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Everyone in Turlock thought they knew what happened to Kobe Morrison.

The 26-year-old had vanished one spring night in 2012, and when hunters found his remains 18 months later in a remote stretch of forest, the assumption was simple.

He’d crossed the wrong person while stealing scrap metal and paid for it with his life.

By 2019, after seven years of investigation, a record-breaking 18-month preliminary hearing, and a trial that consumed 14 months, a jury would deliver verdicts that stunned a California community.

What they decided would raise a question that still haunts Turlock.

Was justice served, or was this something else entirely? Subscribe to Greg’s Cold Files and tell us in the comments where you’re watching from and whether you’ve ever seen a case fall apart in court.

Part one, March 2012.

Turlock, California.

The town sat in Stannislaus County where agricultural land stretched in every direction and the central valley heat could make asphalt shimmer by midm morning.

Turlock was the kind of place where everyone recognized each other’s trucks at the gas station, where high school football games drew half the town on Friday nights, and where people still left doors unlocked despite knowing that thefts had become a problem in recent years.

Kobe Morrison lived on the margins of this community.

He was 26 years old, no wife, no children, no steady job that anyone could name.

Morrison made money.

however he could.

And mostly that meant scrap metal, copper wire, steel beams, aluminum siding, anything that could be sold by the pound to recycling yards in Modesto or Series.

Court documents would later establish that Morrison had been arrested multiple times for receiving stolen property.

But people who knew him described someone who wasn’t violent, wasn’t aggressive, just a young man who’d never quite figured out how to fit into conventional life.

His mother would later tell investigators that Kobe had struggled since dropping out of high school.

He’d drift from one living situation to another, sometimes staying with friends, sometimes sleeping in his truck.

She said he’d call her every few days, usually asking for small amounts of money or just to talk.

She said he loved classic rock music, that he’d wanted to learn guitar, but never saved enough to buy one.

Morrison had a truck he was proud of.

A 1998 Ford F-150, dark blue, dented, but functional.

He kept tools in the bed, a comealong winch, bolt cutters, things useful for salvaging metal.

Friends said Morrison could fix almost anything mechanical, that he’d help people with car repairs, usually for beer money or whatever they could spare.

that he was the kind of person who’d give you his last cigarette if you asked.

In small towns, being known for the wrong reasons follows you everywhere.

Morrison was known.

Store owners watched him when he came in.

Police officers recognized his truck.

People made assumptions.

Some of those assumptions were fair.

Some weren’t.

On the evening of March 17th, 2012, Morrison drove to a house on Lander Avenue to visit Michael Brennan.

Brennan was one of Morrison’s few steady friends, someone he’d known since middle school.

Brennan’s house was modest, a rental property with a yard that backed up to a chainlink fence.

On the other side of that fence was a 5 acre property on 9inth Street.

The property belonged to James Dallas.

James Dallas was not someone like Morrison.

Dallas was a prominent criminal defense attorney in the neighboring city of Modesto, successful enough to afford multiple properties, confident enough to run for district attorney in 2014.

He would lose that race to the incumbent Burgett Flatigger, but in March 2012, Dallas was still a figure people respected, or at least didn’t cross lightly.

Dallas had built a career on defending people accused of serious crimes, assault, drug trafficking, murder.

He knew the system inside and out, knew how prosecutors thought, knew which procedural errors could get a case dismissed.

His courtroom style was aggressive, confrontational.

He won cases other attorneys wouldn’t touch.

But Dallas had a problem that his legal skills couldn’t solve.

His Ninth Street property was being robbed repeatedly.

The property itself wasn’t Dallas’s home.

He and his wife Elena lived elsewhere.

The 9inth Street land was 5 acres of mostly empty space in an industrial section of Turlock.

Dallas stored things there, antiques he’d collected over the years, equipment, irrigation pipes, scrap metal.

Ironically enough, the thefts had been going on for years.

Text messages recovered from phones belonging to Elena Dallas and her daughter from a previous marriage, Christina Russo, paint a picture of escalating frustration.

These messages were introduced as evidence during preliminary hearings and span from February 2010 to early 2012.

