that one of the two numbers she gave her belonged to her “boss,” Beasley.

Larrabee said Yvette Maddox told her that both she and her husband had a job in California trimming marijuana, and “it was on the up and up.”

Frank Maddox told Larrabee that he was expecting to make $10,000 a month at the job, but Yvette Maddox told Larrabee a different story, saying at one point “they had no money to even eat.”

Yvette Maddox also told Larrabee about a fight she had with Beasley, who allegedly threatened her while Frank Maddox reportedly stood by and did nothing. Beasley allegedly told Yvette Maddox that if she didn't leave California she would be killed. According to Larrabee's recollection, that conversation occurred in January 2010.

Defense attorney Stephen Carter did not cross-examine Larrabee, nor did he question Colon when she came to the stand next.

Colon, Yvette Maddox's daughter, said she also was given a phone number belonging to Beasley to reach her mother once she came to California.

Yvette Maddox told her daughter sometime in December 2009 or January 2010 that she and Beasley had fought, with one of the issues being a laptop.

“He had threatened that she could be handled and he threatened her with a gun,” while Frank Maddox said nothing, Yvette Colon said.

“She was just scared,” Colon said of her mother.

The third and final witness of the day and the hearing's final overall witness, was Maria Carrion, who called Yvette Maddox her best friend.

It was after Yvette Maddox and her husband were in California for about two months that she told Carrion she was working “in a field” trimming marijuana, and that Beasley had threatened her.

Carrion said she spoke with Yvette Maddox between Jan. 20 and 22, 2010, at which time “she said that she was going to give Robby a ride to the airport, to the Sacramento Airport, because his grandmother had died.”

According to McKay's testimony on Tuesday, the story about Beasley's grandmother dying had been part of a ruse Beasley had planned to use in order to get the couple into a vehicle in order to shake them down.

Before hanging up the phone with Carrion, Yvette Maddox told her friend that if anything happened to her it was because of Beasley.

Carter's only question of Carrion was a clarification on the spelling of her name, and Grothe said he had no further witnesses.

Prosecution, defense argue hearsay exclusions

For the remainder of the morning, Judge Martin focused on considering Carter's request to strike all hearsay statements provided during the three days of preliminary hearing this week – including that provided by Larrabee, Colon and Carrion – regarding statements made to them by the Maddoxes.

Grothe has sought to have the statements included under a new California evidence code section that went into effect at the start of this month, and which is meant to allow hearsay in cases where a defendant in a criminal matter has prevented a witness – either through intimidation or another means, such as murder – from testifying. He said it also can address cases where a witness is claiming the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

Grothe said it was important to look at the whole background of why the Maddoxes were killed in making a determination on Carter's motion to strike, as he held the murders were a matter of preventing the couple from making statements to harm McKay and Beasley, which he believed made the hearsay admissible.

“The entire thrust of Mr. McKay's testimony was these folks aren't working out, they're doing drugs, they're causing trouble, they're mixing with the locals,” Grothe said, noting they were a threat because they were not controllable.

The final push for the murders came when Beasley came to believe they had stolen marijuana from him, Grothe said.

Grothe asserted that Beasley took action against the couple while they were alive and after they were dead in order to silence them. The murders were an attempt to silence, as was hiding their bodies off the road out of sight and moving their vehicle, he argued.

In addition to the three witnesses Thursday, Carter also wanted testimony stricken that was offered by Tyreshia Celestin-Willis and Elvin Sikes on Tuesday.

“All of the testimony?” asked Martin.

Carter said yes. “In terms of the testimony of each of those witnesses, almost all of it was about these hearsay statements” from one of both of the Maddoxes, Carter said.

He said the easiest way to handle the matter was to strike all of the testimony, rather than having to go through all of it.

Citing case law, Carter said the courts have “deep respect” for the confrontation clause, which provides a defendant the opportunity to question their accuser. He noted that only in time of dying declarations or when there is evidence of a defendant's attempt to procure a witness' absence are exceptions made, as the defendant should not benefit from wrongdoing.

But Carter worried that if everyone charged with murder was accused of trying to prevent a witness' testimony, it would open the door to every potential bit of hearsay. “How could we open up that door when it would obviously violate the confrontation clause?”

Carter said at the time of the Maddoxes' deaths, there was no criminal case pending against Beasley in which the Maddoxes were involved. Carter said of Grothe's case on the evidentiary rule, “It's an interesting argument but I don't think it's at all in line with the law.”

Martin said he didn't intend to strike the testimony, but rather to not consider hearsay evidence when making his decision in the case.

