Murder trial ordered for four suspects in Santa Rosa-area home invasions

A Santa Rosa sister, 8, and her brother, 13, cowered in their home in February 2018 after being rousted from their beds by a group of intruders looking for marijuana and cash. They listened as some of the men discussed whether to shoot at them, a Sonoma County prosecutor said in court Thursday.

One of the intruders had already shot and wounded their father and pistol-whipped the teenage boy. Finding little of value at the Fulton Road home, the intruders left and drove 5 miles south in the predawn darkness to a house on Melcon Lane on Santa Rosa's southern outskirts to try again.

One man broke a lock, then fired a gun to shatter a sliding door to get inside, prosecutors said. Three of the men tied up two members of the Torres family and brought Jose Luis Torres, 54, into a bedroom. They made him open a safe and then killed him, court filings show. Family members said he was shot 10 times.

The suspects stole guns from the house and deputies found evidence of pot cultivation and sales at the property, but Torres family members said they were not involved in the marijuana trade and that the property had been partly leased to others.

The violence marked the start of a series of pot-related home invasions in Sonoma County that by May of last year had grown at least a half-dozen in Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Petaluma and Cloverdale. Some of the crimes involved East Coast suspects in search of marijuana to sell on the lucrative black market on the other side of the country.

The suspects in the Feb. 8, 2018, home invasions - Santa Rosa resident Mussie Himed and out-of-state residents Tyrone McRae, 26, of Jackson, Mississippi; Jonathan Jackson, 21, of Richmond Hill, New York; and David Ealey, 24, of Richmond, Virginia - listened from the jury box Thursday as their suspected roles in the home invasions were described during a final day of arguments for a preliminary hearing.

At the conclusion, Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Chris Honigsberg ruled there was enough evidence to try the men for the murder of Torres in his Melcon Lane home, plus 16 other felony charges, including robbery, kidnapping and assault with a deadly weapon.

They face the possibility of life prison terms without parole if convicted.

A woman authorities say was their accomplice, Amber Hembree of Richmond, Virginia, agreed to a deal with prosecutors that called for a 12-year prison term. Authorities said Hembree was the lone suspect who was not carrying a gun.

The case is linked to a second series of home-invasion robberies at two homes in March 2018 near Petaluma. No one was killed there and those suspects were charged with federal crimes. At least six of the eight defendants in the Petaluma-area robberies have reached plea agreements with the U.S. Attorney's Office.

Authorities haven't elaborated on the connection between the two cases, but federal court documents suggest outside sources - including a man incarcerated in Virginia - may have been involved in planning the heists.

Himed is the lone local suspect. Prosecutors said he picked the others up at San Francisco International Airport, drove them to a hotel, switched vehicles and then brought them to an apartment complex to get guns.

“He was the one who knew the houses to go to,” Deputy District Attorney Tania Partida said.

Jackson shot Cristian Barragan and pistol-whipped the boy at the Fulton Road, according to prosecutors. At the second home, Jackson and Ealey both shot Torres, according to the criminal complaint.

Himed and McRae are charged under the felony murder rule, which holds that murder charges apply when someone is killed during a serious crime. Their attorneys asked the judge to drop the murder charge against them because they didn't shoot anyone.

After the first robbery, Himed drove the group to the second house but refused to go inside, according to his lawyer Martin Woods.

McRae fired a gun to shatter a sliding door so they could get inside but wasn't in the room where Torres was killed, prosecutors said.

Partida argued that Himed was equally responsible for the murder because he provided the guns and was central to orchestrating the invasions, including by taking them to the second house. McRae was responsible because he used the firearm multiple times during the robberies, including to shatter the door to get inside, she said.

And the men witnessed Jackson escalate the violence inside the Fulton Road home, she said.

“They chose to go to the second house knowing how dangerous Jackson was,” Partida said.

Honigsberg said there was enough evidence about the involvement of each defendant to show probable cause to be tried for murder and all other charges. The judge ordered them to return to court Oct. 14.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 707-521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com.