Pair strike plea deal in Forestville triple homicide case

Father-and-son defendants in a 2-year-old triple homicide case pleaded no contest to multiple felony charges in Sonoma County Superior Court on Friday and agreed to testify at trial against the suspected shooter under plea agreements reached with prosecutors.

Francis Raymond Dwyer, 67, and Odin Leonard Dwyer, 40, pleaded to accessory and involuntary manslaughter charges respectively under the deal announced Friday afternoon by Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch. They had been charged with three counts of murder each.

The pair also promised “to testify truthfully” in the September trial of Mark William Capello, who is accused in the execution-style slayings of one-time Sebastopol resident Raleigh Butler and two other men, prosecutors said.

Capello, 47, faces the death penalty in the case, in which is accused of gunning down three unarmed men while they groomed and packaged a large volume of marijuana at Butler’s mother’s house on Ross Station Road in Forestville, authorities said.

Butler was selling the pot to the two other victims, Todd Klarkowski, of Boulder, Colo., and Richard Lewin, of Huntington, N.Y., who had been longtime partners in the drug trade, authorities say.

Capello, of Central City, Colo., also was a buyer and reportedly recruited Odin Dwyer of Denver and his father, a New Mexico resident, to travel with him to Sonoma County to pick up the drugs and drive a load of them to New York, investigators said.

The elder Dwyer was waiting, as instructed, at a Santa Rosa Avenue motel when his son and Capello met Butler, 24, and his buyers at the Forestville house Feb. 5, 2013, to package the pot for shipping.

Odin Dwyer told authorities he had stepped out of the room when he heard rapid gunfire and looked back to see Capello, his arm extended, holding a gun.

Capello reportedly told Dwyer, “It had to be done.”

Authorities said each of the victims was shot once in the head with a .45-caliber pistol and died at the scene.

“This was a cold, calculated murder of three unarmed men,” Ravitch said in a written statement. “After continued evaluation of the facts of this terrible crime, it was determined that these pleas reflect the level of culpability of these defendants.”

Francis Dwyer pleaded no contest to five felony charges, including accessory to murder and conspiracy to transport and possess marijuana for sale, prosecutors said.

A no contest plea has the same legal consequences as a guilty plea.

Odin Dwyer pleaded to 15 felonies, including three counts of involuntary manslaughter, three counts of accessory to murder, three counts of accessory to robbery and drug-related offenses.

Both Dwyers are to be sentenced once Capello’s trial is over.

Capello is charged with three counts of murder with special circumstances including lying in wait, murder for financial gain, murder during the course of a residential burglary and murder of multiple victims.

His trial is set to begin Sept. 18.

You can reach Staff Writer Mary Callahan at 521-5249 or mary.callahan@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MaryCallahanB.