Carter maintained, “Hearsay should be stricken. It shouldn't be left in the record.”

Martin clarified. “Some of the testimony did not constitute hearsay and did not involve the issues we're discussing here,” explaining he was trying to distinguish between what was harmless and what was hearsay.

Carter asked for a record to be created of what evidence will be allowed to stay, which Martin said he would do.

“I will be specific as to which areas of testimony where your objections are sustained and which are not,” said Martin, which he added would allow an appellate court to look at the case later.

Martin went over the case law he researched during a morning break, and distinguished between the kind of “testimonial” evidence law enforcement officers might take during an investigation and statements to friends like those given in Beasley's preliminary hearing.

“Here we have the individual that is killed not talking to police but talking to a few friends and not doing anything to have police intervention and have this testimonial atmosphere,” he said, pointing out that such testimony is less reliable than it is when a person is aware that it will be brought into a court.

He explained the reasons for not accepting hearsay and the long record of not doing so in US common law. “For that reason the court is willing to grant Mr. Carter's motion.”

Grothe suggested that one of the statements given in testimony by Celestin-Willis, in which she had recounted Yvette Maddox telling her she had been threatened by Beasley with “coming up missing,” could be considered an “excited utterance” and would therefore be admissible on its own merits.

Martin said there were portions of statements from the witnesses who gave hearsay that included observations those witnesses actually had made. He said he wouldn't allow the statement as an excited utterance, but would allow Celestin-Willis' testimony about Yvette Maddox hiding in her house when her husband drove up.

As the session wrapped up on Thursday, Martin said he planned to go through the testimony and distinguish what would and would not be allowed, and on Friday would offer his conclusions along with his decision on whether or not Beasley would stand trial for the murders.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews , on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .

Technicians and engineers inside a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., prepare to install SAM into the mission's Mars rover, Curiosity. Image credit NASA/JPL-Caltech.

PASADENA, Calif. – Paul Mahaffy, the scientist in charge of the largest instrument on NASA's next Mars rover, watched through glass as clean-room workers installed it into the rover.

The specific work planned for this instrument on Mars requires more all-covering protective garb for these specialized workers than was needed for the building of NASA's earlier Mars rovers.

The instrument is Sample Analysis at Mars, or SAM, built by NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

At the carefully selected landing site for the Mars rover named Curiosity, one of SAM's key jobs will be to check for carbon-containing compounds called organic molecules, which are among the building blocks of life on Earth.

The clean-room suits worn by Curiosity's builders at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., are just part of the care being taken to keep biological material from Earth from showing up in results from SAM.

Organic chemicals consist of carbon and hydrogen and, in many cases, additional elements. They can exist without life, but life as we know it cannot exist without them.

SAM can detect a fainter trace of organics and identify a wider variety of them than any instrument yet sent to Mars. It also can provide information about other ingredients of life and clues to past environments.

Researchers will use SAM and nine other science instruments on Curiosity to study whether one of the most intriguing areas on Mars has offered environmental conditions favorable for life and favorable for preserving evidence about whether life has ever existed there.

NASA will launch Curiosity from Florida between Nov. 25 and Dec. 18, 2011, as part of the Mars Science Laboratory mission's spacecraft.

The spacecraft will deliver the rover to the Martian surface in August 2012. The mission plan is to operate Curiosity on Mars for two years.

This schematic illustration shows major components of the microwave-oven-size instrument, which was installed into the mission's rover, Curiosity, in January 2011. Image credit NASA.

“If we don't find any organics, that's useful information,” said Mahaffy, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. “That would mean the best place to look for evidence about life on Mars may not be near the surface. It may push us to look deeper.”

It would also aid understanding of the environmental conditions that remove organics.

“If we do find detectable organics, that would be an encouraging sign that the immediate environment in the rocks we're sampling is preserving these clues,” he said. “Then we would use the tools we have to try to determine where the organics may have come from.”

Organics delivered by meteorites without involvement of biology come with more random chemical structures than the patterns seen in mixtures of organic chemicals produced by organisms.

Mahaffy paused in describing what SAM will do on Mars while engineers and technicians lowered the instrument into its position inside Curiosity this month.

A veteran of using earlier spacecraft instruments to study planetary atmospheres, he has coordinated work of hundreds of people in several states and Europe to develop, build and test SAM after NASA selected his team's proposal for it in 2004.

“It has been a long haul getting to this point,” he said. “We've taken a set of experiments that would occupy a good portion of a room on Earth and put them into that box the size of a microwave oven.”

