Detective describes murder probe
At an ongoing preliminary hearing Friday regarding an Ettersburg homicide, an investigating detective described how the suspect’s relatives told him the suspect was making outlandish and threatening statements to them.
On Friday, Brandon Head, detective with the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, de s c r i b ed how Matthew Dowd told him his nephew Ryan Tanner, who is facing charges related to the homicide of 33-year-old Jason Todd Garrett on or about Feb. 12, “had made statements similar to Bigfoot was stealing his ice cream.”
“And there were people in the bushes watching him,” Head said.
Tanner’s father, James Tanner, said he was the owner of the two structures on the property where Garrett is believed to have been killed, Head said.
“He said Ryan Tanner had made threats to burn his house down,” Head said, and that a cabin had burned down on James Tanner’s property.
Head said investigators interviewed another man named Howard Wees at the office of attorney Kathleen Bryson on Dec. 3, and he provided him with a variety of details about Ryan Tanner and the people involved in the case.
Head said Wees told investigators he wanted to help because “he didn’t like the energy of their neighborhood, I guess if that’s what you want to call it, when Ryan Tanner was living out there.”
Wees told investigators Ryan Tanner threatened him when they first met, five or so months before Garrett’s death, because he
“did not know him as a local and stated he should kill him,” Head said.
However, Wees told investigators after that incident he traded crystal meth with Ryan Tanner for marijuana, Head said.
Wees told investigators on a different incident that he found Natalie Pierce, her bread truck and a group of people camping at the bottom of his driveway, Head said. Pierce said her truck was broken down, so Wees said he “hooked up a chain or some type of a device to pull her down the road a ways,” Head said.
A few days after that, Christopher Champagne, who previously testified to witnessing Ryan Tanner cut Garrett’s throat and later fatally shoot him, came to Wees’s residence and gave him a knife, Head said.
“Mr. Champagne had told Wees that that knife had been used to stab somebody,” Head said.
Wees said he initially “discredit Mr. Champagne’s statement” since he “frequently made other outlandish statements,” Head said.
After a while, Wees said he didn’t want to possess it anymore in case what Champagne said was true and threw it in a creek, but someone else found it, Head said.
Two days after getting the knife, Wees said he saw Robert Norris with a dog, though he didn’t know Norris to possess a dog, Head said.
There was another instance where Champagne sold Wees a chainsaw and Ryan Tanner later came to the residence and “alleged that Wees stole that chainsaw from him,” though they later sorted it out, Head said.
The preliminary hearing is set to resume 9:15 a.m. Monday. Timm said she expects the hearing to wrap up on Wednesday.