February 2010, Elena messages Christina, who lived in a small house on the 9inth Street property with her husband.

Peek out the back window, see if anyone’s out there.

Christina lived there as a sort of caretaker, though she had her own life, her own job.

The arrangement was supposed to be simple, live on the property, keep an eye on things, but it became something else.

Another message from Elena.

James is flipping out.

He’ll be packing a gun.

He won’t bother you.

The texts show a pattern.

Dallas installed motion detectors around the property.

He would drive to Turlock from Modesto, park his truck in vacant lots nearby, and watch for hours, sometimes late into the night.

Elena’s messages to Christina asked her to patrol the grounds after dark, wearing dark clothing so she wouldn’t be seen, looking for intruders.

Christina’s frustration comes through clearly in the messages.

I’m a sitting duck out there.

By October 2011, the tone had changed.

Elena wrote to Christina, “Call me or your stepdad if the motion detector starts chirping a lot.

Don’t call the police.

That detail matters because once you notice it, you can’t unsee it.

Dallas didn’t want police involvement.

He wanted to handle this himself.

This wasn’t paranoia.

Police reports confirm that Dallas reported thefts to local authorities multiple times between 2010 and early 2012.

But the reports also show that police had limited success.

No arrests, no recovered property, just documentation that yes, someone had been on the property and yes, things were missing.

In January 2012, 2 months before Morrison disappeared, an officer named Mike Briggs was called to a vacant dirt lot near Lander and Montana avenues.

A business owner in the area had called police to report a suspicious person.

Briggs found James Dallas sitting in his truck.

The officer would later testify about this encounter.

He said Dallas seemed relaxed, not agitated.

Dallas explained he was keeping watch on his property because of repeated thefts.

Briggs noted in his report that Dallas’s 9inth Street property wasn’t actually visible from where Dallas was parked, but Michael Brennan’s house on Lander Avenue was.

Two months later, on March 17th, 2012, Kobe Morrison left Brennan’s house.

Multiple witnesses would later confirm Morrison had been there that evening.

Brennan himself told investigators that Morrison had mentioned wanting to pick up some irrigation pipes.

Brennan said Morrison seemed his usual self.

Not anxious, not worried, just talking about making some money.

Morrison left around 10:30 p.

m.

He got into his blue Ford F-150 and drove away.

The theory, based on investigative work and witness statements, is that Morrison headed toward the 9inth Street property, that he intended to take the irrigation pipes Dallas had stored there, that Morrison saw this as just another salvage job, no different from a dozen others.

He was never seen alive again.

What’s strange is how long it took for anyone to notice.

Morrison didn’t have a conventional life.

No regular job to miss him.

No apartment with rent coming due.

No girlfriend waiting for him to call.

His mother filed a missing person’s report on March 21st, 4 days after he disappeared.

But there was no immediate alarm, no search parties, no local news coverage.

People like Morrison, people on the margins, they disappear from daily life all the time without anyone raising questions right away.

In the official record, Morrison simply stopped existing on March 17th, 2012.

Spring became summer, summer became fall.

The missing person case went cold almost immediately.

Detectives had no leads, no witnesses, no body.

Morrison’s truck was never found.

His bank account showed no activity.

His phone went to voicemail, then eventually got disconnected.

For more than a year, there was nothing.

Then in August 2013, two hunters in the Stannislouse National Forest in neighboring Maraposa County, roughly 80 mi east of Turlock, found human remains in a remote area.

The location was isolated, accessible only by dirt roads that required four-wheel drive.

Dense forest, no cell phone coverage, the kind of place where people dumped things they didn’t want found.

Decomposition was advanced.

16 months in the elements.

Animals had scattered bones.

The hunters initially thought they’d found a deer carcass.

Then they saw the skull.

Identification took time.

By October 2013, authorities confirmed through dental records that the remains belonged to Kobe Morrison.

The death was ruled suspicious.

That’s the term law enforcement used publicly.

Not murder, not homicide, suspicious.

The choice of words tells you something.

There was no way to determine cause of death from the remains.

Too much decomposition.