SAM has three laboratory tools for analyzing chemistry. The tools will examine gases from the Martian atmosphere, as well as gases that ovens and solvents pull from powdered rock and soil samples.

Curiosity's robotic arm will deliver the powdered samples to an inlet funnel. SAM's ovens will heat most samples to about 1,000 degrees Celsius (about 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit).

One tool, a mass spectrometer, identifies gases by the molecular weight and electrical charge of their ionized states. It will check for several elements important for life as we know it, including nitrogen, phosphorous, sulfur, oxygen and carbon.

Another tool, a laser spectrometer, uses absorption of light at specific wavelengths to measure concentrations of selected chemicals, such as methane and water vapor. It also identifies the proportions of different isotopes in those gases.

Isotopes are variants of the same element with different atomic weights, such as carbon-13 and carbon-12, or oxygen-18 and oxygen-16.

Ratios of isotopes can be signatures of planetary processes. For example, Mars once had a much denser atmosphere than it does today, and if the loss occurred at the top of the atmosphere, the process would favor increased concentration of heavier isotopes in the retained, modern atmosphere.

Methane is an organic molecule. Observations from Mars orbit and from Earth in recent years have suggested transient methane in Mars' atmosphere, which would mean methane is being actively added and subtracted at Mars.

With SAM's laser spectrometer, researchers will check to confirm whether methane is present, monitor any changes in concentration, and look for clues about whether Mars methane is produced by biological activity or by processes that do not require life. JPL provided SAM's laser spectrometer.

SAM's third analytical tool, a gas chromatograph, separates different gases from a mixture to aid identification. It does some identification itself and also feeds the separated fractions to the mass spectrometer and the laser spectrometer.

Technicians and engineers position SAM above the mission's Mars rover, Curiosity, for installing the instrument. Image credit NASA/JPL-Caltech.

France's space agency, Centre National d'Études Spatiales, provided support to the French researchers who developed SAM's gas chromatograph.

NASA's investigation of organics on Mars began with the twin Viking landers in 1976. Science goals of more recent Mars missions have tracked a “follow the water” theme, finding multiple lines of evidence for liquid water – another prerequisite for life – in Mars' past.

The Mars Science Laboratory mission will seek more information about those wet environments, while the capabilities of its SAM instrument add a trailblazing “follow the carbon” aspect and information about how well ancient environments may be preserved.

The original reports from Viking came up negative for organics. How, then, might Curiosity find any? Mahaffy describes three possibilities.

The first is about locations. Mars is diverse, not uniform. Copious information gained from Mars orbiters in recent years is enabling the choice of a landing site with favorable attributes, such as exposures of clay and sulfate minerals good at entrapping organic chemicals.

Mobility helps too, especially with the aid of high-resolution geologic mapping generated from orbital observations.

The stationary Viking landers could examine only what their arms could reach. Curiosity can use mapped geologic context as a guide in its mobile search for organics and other clues about habitable environments.

Additionally, SAM will be able to analyze samples from interiors of rocks drilled into by Curiosity, rather than being restricted to soil samples, as Viking was.

Second, SAM has improved sensitivity, with a capability to detect less than one part-per-billion of an organic compound, over a wider mass range of molecules and after heating samples to a higher temperature.

Third, a lower-heat method using solvents to pull organics from some SAM samples can check a hypothesis that a reactive chemical recently discovered in Martian soil may have masked organics in soil samples baked during Viking tests.

The lower-heat process also allows searching for specific classes of organics with known importance to life on Earth. For example, it can identify amino acids, the chain links of proteins. Other clues from SAM could also be hints about whether organics on Mars – if detected at all – come from biological processes or without biology, such as from meteorites.

Certain carbon-isotope ratios in organics compared with the ratio in Mars' atmosphere could suggest meteorite origin. Patterns in the number of carbon atoms in organic molecules could be a clue.

Researchers will check for a mixture of organics with chains of carbon atoms to see if the mix is predominated either by chains with an even number of carbon atoms or with an odd number.

That kind of pattern, rather than a random blend, would be typical of biological assembly of carbon chains from repetitious subunits.

“Even if we see a signature such as mostly even-numbered chains in a mix of organics, we would be hesitant to make any definitive statements about life, but that would certainly indicate that our landing site would be a good place to come back to,” Mahaffy said.

A future mission could bring a sample back to Earth for more extensive analysis with all the methods available on Earth.

JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Science Laboratory mission for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

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Joshua Isaac Wandrey Sr., 36, appeared before Judge Arthur Mann Friday morning, at which time Mann approved a motion by prosecutor Art Grothe, filed last week, to dismiss several felony charges.

