Richmond couple charged in last month’s San Jose killing still awaiting extradition from Las Vegas
Investigation records suggest drug robbery fueled fatal stabbing of UC Santa Cruz student
SAN JOSE >> Two weeks after they were arrested in connection with the fatal stabbing of a UC Santa Cruz student, a Richmond couple remains in a Las Vegas jail awaiting extradition back to the Bay Area, authorities and records show.
And a detective’s account recently filed in court reveal that an ambush drug robbery was behind the vicious April 4 killing of 22-yearold Zane Blake Groves as he sat in a car near Palmia Park in South San Jose.
Jason Koplin, 34, has been charged with murder, and Violet Smyth, 23, has been charged as an accessory after being accused by police of helping him flee
Jason Koplin; Violet Smyth
the state. They were reportedly looking to get married in Las Vegas when they were arrested April 15, and have been held at the jail in Clark County, Nevada ever since.
The case began with someone calling San Jose police the evening of April 6 about a 2018 Subaru Impreza that had been parked on La Strada Drive for a couple of days, and requested a welfare check. Responding officers found the vehicle, partially wrapped in a car cover, and discovered a deceased man later identified as Groves in the driver’s seat.
In an investigative summary accompanying the criminal charges, San Jose police Detective Gabriel Cuenca wrote that Groves had suffered multiple stab wounds, and that blood evidence indicated he had been dead for more than a day before he was found.
The initial phases of the homicide investigation revealed that Groves was a UC Santa Cruz student who also worked for the marijuana delivery company Golden State Canna. Owner Louis Samuel said Groves helped build the company and was a trusted manager who oversaw their Santa Cruz-area operation.
“Zane was a rising superstar in the cannabis industry and on the forefront of ending the prohibition of other plants as well,” Samuel said in an interview with this news organization. “He believed that he could use the power of his own energy to uplift and improve the lives of those around him. He was soft spoken but spoke up for what he believed.”
Samuel declined to comment on the criminal case. But according to investigative records, he told detectives that Groves was “supposed to deliver several thousand dollars” to the company’s Emeryville office on April 4. That same day, a separate witness identified as Groves’ friend in Santa Cruz told police that Groves said he was “going up north,” and added that Groves was known to move psychedelic mushrooms in addition to marijuana.
Another witness described as Groves’ friend told investigators that in the preceding few days, Groves said “he was going to ‘ the bay’ to sell 10 lbs. of mushrooms,” Cuenca wrote.
What brought Groves and Koplin to the same area near Palmia Park, and any connection between them, remain unclear. But detectives said surveillance video recorded April 4 shows that a group of people, dressed in all black, approached Groves’ car en masse and that one member of the group “committed the homicide” and then left the car “in possession of the bag of mushrooms that (Groves) intended to sell.”
Not long after, Cuenca wrote, other witness statements allege that Koplin showed up at a nearby apartment rented by a man known to sell marijuana edibles and “illicit psychedelic mushrooms.” Koplin sold a “large bag of mushrooms” to the man, and was dressed in all black, including a black surgical-style mask, the witnesses stated.
Koplin was identified as a suspect after witnesses reportedly recognized his DMV photo presented as part of a photobook lineup, Cuenca wrote, and police later tracked Koplin and Smith through their cell phone signals. They were arrested in Las Vegas by local police.
Upon his arrest, police reported that Koplin’s left hand had a “large white gauze bandage wrapped around the palm and top of his left hand” that was covering a “deep semi-open laceration” that was “in a state of partial healing.”
According to Cuenca, before asking for an attorney, Smyth gave a brief statement to police in which she said “she did not know what to do and wanted to be with Jason.” Koplin “stated that he was coming to Vegas with Violet to get married.”
Authorities have said concerns about COVID-19 have complicated the extradition process for the two defendants, but that transportation back to Santa Clara County is currently being arranged.