But the location, the circumstances, the fact that Morrison had been missing for over a year, all pointed to foul play.

Detectives began working backward.

Who had seen Morrison last? Where had he been going? What had he been doing? Michael Brennan told them Morrison had left his house on March 17th, 2012, heading toward what Brennan assumed was the 9inth Street property.

Morrison had mentioned irrigation pipes.

The investigation began to focus on a specific area, James Dallas’s property, and a liquor store called The Poppin Cork on East Avenue in Turlock.

The Poppin Cork was owned by two brothers, Rajie and Deepac Patel.

They’d immigrated to the United States from India in the late 1990s, worked hard, saved money, and eventually purchased the small convenience store.

It was the kind of place that sold lottery tickets, cheap beer, and stayed open until 2:00 a.

m.

The brothers worked long hours.

They hired local help when they could find people willing to work those hours for minimum wage.

One of the people they hired was Robert Wilson.

Wilson was 38 in 2012.

He had a history with law enforcement, petty crimes, drug possession, receiving stolen property.

He was exactly the kind of person who drifted in and out of police attention without ever quite disappearing from it.

Wilson had worked odd jobs for the Patel brothers over the years, stocking shelves, working the register, doing maintenance work on the building.

The brothers knew Wilson used drugs.

They knew he wasn’t reliable.

But in a small town, you take the help you can get.

Court records show that Wilson also knew James Dallas, at least peripherally.

In January 2012, Dallas had represented Wilson in a receiving stolen property case.

The charge was eventually dropped.

It’s unclear whether Dallas represented Wilson as a favor to the Patel brothers or for some other reason.

What’s documented is that the connection existed.

There was something else.

The Poppin Cork liquor store on East Avenue sat on a piece of property that shared a lot line with James Dallas’s 9th Street land.

The properties weren’t adjacent in the traditional sense, but they were close.

Walking distance.

What follows is a reconstruction based on available court testimony and investigative records, though not all details are officially confirmed.

In early 2014, after months of investigation, detectives believed they had enough to make an arrest.

Not of James Dallas, not of the Patel brothers, but of Robert Wilson.

On March 6th, 2014, Stannislaus County Sheriff’s deputies arrested Wilson at his apartment.

The charges were severe.

Murder, conspiracy, and a special enhancement for lying in weight.

Wilson was the only person arrested.

For more than a year, he sat in the Stannislaus County Jail, the sole publicly identified suspect in Morrison’s death.

But the criminal complaint hinted at something larger.

It referenced co-conspirators identified only as B, C, and D.

No names, just letters.

The document alleged that Wilson and co-conspirator B had threatened a witness on behalf of co-conspirator C.

That co-conspirator C had promised to provide legal representation and bail money if Wilson was arrested.

That co-conspirators B and D had paid for Wilson to leave the area to avoid becoming a witness or suspect.

This detail appears in early reports, then disappears from subsequent coverage.

The local newspaper, the Modesto B, reported on the arrest, but noted that authorities wouldn’t comment on who the unnamed co-conspirators might be.

One detail stood out.

When Wilson appeared in court for his arraignment, Judge Ricardo Cordova recused himself from the case.

He didn’t explain why, but he noted that the rest of the judges in the Stannislaus County Courthouse would likely recuse themselves, too, if the three other people were charged.

The implication was clear.

The unnamed co-conspirators had connections to the courthouse.

Maybe they were attorneys.

Maybe they’d appeared before these judges in other cases.

Something about their identity made it impossible for local judges to remain impartial.

The preliminary hearing for Wilson’s case never happened as scheduled.

Instead, something else was unfolding behind the scenes.

Investigators were working on Wilson, questioning him repeatedly, recording conversations, building pressure.

In February 2014, shortly before Wilson’s arrest, investigators made an unusual move.

They asked Wilson’s girlfriend to secretly record him.

She agreed.

The recording, later introduced as evidence in court proceedings, captured Wilson making extraordinary claims.

Wilson told his girlfriend he had killed Morrison alone, that he’d pulled out Morrison’s teeth with pliers, that he’d burned Morrison’s hair to prevent identification, that he’d fed the remains to pigs on a property somewhere outside Turlock.