Grothe had stated in his motion that he reviewed the case after taking it over last month from outgoing District Attorney Jon Hopkins and determined that there wasn't sufficient motion to proceed, an action lauded as the right thing to do by Wandrey's attorney, Stephen Carter.

However, Grothe did note that the investigation is continuing and charges could be brought against Wandrey again if sufficient new evidence is developed.

Wandrey was charged with attempted murder, mayhem, torture, home invasion robbery, burglary, assault with a firearm, assault likely to cause great bodily injury, a special allegation for alleged gang activity and another special allegation for use of a firearm for the October 2009 assault on Lakeport resident Ronald Greiner.

In a morning attack the 49-year-old Greiner was shot, beaten, hogtied with barbed wire and robbed of 10 pounds of marijuana at his home.

The investigation led to the arrest of several subjects, some of whose cases already have been dismissed, but the main case continued against Wandrey and Thomas Loyd Dudney, 60, of Fulton, who faced the same list of charges as Wandrey did.

Wandrey, who has been in jail since his November 2009 arrest, remained in the Lake County Jail Friday night, according to jail records.

Meanwhile, the case against Dudney is moving forward.

He appeared in court Friday morning at the same time as Wandrey and accompanied by his attorney, Doug Rhoades.

Mann said the trial had been assigned to him and was set to begin on the morning of Tuesday, Jan. 25.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews , on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .

SACRAMENTO – On Thursday, California's new governor issued a proclamation reaffirming the fiscal emergency declared by his predecessor's administration last month.

Gov. Jerry Brown's proclamation – which follows former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's Dec. 6 declaration – underscores the need for immediate legislative action to address California’s massive budget deficit.

He identifies as the source of the fiscal emergency the current fiscal year's budget imbalance, which he said is causing budgetary and cash deficits in fiscal year 2011-12.

On Jan. 10, just a week after taking office, Brown released a proposed budget package that calls for deep cuts to many services, would phase out redevelopment and asks for voters to approve a number of tax extensions in a June special election, as Lake County News has reported.

Brown's fiscal emergency declaration notes that “without corrective action” the combined operating deficit for fiscal year 2010-11 and fiscal year 2011-12 is $25.4 billion, revenues are $3.1 billion lower than were projected at the time of the 2010 Budget Act and the passage in November of Proposition 22 created an additional budget shortfall of $1.6 billion.

The declaration states that “decisive action is required to solve the State’s persistent and severe budget problems, continue economic recovery, promote job growth, and preserve public education and the quality of life for all Californians.”

Brown said that general fund revenues for the current fiscal year will decline substantially below the estimate of general fund revenues upon which the budget was based, and general fund expenditures will increase substantially above the estimate of general fund revenues.

Those factors, he said, will create a carry-over deficit affecting the cash reserves and the budget for fiscal year 2011-12.

Brown said his Thursday proclamation and the legislation he's proposing to address the budget supersedes Schwarzenegger's Dec. 6 proclamation.

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NICE, Calif. — The seventh-annual Festival of Tulips will be held Saturday, March 26, from noon to 5 p.m. at the Tulip Hill Winery in Nice.

The event will feature wine, food, and entertainment set amid the winery’s gardens that bloom each year with 30,000 tulips imported from Holland.

Admission to the Festival of Tulips includes a Tulip Hill wine glass for unlimited tastings, sumptuous hors d’oeuvres from several upscale Lake County restaurants, live music, winery tours, barrel tastings, demonstrations and more.

During the event, tours of the winery include the crush pad, the cellar, and the bottling room. Special deals on wine and wine-related products will be offered during the festival.

Tulip Hill Winery opened in 2004 on the site where the Bartlett Springs Water Bottling Plant once operated.

The first owners of Bartlett Springs began bottling mineral water as early as the 1870s, claiming the water cured many ailments.

Revered in Europe as well as the United States, the famous plant drew thousands of tourists to Lake County in the 1800s, and after changing hands over the years, closed down in the late 20th century.

It wasn’t until the Brown family arrived that the historic site would once again have a purpose – this time for the production of wine.

In addition to its winery and tasting room in Nice, Tulip Hill Winery operates a second tasting room in Rancho Mirage, near Palm Springs in Southern California.

Tickets to the Festival of Tulips are $40 per person in advance and may be purchased online; or $45 at the door.

Tulip Hill Winery is located at 4900 Bartlett Springs Road, Nice. For more information, call 707-274-9373 or visit www.tuliphillwinery.com .

