CHEERLEADER BAKESALE! Anderson Valley’s Varsity Youth Cheerleaders are holding a Big Bakesale on Lemons’ Market Porch this Saturday to raise money for cheerleading uniforms for new girls who have signed up for basketball season! Come out from 11 to 3 and help them try to reach our goal of $1,000. Go Panthers! For info please call Alisha at 621-1588.
AN EARTHQUAKE measuring 2.7 on the Richter Scale rattled the Ukiah Valley at precisely 11:29am Wednesday. The United States Geological Survey said the temblor was centered two miles east of Redwood Valley, 9 miles north northeast of Ukiah.
MENDOCINO COUNTY SHERIFF Tom Allman said Wednesday that Sonoma County Sheriff's Department personnel will conduct an “internal investigation” of Mendo Undersheriff Randy Johnson whose family property near Potter Valley was raided two weeks ago by a federal task force that included DEA, IRS and FBI agents. During the raid on the Johnson place some 500 marijuana plants were confiscated. The property is an old resort converted to rental cabins. Johnson's father and his brother live on the premises. the Undersheriff next door to the raided property. There has been tension between federal authorities and Mendocino County officials for some time now. Mendocino County has been warned by the feds that any attempt by the County to license or otherwise profit from marijuana production and/or sales would expose them to prosecution.
NORBURY JURY to decide his sanity after Norbury was found guilty of murder in Ukiah, by Tiffany Revelle.
The defense began presenting evidence Tuesday regarding the question of Billy M. Norbury's sanity at the time he shot and killed his Redwood Valley neighbor, Jamal Andrews. A jury on Monday convicted Norbury, 34, of first-degree murder with a special allegation that he used a 30-30 Winchester rifle to kill Andrews, 30, on the night of Jan. 24. The same jury is now tasked with deciding whether Norbury was legally insane at the time of the shooting. Mendocino County Superior Court Judge John Behnke told the jury it must find Norbury was legally insane if, “one, when he committed the crime he had a mental disorder or defect and, two, was incapable of knowing the nature or quality of his actions, or (that he was) incapable of understanding that his actions were morally and legally wrong.” Because Norbury changed his not-guilty plea in July to one of not guilty by reason of insanity (commonly called an NGI plea), his Ukiah defense attorney, Al Kubanis, has the burden of proving it was more likely than not that Norbury was insane when he killed Andrews. Norbury faces 50 years to life in prison for the crime. If he is found not guilty by reason of insanity, Norbury will spend his sentence at a mental health facility, and could at some point qualify for an outpatient program and live in the community, according to Mendocino County District Attorney David Eyster, who is prosecuting the case. Kubanis called his client's friends and family to the witness stand, starting with Norbury's lifelong friend Tucker Kelley, and ending the day in the middle of testimony from his father, Billy Dean Norbury. Kelley told the court about an incident when he visited Billy M. Norbury and put his cell phone up to his ear to play a humorous message for him. “He pulled away and asked me what I was doing,” Kelley said. “He told me he knew what I was doing.” Kelley went on to say Norbury had told him there was a “plane up there flying and you guys are messing with me right now.” He also related an incident a month later, roughly in October 2010, when Norbury became suspicious of a mail van that came to his house. “He told me he was at his house and a mail van came by, and there was people in the mail van that were going to jump out and get him,” Kelley said on the stand. Kelley said when he got the news of the shooting, “it didn't surprise me ... because of the last time I saw him and the manner (in which) he was acting.” Kubanis also called to the stand Emma Norbury, Billy M. Norbury's great-aunt, who said she had visited him during the week prior to the shooting. She said she saw her grandnephew “pacing the floor, laughing to himself, mumbling something that you couldn't understand” on several occasions that week, and that he took three or four baths daily in an indoor hot tub, changing clothes each time. One night, she testified, she heard Norbury come home at about 1 or 2 a.m. and “start wailing” in his bedroom. She described the sound as “laughter and crying together, it was so uncontrollable.” The wailing went on for about 10 minutes, she testified. Eyster asked her about differences between her testimony Tuesday and a statement she had given to Kubanis' investigator, and whether she had spoken with family members about the trial. Billy Joe Norbury, the defendant's 72-year-old grandfather, testified that on one occasion, his grandson had appeared in the living room wearing only a towel and asked, “Papa, can you hear them,'“ referring to “those voices.'“ “He looked me right in the eye and said, Papa, can you see me?' He needed help and he didn't get it,” Billy Joe Norbury said on the stand. Family members took the younger Norbury to the hospital emergency room that night, but he “dashed for the car” when an emergency helicopter landed outside. “He thought the helicopter was going to haul him off or take him out or whatever,” Billy Joe Norbury testified. Asked by Eyster if the witness had told a deputy he had eaten dinner with the defendant between 5 and 6 p.m. the night of the shooting, Billy Joe Norbury said he hadn't. Eyster asked the witness if he knew his grandson had an alcohol problem, and the witness said “he drank a few beers” but hadn't gotten himself “into trouble.” The elder Norbury testified that he knew his grandson had his license suspended because of alcohol, and later said, “I didn't know if he had a license or not.” Kubanis also called to the stand Monica Van Camp, the defendant's maternal aunt, who had first been diagnosed with schizophrenia, and later as “minor bipolar” when she was on medication. Eyster questioned whether her diagnosis had been wrong the first time, and she testified that her problem with violence went away after a doctor changed her medication. Last on the stand Tuesday was the defendant's father, Billy Dean Norbury. He told the court his son had on one occasion believed his family meant to kill him, and that he ducked when walking by windows and shielded his head when walking by doors. One night, Billy Dean Norbury testified, his son took a rifle from his gun safe. The younger Norbury had pushed his father when he tried to put it back, according to the testimony, and the father called police. While waiting for police to arrive, he said, his son slapped his face and sent his glasses flying. Eyster's cross-examination continues today. Tiffany Revelle can be reached at udjtr@pacific.net, on Twitter @TiffanyRevelle or at 468-3523.
MICHAEL McDONALD of Mendocino writes: “Bochy ball — I Crawford out of bed this mornin' feeling Pence-ive. I Romo'd over to my closet, slipped on my Sandovals, Sanchez'd up my boxers, tied the Belt on my robe, extracted a Tylenol from my Lopez dispenser, swallowed it with a sip of my double Mota latte and Posey'd on over to the mirror. “Bed head,” I muttered. Mijares was a mess. “Bumgarner!” I Huff-ed. I had a Giant Blanco Zito on my forehead. Affeldt-it and I Casilla-it. I wasn't sure if it was Righetti to pop, but I thought, I Cain do this, and as it Theriot'd open and Scutaro'd across the bathroom, I broke into a Vogelsong, quickly followed by some Arias. The Giants win the pennant! The Giants win the pennant! I rubbed some Lincecum on it, and that thing was Pagan. To hell with the Nady-sayers. Don't Kontos out against the Tigers.”
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