The girlfriend, following investigator instructions, didn’t challenge these statements.

She just let Wilson talk.

Weeks later, after his arrest, Wilson was confronted with the recording.

He told investigators he’d been lying to his girlfriend.

He said he wanted to sound tough, wanted to impress her.

He admitted being high on methamphetamine when the conversation took place.

Think about that for a moment.

A man who would soon be arrested for murder tells his girlfriend an elaborate story about disposing of a body in the most gruesome way possible.

When confronted by police, he says it was all a lie, that he made it up to sound impressive while high on drugs.

The prosecution believed the recording was significant regardless of whether the specific details were true.

Wilson had placed himself at the center of Morrison’s death.

He couldn’t claim complete ignorance.

He couldn’t say he knew nothing about what happened.

So Wilson started talking to investigators, but his story kept changing.

And that’s where this case quietly begins to change into something else.

March 2014, Wilson is interrogated by investigator Kirk Bunch and Detective John Evers from the Modesto Police Department.

Audio recordings and transcripts from this session were presented during court proceedings years later.

The interrogation follows a pattern.

Bunch does most of the talking.

He tells Wilson what investigators already know.

He suggests scenarios.

He fills in details.

Bunch asks Wilson about the 9inth Street property.

Wilson initially denies being there when Morrison was killed.

He denies seeing anything.

He knows nothing.

Then Wilson asks for a bathroom break.

The recording stops.

When Wilson returns from the bathroom, something has shifted.

Now he says maybe he was there.

Maybe he saw something.

Maybe he was on Dallas’s property the night Morrison disappeared.

Defense attorneys would later argue that this unrecorded bathroom break was the turning point.

That during those minutes, Wilson realized what investigators wanted from him.

that he understood the only way out of a potential death penalty was to give them a story they could use.

The interrogation transcript shows Bunch being the first to mention specific details that Morrison’s fingers and toes might have been cut off, that the body might have been buried near the Poppin Cork store, that the Patel Brothers truck might have been burned to destroy evidence.

Wilson in the transcript initially responds to these suggestions with confusion.

Then gradually he begins to incorporate them into his narrative.

By the summer of 2014, Wilson’s attorney was bringing him back to investigators for additional questioning.

Defense attorney Hans Hertton would later read from a transcript in court where Wilson’s lawyer, Martin Baker, told an investigator, “I want to close this case.

I don’t want to be stuck in a six-month murder trial with this guy.

” The implication, according to defense attorneys, was clear.

Baker wanted Wilson to cooperate to give investigators what they needed so that Wilson could get a plea deal and avoid trial entirely.

Over the course of 2014 and into 2015, Wilson’s story solidified.

He now claimed that he had been at the Popp and Cork store on the night Morrison disappeared, that Rajie and Deepac Patel had gotten a call, that they went to the 9inth Street property, that Wilson went with them.

According to Wilson’s
evolving account, Morrison had been on the property trying to steal irrigation pipes.

The Patel brothers confronted him.

A fight broke out.

Deepac Patel pulled out a gun and shot Morrison.

Wilson claimed he’d been terrified, that the brothers threatened him, that they forced him to help move the body, clean the scene, hide evidence.

In Wilson’s version of events, they buried Morrison’s body in a shallow grave on a vacant lot next to the Poppin Cork store.

It stayed there for 27 days.

Then, according to Wilson, they dug it up and drove it to the Stannislouse National Forest, where they left it in a remote area to be scattered by animals.

Wilson claimed the Patel brothers told him that if he ever talked to police, they’d kill him, too.

This version of events became the foundation of the prosecution’s case.

On August 13th, 2015, more than three years after Morrison disappeared, Stannislaus County Sheriff’s deputies executed a coordinated series of arrests.

The operation was designed to be high-profile to send a message.

Nine people were taken into custody.

James Dallas, the attorney, Elena Dallas, his wife.

Christina Russo, Elena’s daughter.

Rajie Patel, Deepak Patel, Robert Wilson, who was already in jail but now formally charged alongside the others and three law enforcement officers.