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SACRAMENTO – Continuing the push to rebuild California’s infrastructure and spur job growth, the California Transportation Commission (CTC) on Thursday allocated $1 billion to 107 transportation projects statewide, including $838 million from Proposition 1B, a transportation bond approved by voters in 2006.

The remaining allocations came from assorted state and federal transportation accounts.

“From one end of the state to the other, transportation projects are providing jobs and improving mobility for people and businesses in California,” said Caltrans Director Cindy McKim.

Among the approved projects are the city of Clearlake's Austin Park Sidewalk/Bikeway Project, which will install bike lanes from Lakeview Way to Highway 53; sidewalks and Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) curbs on Olympic Drive; and ADA curbs, bike lanes, gutters and sidewalks from Burns Valley Elementary School to Lakeshore Drive. The allocation for $10,000 will be funded in fiscal year 2011-12.

The county of Lake also will receive $50,000 in fiscal year 2011-12 for the Bridge Arbor Bikeway, to construct class one and class three bikeways from the Nice-Lucerne Cutoff at Westlake Drive and the Bridge Arbor North Highway 20 intersection at Upper Lake.

Mendocino County will receive $495,000 from Proposition 1B funds to construct a roundabout at the intersection of Highway 1 and Simpson Lane. A roundabout will relieve current and future projected congestion at this intersection more efficiently than traffic signals.

In addition, Mendocino County will get $2.6 million in state and federal transportation funds for storm damage repairs on Highway 101 near Rattlesnake Creek Bridge. Repairs include constructing a retaining wall, reconstructing shoulders and improving drainage.

Sonoma County will receive $19.8 million to widen the roadway from four lanes to six lanes in Petaluma, from just south of Old Redwood Highway Overcrossing to just north of Pepper Road. When completed, the project will result in daily vehicle hours of delay savings of about 965 hours..

Since its passage, $6.8 billion in Proposition 1B funding has been allocated by Caltrans and the CTC.

For information about all projects that received allocations visit www.dot.ca.gov/docs/ctcprojectallocationsjanuary2011.pdf .

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Robby Alan Beasley, 30, is facing two murder charges for the Jan. 22, 2010, shootings of Frank and Yvette Maddox of Augusta, Maine, who he allegedly invited to California to work with him in his marijuana growing organization.

He's also charged with special allegations of committing multiple murders in the first or second degree, committing the offenses with the intent to inflict great bodily injury on the victims, using a 9 millimeter firearm in the commission of the crimes and having a previous felony conviction in Maine for

criminal threatening with a firearm.

On Tuesday, Beasley's co-defendant in the case and another former Maine resident, 28-year-old Elijah Bae McKay, took the stand to testify against Beasley.

Beasley, wearing his black and white jail jumpsuit, listened attentively during the hearing Wednesday, which took place at the Lake County Courthouse in Lakeport. He is being defended by attorney Stephen Carter.

Prosecutor Art Grothe's first witness of the day was Elona Porter, an evidence technician with the Lake County Sheriff's Office.

Porter responded to a turnout along Morgan Valley Road near Lower Lake in early March 2010 after the discovery of the Maddoxes' bodies, found at the bottom of a nearby embankment.

At the top of the embankment she found three spent 9 millimeter cartridges and one spent cartridge just down the embankment. Near the bodies were found three live 9 millimeter rounds and one spent cartridge, with one live round and another spent cartridge found under the bodies.

She said the bodies were very decomposed.

McKay's Tuesday testimony had alleged that Beasley had asked Frank and Yvette Maddox to give him a ride to the airport, his alleged ruse to get them alone.

Beasley allegedly had them drive down the remove Morgan Valley Road outside of Lower Lake, where he asked them to stop at a turnout while he urinated. Frank Maddox had reportedly gotten out to do the same, and the shootings followed a brief confrontation, according to McKay's Tuesday testimony.

Porter said Frank Maddox's body was found with his pants down around his ankles, with his boxer shorts pulled down to about his hips.

He was wearing a sweatshirt and one Timberland hiking boot, with another boot found not far away from his body at the bottom of the embankment, she said.

Yvette Maddox was fully clothed, with the top of her sweatpants partly turned down. Her top was torn, said Porter, noting a pair of women's underwear and a baseball cap with “NY” on it were near the bodies.

When investigators brought the couple's bodies up the hill, they emptied the pockets of the clothing, finding things like a driver's license, Chapstick and a Wal-Mart receipt, although photos of some of that evidence wasn't admitted due to its blurry quality.

In Frank Maddox's pockets they also found a lighter, coins and other currency, cigarettes and a bag of marijuana. His wife's pockets included two Social Security cards, one under the name Maddox and one under her maiden name of Colon, and a Maine-issued state identification card.

