Palms Inn murder suspect had violent past and walked away from court-ordered rehab six days before killing, records show

The suspect in the fatal stabbing of a man last week at the Palms Inn had a violent felony history and had walked away from a court-ordered rehab program just six days earlier, court documents and interviews show.

Sonoma County prosecutors on Monday charged Skyler Rasmussen with felony murder and a wide range of enhancements to increase his possible prison time in the stabbing of Will Woodard at the Palms Inn.

Woodard died at an area hospital after paramedics responded to a call to the permanent supportive housing facility for Sonoma County’s most vulnerable homeless residents early on Dec. 13.

Police believe Rasmussen found his way to the Palms Inn after he was released from jail six days earlier. He had been transported to a court-ordered residential rehabilitation facility in San Francisco, but walked away during his intake interview.

Rasmussen is represented by the Sonoma County public defenders office. He did not enter a plea Monday.

Court filings from Rasmussen’s trials over prior crimes tell the story of a man who spent much of his life incarcerated, as both a juvenile and an adult, after becoming a ward of the state at age 8. His life has been riddled with violence. He witnessed and experienced domestic abuse as a child and later committed his own violent acts, which include at least two other stabbings and an allegation of choking the mother of his children. In November 2021, he led police on a high-speed, 16-mile vehicle chase down Highway 101 that ended when his car caught fire.

Woodard’s death is the first time Rasmussen has been accused of murder. He had been in jail for more than a year on the vehicle charge before being released Dec. 7. The prosecution has released few details about what they believed happened at the Palms Inn, what the motive was, or whether Rasmussen and Woodard knew each other.

Woodard has been described by neighbors and friends as a caring and highly social person. He had lived at the Palms Inn since September 2021, and his room was often filled with late-night visitors, even though the Inn has been plagued by complaints from residents about crime and safety, neighbors say.

The latest court proceedings against Rasmussen began Monday with a motion from prosecutors to shift the case from Judge Karlene Navarro to Judge Mark Urioste, which Navarro accepted without discussion.

On Dec. 1, 12 days before the murder, Navarro ordered Rasmussen into the Delancey Street Foundation, a residential treatment program in San Francisco famous for taking on tough cases of substance abuse and criminality.

Navarro’s decision to send Rasmussen to rehab instead of prison came over the fervent objections of a prosecutor.

“This court is charged with the critical role of protecting the public,” Sonoma County Deputy District Attorney Jason Rifkind told Navarro on Dec. 1. “Mr. Rasmussen has shown that the only thing that will stop him from committing violent and dangerous acts is to be locked up.”

Rifkind urged Navarro to focus on Rasmussen’s frequent violence. “The defendant’s actions in the last 12 years speak much louder than the letters he wrote the court asking for behavioral modification,” he said.

Navarro told Rifkind she doesn’t “take any of these decisions lightly.” She added that “I want to remind you that I’m aware of the law and what my job and my role is every single day.”

She ordered Rasmussen held in jail until a bed opened at the facility and he could be transferred by Sonoma County probation officers.

Rasmussen left jail Dec. 7 and was delivered to the facility by two Sonoma County probation officers.

Rasmussen walked out of his intake interview a short time later, complaining about the program’s strict rules and saying he would not enroll, Delancey Street CEO Mimi Silbert told The Press Democrat.

Workers alerted the probation office, Silbert said, but they were otherwise powerless to stop Rasmussen’s stroll back onto the street, despite Navarro’s clear orders.

“You are not to leave Delancey Street without prior written permission of your probation officer or the program director,” the judge told him during his sentencing, according to a court transcript.

Chief Probation Officer Vanessa Fuchs said the officers brought him past locked gates into the facility’s reception area and left about 15 minutes later after completing paperwork.

They did not learn of Rasmussen’s departure until Dec. 8, Fuchs said.

On Dec. 9, a warrant for Rasmussen’s arrest was issued. That document remains sealed. Four days later, sheriff’s detectives suspect Rasmussen stabbed Woodard and left him lying in a pool of blood, to die at the hospital later.

Silbert said that when Rasmussen walked out of his interview, it became apparent that his intentions to enter rehab were insincere. “Do I believe he manipulated this knowing he was going to leave?” she asked. “Yes I do.”

Delancey Street and other rehab programs have helped “thousands of thousands” of people with “unbearably violent pasts” and drug addictions turn their lives around, Silbert said.

“This guy goes against the (trend),” she said.

Gov. Gavin Newsom appointed Navarro to the bench in November 2021. She was previously director of Sonoma County’s law enforcement oversight agency, the Independent Office of Law Enforcement Review and Outreach.

Presiding Judge Shelly Averill told The Press Democrat that Navarro is prevented from commenting on the case by the Canons of Judicial Ethics.

In court transcripts, Navarro said she was influenced in her decision by Rasmussen’s acceptance in Delancey Street, prior efforts at drug rehabilitation and that he had the support of his children’s mother. Rasmussen is the father of three, according to a letter from the mother asking Navarro to send him to rehab.

Navarro wanted to give Rasmussen a chance to break the cycle of violence and imprisonment, she told Rifkind, the prosecutor.

“We don’t do the community or the people … any favor by indefinitely locking people up and never giving them a chance to participate in a behavior modification program like Delancey Street,” Navarro said.

Rasmussen’s mother was a drug addict and his father was absent, according to documents prepared by his public defender in November. Rasmussen and his mother were often homeless.

At eight, he became a ward of the state and spent the rest of his youth bouncing among foster care and juvenile detention centers. His first arrest appears to have been a misdemeanor disturbing the peace charge in Petaluma at age 14.

A court motion filed by Rifkind urging imprisonment at the Dec. 1 hearing documents how at age 18, Rasmussen embarked on a string of violence over five months that ended with him being sentenced to state prison for seven years. In those five months, December 2013 to May 2014, Rasmussen was accused of multiple assaults, stabbing two people and chasing a man in a car and shooting at him, according to Rifkind’s motion.

One stabbing victim, Raymond Trevino, was defrosting his car early on a January morning in a Denny’s parking lot when Rasmussen attacked him, according to Trevino. He had never seen Rasmussen before the attack, Trevino told The Press Democrat last week.

Trevino believed his attacker mistook him for someone else when he reached into the car and stabbed him four times, he said. Trevino contacted the newspaper to express outrage at the fact that Rasmussen had ever been able to get back onto the street.

“I still have the scars, I still battle with post-traumatic stress disorder,” Trevino said. “My life has been turned upside down and now this (murder case) brings back all those memories all over again.”

Rasmussen earned parole in December 2019 but returned to jail after an August 2020 stabbing incident. Few details of that incident were available. He was paroled again, but Petaluma police arrested him in March 2021 on a domestic violence charge against his wife, who accused him of choking and hitting her. He was sentenced to 180 days in jail, but was given credit for 140 days of time served.

Eight months later, he fled police in the pursuit down Highway 101 and was arrested in Cotati. He spent a year in jail before being sentenced by Navarro earlier this month.

The court record is full of references to Rasmussen’s challenges with substance abuse and mental health. When police responded to the domestic violence call, Rasmussen’s wife told officers he tried to commit suicide multiple times, “usually by overdosing on fentanyl,” according to Rifkind’s motion.

Rasmussen leaned on those struggles himself when he wrote to Navarro, telling the judge he needed “help to receiving tools and skills to be the man I want to be, for myself and for my family.”

This story has been corrected to indicate Woodard moved into The Palms Inn in September 2021.

You can reach Staff Writer Andrew Graham at 707-526-8667 or andrew.graham@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @AndrewGraham88