Walter Thompson, a California Highway Patrol officer who had been with the agency for over a decade.

Scott Davidson, another CHP officer.

Eduardo Herrera Jr.

, also with CHP.

The charges were staggering.

Dallas, his wife, and the Patel brothers were charged with murder and conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Elena Dallas was also charged separately with lying to investigators.

Christina Russo was charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice and being an accessory after the fact.

The three CHP officers were charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice and being accessories.

The prosecution’s theory, as laid out by Chief Deputy District Attorney Marisa Ferrer, was this.

James Dallas, frustrated by years of theft, had recruited a group of people to send a violent message to anyone stealing from him.

Dallas had connections to the Patel Brothers through business dealings.

The brothers employed Wilson.

When Morrison was caught on the 9inth Street property in March 2012, the plan went into effect.

Morrison was killed.

The CHP officers, who were friends with Dallas and frequented the Poppin Cork store, helped cover it up by discouraging other officers from investigating too thoroughly.

Sheriff Adam Christensen held a press conference announcing the arrests.

He stood at a podium with the American flag behind him, flanked by investigators.

His message was clear.

Justice for Kobe Morrison was finally coming, even though it had taken 3 years.

But there’s something unsettling about the way this unfolded.

All nine defendants emphatically denied involvement.

James Dallas, a criminal defense attorney with decades of experience, knew exactly how the system worked.

He knew how prosecutors built cases.

He hired Percy Martinez, another prominent attorney, to represent him.

The Patel brothers hired their own investigators.

They claimed they were being harassed by law enforcement.

Rajie Patel recorded an interaction with investigator Kirk Bunch and detective John Evers that took place at the Poppin Cork store in April 2014, months before the arrests.

In the recording, Bunch can be heard telling Rajie that Robert Wilson had talked to investigators, that Wilson’s statements implicated Rajie and his brother.

Rajie in the recording sounds confused.

He keeps saying he doesn’t know what Wilson is talking about, that he never went to Dallas’s property, that he’s never hurt anyone.

Bunch responds, “What if Robert says that you were on James’ property and that you were beating up Kobe?” Rajie, buddy, he’s lying.

I never went to James’s property.

The Patel brothers hired a private investigator named Dop Camo, who specialized in police misconduct cases.

Camo claimed investigators had been to the Pop and Cork location 15 times since the initial searches in March 2014.

that detectives would come inside, talk to Rajie while he was ringing up customers, ask leading questions, then stand outside and talk to people in the neighborhood.

Camo alleged that investigators made disparaging comments about the brothers to customers trying to intimidate people away from the business.

The chief investigator for the district attorney’s office, Dan Indbitson, denied these allegations.

He said investigators had acted appropriately and by the book, but the pattern defense attorneys pointed to was this.

The prosecution seemed to be applying pressure everywhere on Wilson who faced death penalty on other potential witnesses, offering them deals on unrelated cases if they provided helpful testimony on the Patel brothers through repeated visits and questioning.

The preliminary hearing began in October 2015, 2 months after the arrests.

It was held not in the main Stannislaus County courthouse, but in a former federal bankruptcy court building that had been leased specifically to handle this case.

All the local judges had recused themselves just as predicted.

Judge Barbara Zuniga, a visiting judge from Contra Costa County, was assigned to preside.

What no one anticipated was how long the preliminary hearing would take.

Normally, a preliminary hearing lasts days, maybe a couple of weeks at most.

It’s just a threshold proceeding to determine if there’s enough evidence to go to trial.

This one would last 18 months.

Testimony began with technical matters, cell phone records, text messages between Elena Dallas and Christina Russo showing the escalating frustration over thefts.

Police reports documenting Dallas’s complaints to local authorities.

Then witnesses began to appear and the prosecution’s case started to show cracks.

Deputy public defender Benjamin Rosenstein took the stand in November 2015.

He wasn’t there as a defendant.

He was there as a witness called by the defense to testify about promises made to his clients.

Rosenstein represented Michael Brennan, Morrison’s friend, in two unrelated drug cases.

He also represented Ronald Cooper Jr.

, another witness the prosecution planned to call.