Also near the bodies was an overturned, empty box, with a lot of clothing on the ground nearby, said Porter.

She said the rocky terrain made it difficult to tell if there were traces of the bodies being drug down the embankment.

Also on the stand Wednesday was Lake County Sheriff's Det. John Drewrey, who discussed cell phone records and went over the couple's autopsy results.

He said he attended the autopsies, conducted by Dr. Thomas Gill, with the cause of death for both Frank and Yvette Maddox being gunshot wounds to their heads.

Drewrey said Gill found two gunshot wounds in Frank Maddox's skull, and believed there may have been a third wound to his stomach. However, due to the advanced state of composition, Gill couldn't be sure about the stomach wound.

Sheriff's Det. Jim Samples followed Drewrey to the stand, testifying about bringing Dr. Alison Galloway, a forensic anthropologist at University of California, Santa Cruz, on to assist with the case.

Samples said that due to the damage to Yvette Maddox's head, he approached Galloway – one of only five forensic anthropologists in California – for assistance with reconstructing the skull.

Following the autopsy, Samples transported the skull in a sealed evidence box to Santa Cruz, where Galloway cleaned the bones and reconstructed them. He said she was immediately able to put the bones together to show him one of the bullet wounds.

Altogether, Galloway identified two gunshot wounds to Yvette Maddox's head, entering from the left side and exiting through the right.

Samples, who oversaw the investigation at the site where the bodies were discovered near Lower Lake, said investigators went back several times to screen for bone and bullet fragments.

He said most of the fragments they found were tangled in Yvette Maddox's hair. “There was so much trauma to Yvette's head that anything that was there was very, very small,” he said.

It was for that reason that Dr. Gill suggested going to Galloway, because he couldn't say for sure that there were bullet wounds, Samples explained.

Deputy Lyle Thomas, another investigator on the case, recalled taking Beasley from the Lake County Jail for a blood draw last March.

Thomas served a search warrant for the blood draw, which Beasley refused to give without his lawyer present. Several correctional officers and detectives took Beasley to St. Helena Hospital in Clearlake, where – as he was being escorted into a room – Beasley attempted to run past a California Highway Patrol officer who was there for another case.

It took five officers to place Beasley facedown on a hospital bed and hold him there following what Thomas called a “fairly violent” struggle.

Thomas also testified to working with a county code enforcement officer to track down the Maddoxes' pickup, which McKay had testified Tuesday Beasley had moved from its Lower Lake location to Jerusalem Grade Road near Middletown following the murders.

Code enforcement had red-tagged the vehicle, which later was moved by a resident in the area, who then took the vehicle and parted it out. Thomas went over pictures of the pieces of the truck that were left, including its drive train assembly and driver's door.

Thomas also served a search warrant at Beasley's Lower Lake apartment last March, where he found a white envelope with Beasley's name and a post office box in Maine, receipts for a money gram and about 80 marijuana plants in two bedrooms.

Det. Tom Andrews was recalled to the stand at day's end, testifying to speaking with a woman who knew the Maddoxes and who told him that Beasley had problems with them because of his belief that they had stolen marijuana from him. “Rob told her he was going to nix those kids,” Andrews stated.

At day's end a hearing also was held ordering this reporter to remove video clips from the Internet that had been initially approved as part of a media request on Tuesday.

Carter argued that he had not received proper notice of the request and stated that it was harming Beasley's right to a fair trial.

Lake County News argued that the jury selection procedure – in which potential jurors would have to divulge what they knew of the case – was the best way to balance Beasley's right to a fair trial with the public's right to know what was happening in the proceedings.

After an hour and a half of arguments, Judge Richard Martin ordered the videos be taken down by Wednesday night, and additional ordered that the materials could not be disseminated, although they could be used to create still images. All videos were completely removed shortly before 7 p.m. in compliance with the order.

Testimony is expected to continue at 10 a.m. Thursday.

E-mail Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow Lake County News on Twitter at http://twitter.com/LakeCoNews , on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Lake-County-News/143156775604?ref=mf and on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/user/LakeCoNews .

Many trusts documents waive the trustee’s duty to account and to report to the beneficiaries. This is allowed by law subject, however, to a court nonetheless requiring such an accounting when necessary to protect the beneficiaries.

The duty to provide accountings is often waived by the trust’s creator because the creator wants to reduce trust administration costs associated with preparing the accounting.

