Dramatic testimony, evidence continues on the fourth day of the Williams, 35, murder trial

Dramatic testimony and evidence continued apace on the fourth day of a Solano County Superior Court murder trial for a 35-year-old Vacaville man charged with fatally stabbing another man in October 2018 outside a rural Vacaville home.

During the afternoon session in Department 11, Deputy District Attorney Ilana Shapiro had a Solano County Sheriff’s deputy open an evidence bag to reveal a large white Tshirt belonging to Gary Nofuentes, who was one of two men believed to have been stabbed by Kristofer Michael Williams, 33, during a tussle that involved custody of Nofuentes’ 9-year-old daughter.

Standing up in the witness box, the deputy, Santiago Ventura, showed the shirt to the jury and a large, dark blood stain was clearly visible on the lower left.

The stain appeared to suggest a stab wound and Ventura, responding to Shapiro’s questions, indicated earlier in his testimony that Nofuentes, who survived the knifing, had suffered a stab wound on Oct. 23 at a home in the 5800 block of Fry Road.

On cross-examination, Williams’ defense attorney, Daniel Russo, got Ventura to confirm that Nofuentes never told him that he had been assaulted.

Earlier in the session, Ventura told Shapiro that it appeared Nofuentes was intoxicated when he was placed in the deputy’s patrol vehicle at about 10 p.m.

Court records indicate Solano County Sheriff’s investigators said Williams was disturbed by an ongoing child custody battle and believed Nofuentes’ daughter belonged with her mother, Kailyn Scarlett Gibson, who at the time was a friend of Williams and was seeking to gain custody rights in Solano County Family Court. Williams traveled to the home in an attempt to get the girl.

While there, Williams tried to forcefully grab the frightened girl from the arms of Jonathan “Jonny” Russell, 30, of San Francisco, a friend of Nofuentes’, and Williams allegedly stabbed Russell in the neck. A few days later, after being taken to Kaiser Permanente Vacaville Medical Center, Russell was taken off life support and died.

Twice on Wednesday, in the morning and in the afternoon session, Nofuentes’ mother, Karen Rhodes, testified about what she saw and heard on that day.

In the afternoon, Rhodes said she received a call from her granddaughter, who said she was hiding in a closet in the home.

“She was so scared,” Rhodes told Shapiro. “I told her to stay quiet.”

Rhodes also said that her granddaughter said, “Hurry, grandma, hurry.”

Briefly wiping tears away from her face as she testified, Rhodes told Shapiro that she remained on the phone “the entire time” while driving toward the home, where, upon arrival, she “saw the lights” flashing atop public safety vehicles.

“I was frightened for my granddaughter,” said Rhodes, adding, in response to Shapiro’s questioning, that she did not call 911.

“I just tried to keep her on the phone,” said Rhodes. “As long as she was there (in the home), nothing else mattered.”

Upon arrival at the home, Rhodes kept her granddaughter on the phone, then handed the phone to a deputy who spoke with the girl and returned the phone to Rhodes.

“I told her the deputies were coming into the house and everything would be OK,” said Rhodes.

Deputies eventually retrieved the girl and brought her out to Rhodes, who said her granddaughter “was crying and scared” as Rhodes stood by her car, wondering where her son was.

Nofuentes’ friend, Drue R. Hundley, who testified Tuesday, said “Gary had been stabbed,” Rhodes recalled.

Hundley said that during the Oct. 23 confrontation, in the early evening hours, he was some distance away from the tussle and saw Russell “backing away” from Williams and saw Williams trying to grab the girl.

He heard Williams, who was 32 at the time, allegedly tell Russell, “Do you want to be shot or stabbed?”

The girl eventually broke free of Russell and ran toward Hundley, who testified that he heard her exclaim, “Save me!”

“I picked her up and pushed her toward the house and told her to go hide” in the house, he told Shapiro during Tuesday’s afternoon session.

He later said that Russell told him that Williams had stabbed him in the neck, but told Shapiro that he had been distracted for “10 to 15 seconds” while he attended to the frightened young girl’s needs and did not see Williams stab Russell.

Tuesday’s proceedings followed equally dramatic testimony on Sept. 30, when Solano County Sheriff’s Deputy Mark Demarest testified during crossexamination by Russo, that a young, frightened girl inside the home told him the men there were “drunk and crazy.”

Demarest, the first witness in the trial, told Russo that the girl told him that her father and his friends were intoxicated.

Demarest, recalling his search of the home, testified that he came upon Nofuentes lying on a bed in a room in the house. The deputy said he believed that Nofuentes was intoxicated but was not suffering from any apparent injuries.

Dispatchers, he said, also advised him that a child was hiding in a closet in the home. He eventually found the girl in a closet, with Shapiro displaying still images from a deputy’s body camera of the girl sitting in the closet using a glowing electronic device, perhaps a computer tablet or laptop.

Shapiro asked Demarest about the girl’s emotional state, and the deputy described her as “terrified, very nervous,” and that she was crying.

He said that “she wanted her daddy to be OK,” adding that she also said, “Don’t let the bad guys get me.”

Williams was arrested later at his residence in the 600 block of Roscommon Drive in Vacaville.

Dr. Arnold Josselson, a forensic pathologist in Fairfield, who performed the autopsy on Russell and testified during the October 2019 preliminary hearing, said Russell died from the stab wound to the neck.

Judge William J. Pendergast previously severed the trials of people connected to the crime.

Gibson, 31, was initially charged with dissuading a witness; cruelty to a child by inflicting injury; and eavesdropping by recording confidential information. After her arrest on Nov. 16, 2018, she posted a $75,000 bond and was released from custody. She is represented by Fairfield criminal defense attorney Denis Honeychurch. If convicted at trial, Gibson, who returns to court at 8:30 a.m. Dec. 8 to set a preliminary hearing, may face as much as three years in prison.

Also charged in the case is Jessica Anne Weirich, 30, who reportedly drove Williams to the Fry Road home, just south of Elmira. She was initially accused of being an accessory after the fact. After her arrest, also on Nov. 16, she posted a $25,000 bond and was released from the police custody. She is currently represented by defense attorney Barry K. Newman. If she is convicted at trial, Weirich, who also returns to court on Dec. 8 for the same proceedings, likewise may face as much as three years in prison.

In addition to the murder charge, Williams faces four related felony charges. They include kidnapping of a minor under 14; assault with a deadly weapon; child endangerment; and burglary of an inhabited dwelling. He remains without bail in the Stanton Correctional Facility in Fairfield.

During a held-to-answer arraignment in late October 2019, Williams pleaded not guilty to all charges. If found guilty of them all at trial, however, he may face more than 50 years in state prison.

The trial resumes at 10 a.m. today in Department 11 in the Justice Center in Fairfield.

“She was so scared. I told her to stay quiet.” - Karen Rhodes