Rosenstein testified that his clients had been promised leniency in exchange for their testimony against Dallas and the others.

That different prosecutors kept appearing in court for the drug cases, each time asking to delay proceedings.

That it was understood without being explicitly stated in court documents that these delays were happening so that deals could be worked out related to the Morrison case.

I’m aware of the promise that’s been made.

Rosenstein testified.

I didn’t have to inquire.

I knew why.

He said, “Investigator Kirk Bunch had told Ronald Cooper directly.

I’m not going to leave you hanging.

” Chief Deputy DA Marisa Ferrer pushed back.

She argued that no formal deals had been finalized, that she couldn’t disclose agreements that didn’t exist yet.

But the implication hung in the courtroom.

Witnesses were being incentivized to provide helpful testimony.

Then Robert Wilson’s mother took the stand.

Beverly Wilson testified that her son had called her on the morning after Morrison was killed.

That he told her Morrison had been shot on Dallas’s property, that Dallas and his co-conspirators had set a trap, that the Patel brothers fought with Morrison, that Deepac Patel shot him, that Robert was forced to help clean up.

It was powerful testimony, a mother recounting her son’s confession hours after an alleged murder.

But Judge Zuniga threw it out.

She ruled that Beverly Wilson’s testimony was hearsay and didn’t qualify under exceptions to that rule.

More importantly, she noted that Robert Wilson’s statements to his mother minimized his own involvement.

He’d portrayed himself as a reluctant participant, intimidated into helping.

that made the statement self-serving, not against his own interests.

What he admits to is being a reluctant accessory.

Judge Zuniga said had his statements not reduced his responsibility in the alleged crime, his mother’s testimony would have been admissible.

The ruling meant the judge wouldn’t consider that testimony when deciding whether to send the case to trial.

Months passed, the hearing continued, and then in July 2016, 9 months into the proceedings, something extraordinary happened.

Martin Baker, Robert Wilson’s attorney, sent a letter to Chief Deputy District Attorney Marisa Ferrer.

The letter was read aloud in open court on July 29th, 2016.

In it, Baker wrote that Wilson wanted to recant portions of his testimony, specifically the parts about seeing James Dallas and CHP officer Walter Thompson at the 9inth Street property on the night Morrison was killed.

Wilson now said he had never seen Dallas or Thompson there, that he’d lied during a July 22nd, 2016 interview at the district attorney’s office, that he felt pressured after a visit from his mother to add certain embellishments to his story.

Baker wrote that Wilson
wanted to apologize for providing your office with information which he knew to be false.

This wasn’t a small detail.

This was the prosecution’s key witness, admitting he’d fabricated seeing the alleged ring leader at the crime scene.

Defense attorney Robert Forner, representing Christina Russo, told reporters, “This case is falling apart.

” But the prosecution didn’t drop the charges.

Chief Deputy DA Ferrer argued that Wilson’s recantation only affected specific portions of his testimony.

that the core of his account seeing the Patel brothers kill Morrison remained consistent.

Judge Zuniga ruled that the hearing would continue.

Months turned into more than a year.

Testimony continued.

Technical experts, phone records, financial documents.

The prosecution tried to show that Dallas had motive, means, and opportunity.

The defense systematically dismantled each piece of evidence showing alternative explanations highlighting inconsistencies.

In December 2016, the judge made a significant ruling.

She informed the prosecution that they would no longer be allowed to pursue murder charges against CHP officer Walter Thompson.

His bail, which had been set at $10 million, was reduced to 50,000.

Thompson, who had spent 16 months in jail awaiting trial, was released.

His attorney noted that even if Thompson were convicted of the remaining conspiracy charges, he’d already served more time than the likely sentence.

In April 2017, after 18 months, the preliminary hearing finally ended.

Judge Zuniga’s rulings were mixed.

She dismissed all charges against Elena Dallas and Christina Russo, finding insufficient evidence that either woman had participated in or knew about any murder.

She dismissed charges against CHP officer Eduardo Herrera Jr.

, stating flatly that prosecutors had presented no evidence of his involvement.