Trust beneficiaries, however, need to know the particulars relating to the trust assets and trustee’s use of them in order to protect themselves against the trustee’s breach of trust.

Recently enacted legislation now reinforces the trustee’s duty under California Probate Code section 16060, “… to keep the beneficiaries of the trust reasonably informed of the trust and its administration,” which cannot be waived, unlike the trustee’s statutory duty to furnish an accounting under Probate Code section 16062 which may be waived.

The question becomes then, what information must a trustee still provide pursuant to section 16060?

That issue was presented to the California Supreme Court in Salter v Lerner (2009).

Unfortunately, the court’s decision does not provide clear guidance, except to say, that, “[t]he trustee is under a duty to communicate to the beneficiary information that is reasonably necessary to enable the beneficiary to enforce the beneficiary's rights under the trust or prevent or redress a breach of trust.”

The Salter decision went on to say that whether the information requested by a beneficiary is information that must be provided under section 16060 or may be withheld by a trustee of a trust that waives an accounting would have to be decided by a trial court in the course of litigation.

As newly amended, the law now provides that a trust becomes irrevocable, a trustee must provide the, “requested information about the assets, liabilities, receipts, and disbursements of the trust, the acts of the trustee, and the particulars to the beneficiary relating to the administration of the trust relevant to the beneficiary's interest, including the terms of the trust.”

Before the foregoing addition of the worded “requested” the statute did not require that trustee to provide requested information relevant to the beneficiary’s interest it only required the trustee to provide information.

While the law has strengthened in favor of disclosing information to the beneficiary, there is still room for improvement.

A trustee might still contend that the requested information is the sort of information that would amount to an accounting and is not therefore required to be provided if the trust waives an accounting.

Under the Salter case decision, the outcome of such a dispute would need to be determined by a court during litigation.

Lastly, while accountings can be burdensome and costly for a trustee to prepare, they are often prepared by trustees of trusts that waive the accounting in order to achieve finality as to issues that would otherwise remain open sources of future litigation.

That is, a trustee who relies on a trust waiver of an accounting and does not prepare an accounting will continue to be subject to legal actions by the beneficiaries indefinitely.

By providing an accounting the trustee can limit the three-year statute of limitations period, and even reduce that down to 180 days by petitioning the court for an order approving the accounting.

Dennis A. Fordham, attorney (LL.M. tax studies), is a State Bar Certified Specialist in Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Law. His office is at 55 First St., Lakeport, California. Dennis can be reached by e-mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or by phone at 707-263-3235.

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BOONVILLE, Calif – The Mendocino County Sheriff's Office is investigating a Thursday night armed robbery in Boonville in which money, jewelry and marijuana were taken by several Bay Area suspects who later led officials on an hour-long high-speed chase.

The incident occurred in the 14200 block of Highway 12, according to Sgt. Greg Van Patten.

Van Patten's report said that just after 10:30 a.m. Thursday off-duty Anderson Valley resident Deputy Keith Squires was contacted by several alleged victims – Philo residents Alex Arguelles-Renteria, 23, and Jose Gustavo Alvarez, 25, and Boonville residents Fernando Ferreyra, 32, and 45-year-old Carlos Guerrero – who reported the crime.

The alleged victims told Squires that they were socializing inside a tire shop located in downtown Boonville earlier in the evening and while barbecuing a meal three black male adult suspects entered the business from a rear access point, Van Patten said.

The suspects allegedly brandished handguns, pistol whipped each victim and forced them to lie on the floor. Van Patten said the suspects forcefully took cellular telephones, a wallet containing $3,000 in US currency, jewelry and car keys collectively from the victims.

After obtaining the car keys the suspects gained entry into a vehicle at the shop, which was owned by one of the victims. Van Patten said the suspects allegedly then took approximately 2 pounds of processed marijuana from the vehicle.

After allegedly committing the robbery, the suspects fled eastbound on Highway 128 toward Cloverdale in a burgundy sedan, Van Patten said.

He said the suspect information was broadcast to Sonoma County law enforcement agencies, which immediately responded to the area of Cloverdale.

A Sonoma County Sheriff's deputy was parked along Highway 101 near Highway 128 monitoring traffic in hopes of finding the burgundy sedan, when he saw it traveling southbound on Highway 101 at speeds in excess of 100 miles per hour without its headlights on, Van Patten said.

For approximately the next hour personnel from the Cloverdale Police Department, Healdsburg Police Department and the Sonoma County Sheriff's Department engaged the burgundy sedan in separate vehicular pursuits. Van Patten said that at times law enforcement personnel lost sight of the burgundy sedan and had to discontinue the pursuit as a result.

