Jury finds Jamestown man guilty of manslaughter, not murder
A Tuolumne County Superior Court jury found a Jamestown man guilty of manslaughter on Wednesday for running over and killing another Jamestown man with a pickup truck last year before fleeing the scene, county Public Defender Scott Gross announced.
Dylan Colby Moyle, 29, was also accused by the county District Attorney’s Office of first- and second-degree murder charges in the death of Matthew Winks, 42, but the jury found him not guilty of those charges, Gross said.
“The defense wishes to thank the jury for all their efforts and their time,” Gross said Wednesday in prepared remarks. “We owe them a debt of gratitude.”
Moyle faces a maximum of 11 years in state prison and is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 3, Gross said, though he declined to provide further comment about the case until after the hearing.
The jury deliberated over three days — from 4:30 p.m. Monday to 3 p.m. Wednesday — after a fourday trial and jury selection, said Assistant District Attorney Eric Hovatter, who prosecuted the case.
“I feel there was enough evidence to convict for first-degree murder,” Hovatter said Thursday, “but as a prosecutor I respect the jury system, and the jury has spoken.”
Moyle was accused of deliberately running over Winks, who was on foot, with a white 1998 Ford F-150 in the area of Fifth Avenue and Seventh Street in Jamestown on Oct. 3, 2020, before leaving the scene and ditching the pickup on rural U.S. Forest Service land days later.
A manhunt for Moyle ensued until California Highway Patrol found and arrested him 10 days after the incident at a Bass Pro Shop in Manteca.
Moyle had $2,800 in cash, an identification card that resembled him but did not match his name, and a bill of sale for the suspect vehicle at the time of his arrest, CHP Officer Anthony Palazuelos, an investigator with the agency’s Central Division Office in Fresno, testified at Moyle’s preliminary hearing in February.
Palazuelos also cited messages
Moyle sent to a woman, who was possibly his girlfriend and had a previous relationship with Winks, in which he told her he gave Winks a “love tap” with his vehicle because Winks had earlier shattered the windows of the F-150.
At the end of the preliminary hearing, Hovatter argued that Moyle was aware of the previous relationship between Winks and the woman.
Hovatter also noted in his closing arguments at the preliminary hearing that a surveillance camera showed the F-150 “blowing through” a stop sign seconds after Winks was seen walking past in the same footage.
Gross said at the preliminary hearing that the evidence provided was insufficient to hold Moyle to account for murder, which would require Hovatter to prove implied malice, noting none of the videos referenced in CHP testimony were shown in court.
Tuolumne County Superior Court Presiding Judge Kevin Seibert ultimately ruled at the preliminary hearing that there was enough evidence against Moyle to advance the case toward trial.