The case against CHP officer Scott Davidson was also dismissed, though prosecutors would later refile charges only to have them dismissed again by a different judge.

But Judge Zuniga ordered three defendants to stand trial.

James Dallas, Rajie Patel, and Deepak Patel.

The murder trial was scheduled to begin in April 2018.

By that point, Elena Dallas and Christina Russo had already filed civil lawsuits in federal court against Stannislaus County, the district attorney’s office, and specific investigators.

They claimed wrongful prosecution, violation of civil rights, malicious prosecution.

Eduardo Herrera Jr.

filed a similar lawsuit claiming his career as a CHP officer had been destroyed by false accusations.

Those lawsuits were put on hold pending the outcome of the criminal trial.

7 years had passed since Kobe Morrison disappeared.

The preliminary hearing alone had cost Stannislaus County millions of dollars.

A columnist for the Modesto B filed a public records request asking for a total cost accounting.

The county council’s office denied the request, stating that the district attorney’s office didn’t track time spent on specific cases, and even if such records existed, they would be exempt from disclosure under the Public
Records Act.

Unsubstantiated estimates ranged from $4 million to $7 million.

The trial began in April 2018.

14 months later, in June 2019, it would finally go to the jury.

Everything rested on Robert Wilson’s testimony.

Without him, there was no case, no witnesses placing the defendants at the scene, no physical evidence directly linking them to Morrison’s death, just Wilson’s word and the question of whether anyone could believe him.

Part two.

April 2018, Stannislaus County Superior Court.

The trial began 14 months after the preliminary hearing ended.

By the time jury selection finished and opening statements were delivered, 7 weeks had passed.

The case had already consumed years.

Now, it would consume more than a year of trial time.

Chief Deputy District Attorney Marisa Ferrer stood before the jury and laid out the prosecution’s theory.

She spoke for hours, walking the jurors through text messages, phone records, witness statements.

She described James Dallas as a man who’d become obsessed with stopping thieves, who’d recruited others to help him, who’d created a conspiracy that ended with Kobe Morrison dead in a forest.

Ferrer told the jury about Robert Wilson.

She acknowledged that Wilson had changed his story multiple times, that he’d lied about some details, but she argued that the core of his testimony remained consistent.

The Patel brothers had killed Morrison on Dallas’s property, and Wilson had been forced to help cover it up.

The defense attorneys took a different approach.

Percy Martinez representing James Dallas told the jury that this case was about something else entirely.

About a district attorney’s office that had lost an election to Dallas in 2014 and wanted revenge.

About investigators who decided Dallas was guilty and then worked backward to build a case, feeding information to a witness who would say anything to avoid death row.

Hans Jertensson representing Deepac Patel focused on Robert Wilson’s credibility.

He reminded the jury that Wilson had confessed to killing Morrison alone, that Wilson had later blamed the Patel brothers, that Wilson had then added James Dallas and CHP officers to his story, that Wilson had recanted seeing Dallas and the officers.

that Wilson’s testimony was in Yertensson’s words scripted by law enforcement.

Jai Gohel representing Rajie Patel argued that investigators had used leading questions during interrogations that they’d suggested details to Wilson, that Wilson had simply adopted the prosecution’s theory as his own.

The trial proceeded slowly.

Witnesses testified.

Phone records were analyzed.

cell tower data was presented and challenged.

The prosecution tried to show that calls from Morrison’s phone and calls from various defendants phones had connected through the same cell tower sector on the night Morrison disappeared.

The defense pointed out that cell tower coverage in that area was broad, that most of Turlock and the southern part of Modesto were covered by the same towers, that defendants, Morrison, and dozens of other people all lived, worked, and shopped in that coverage area, that the cell phone evidence proved nothing except that people’s phones were in the general
vicinity of where they lived.

Weeks became months.

The jury heard from dozens of witnesses.

Some had been promised leniency in unrelated cases.

Some had been threatened with prosecution if they didn’t cooperate.

Some simply had information that might be relevant.

Then in late October 2018, the prosecution called Gary Clayton Harmer to the stand.

Hmer specialized in DNA analysis.

He worked for the cerological research institute in Richmond analyzing biological evidence for civil and criminal cases.