During this chain of events, Van Patten said Sonoma County Sheriff's deputies were looking for the burgundy sedan in the area of Windsor when they noticed a different vehicle traveling southbound on Highway 101 without its headlights on.

Van Patten said deputies stopped this second vehicle and found it was occupied by four black adult males, three of whom matched the physical descriptors of the robbery suspects.

These three males were identified as Garrett Alexander Bonner, 18, of Alameda; and Oakland residents Shawn Delmore Ford Jr. and Leon Samuel Patterson, both 23 years old. Van Patten said it was determined Ford and Patterson were on active California Department of Corrections parole.

Van Patten said during the investigation the deputies found that one of the suspects allegedly was found in possession of a cellular telephone receipt that was taken during the robbery.

A canvass of the immediate area resulted in the deputies finding the burgundy sedan parked and unoccupied, he added.

Mendocino County Sheriff's detectives responded to Sonoma County and conducted further investigations, during which Van Patten said they discovered a second listed suspect allegedly was in possession of another receipt taken during the robbery.

Van Patten said detectives also learned the suspects allegedly possessed US currency consistent with the type taken during the robbery and that one of the listed suspects was in possession of car keys that accessed the burgundy sedan parked near the scene of the traffic stop.

Detectives conducted a search of the burgundy sedan and located a total of approximately 18 pounds of processed marijuana. Van Patten said the marijuana was packaged separately in approximately 1-pound bags.

Based upon the preceding information Bonner, Ford Jr. and Patterson were arrested and transported to the Mendocino County Jail to be booked on a charge of robbery. Van Patten said at the request of detectives, the California Department of Corrections placed a parole hold on both Ford Jr. and Patterson.

The driver of the vehicle stopped by Sonoma County Sheriff's Deputies was determined to not be involved in the robbery and was later released, Van Patten said.

Investigations into the robbery are currently ongoing at this time by Mendocino County Sheriff's Office detectives, Van Patten said.

Anyone wishing to provide information in regards to this case is asked to call the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office Tip-Line at 707-467-9159.

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MARYSVILLE, Calif. – The Yuba Community College District will soon be looking for a new chancellor.

Dr. Nicki Harrington announced Wednesday that she will retire at the end of the academic year, June 30, after more than 35 years of experience in higher education.

“My tenure at YCCD has been quite rewarding and I will always look back at my years here with fond memories,” Dr. Harrington said. “Retiring at the end of this academic year is bitter sweet. I’m sad to leave but at the same time I leave with peace of mind knowing that the district is in sound financial shape and headed in the right direction.”

Dr. Harrington has led YCCD, a multi-college district consisting of Yuba College and Woodland Community College, since February 2002. The district serves southern Lake County through its Clear Lake campus.

“She successfully transitioned us from a single college district to a multi-college district with the accreditation of Woodland Community College as the 110th college in the state, led us through a successful facilities bond campaign, the first in our district’s 84 year history, and strengthened our strategic direction and financial position in a time of economic downturn,” said Xavier Tafoya, chair of the YCCD Board of Trustees. “She will be hard to replace.”

Harrington presided over a time that saw districts struggle with budget cuts and some job losses.

Both she and the district's board of trustees came under fire early last year after the board granted her a more than $29,000 annual raise at the time it was discussing layoffs and other cost-cutting measures.

Harrington said she originally had planned to retire in June 2012, but decided –after extensive review and reflection on the status of the district, its upcoming activities, “and what is best for both the district and me, both personally and professionally” – to retire earlier.

She said this all would be an “opportune time” to pass the baton to a new chancellor, who she said will have a strong executive team and a new board with whom to work to lead the district as it enters its next era.

There are projects under way throughout the district, said Harrington, including at the Clear Lake Campus, where the district last year purchased a property from the Konocti Unified School District to expand the facilities.

Harrington began her career in higher education as a faculty member, and subsequently served in dean, vice president, superintendent/president and chancellor positions.

She has held faculty and administrative positions in both two and four year colleges and universities, and has served in three chief executive officer positions in the past 14 years.

In 2008-09 Harrington served as the 0resident of the Chief Executive Officers of the California Community Colleges, and in 2009 as the chair of the Economic Development Program Advisory Committee for the State of California.

She also sits on the Board of the Sacramento Area Commerce and Trade Organization (SACTO), and the Sacramento Region’s Linking Education and Economic Development (LEED) Board.

The district – which spans eight counties and some 4,200 square miles of territory in rural, north-central California – reported that it will begin a national search for the next chancellor immediately, with an expected start date of this summer.

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