Stannislaus County investigators had hired him to examine evidence from the Morrison case.

One piece of evidence was particularly significant, a fired bullet that had been recovered embedded in dirt at the location where Morrison’s remains were found.

Hmer testified that he’d found DNA on the bullet.

multiple contributors.

The major DNA profile matched Kobe Morrison.

This suggested the bullet had been fired through Morrison’s body, but there was another DNA profile on the bullet, a major contributor, unidentified, Harour had been given DNA samples from James Dallas, Rajie Patel, and Deepak Patel for comparison.

He’d also been given samples from Robert Wilson and from the other people who’d been arrested and later cleared.

None of them matched the unidentified major DNA profile on the bullet.

Defense attorney Jai Goell asked Harour directly.

So the DNA on the bullet doesn’t match any of the defendants.

Harour confirmed that’s correct.

I was able to rule out each of the persons that were submitted to me except for Kobe Morrison.

Gohel pressed further.

Did investigators ask you to submit the unidentified DNA profile to the national database? Harour said they had not.

He explained that the combined DNA index system maintained by the FBI included DNA samples from convicted offenders across the country.

It also included unidentified DNA from evidence which was compared against the database every 2 weeks.

Harour testified that he had enough DNA information from the unidentified profile to meet FBI requirements for submission, but Stannislaus County investigators never asked him to do it.

Think about that detail.

There was DNA on the bullet that killed Morrison.

That DNA didn’t match any of the defendants, and investigators chose not to check if it matched anyone in a national database of convicted criminals.

The prosecution argued this didn’t prove the defendants were innocent, that the DNA could have gotten on the bullet in other ways, that someone loading the bullet into a gun’s magazine could have left DNA, that the DNA evidence was interesting but not exculpatory.

The defense argued the opposite, that if the prosecution’s theory was correct, if Deeppac Patel had shot Morrison, then Deeppac’s DNA should be on the bullet, or at minimum, someone involved in the conspiracy should match.

The fact that an unidentified person’s DNA was on the murder weapon and that investigators didn’t even try to identify that person suggested the prosecution had arrested the wrong people.

The trial continued through the end of 2018 and into 2019.

Robert Wilson finally took the stand in the spring of 2019.

Wilson testified that he’d been at the Popp and Cork store on the night of March 17th, 2012 that the Patel brothers got a call that they told Wilson to come with them that they drove to the 9inth Street property.

According to Wilson’s testimony, Morrison was there trying to steal irrigation pipes.

The Patel brothers confronted him.

A fight started.

Deepac Patel pulled out a gun and shot Morrison.

Wilson said the brothers threatened him, told him if he ever talked to police they’d kill him, forced him to help move the body.

Wilson testified they buried Morrison near the Poppin Cork store, that the body stayed there for 27 days, that they then dug it up, drove it to the forest, and left it there.

The cross-examination was brutal.

Defense attorneys confronted Wilson with every version of his story.

The version where he killed Morrison alone and fed him to pigs.

The version where he didn’t include James Dallas.

The version where he added Dallas and CHP officers, then took them back out.

The version where he said Deepak Patel had a gun, then said he didn’t, then said he did again.

Wilson’s explanations were inconsistent.

Sometimes he said he’d been high on drugs.

Sometimes he said investigators had pressured him.

Sometimes he said he’d been trying to protect people.

Sometimes he admitted he’d been lying.

Hans Hertinson walked Wilson through the March 2014 interrogation transcript.

He showed how investigator Bunch had been the first to mention severed fingers and toes.

how Bunch had suggested the body was buried near the liquor store, how Bunch had proposed that the Patel brothers truck was burned.

Hansen asked, “Did you know these details, or did investigator Bunch tell them to you?” Wilson struggled to answer.

He said he couldn’t remember who said what first, that it had been a long time ago, that he’d been confused and scared.

Hertinson read from Wilson’s own attorney’s statement to investigators.

I want to close this case.

I don’t want to be stuck in a six-month murder trial with this guy.

He asked Wilson.

Your own lawyer wanted you to give investigators what they needed so you could get a deal.

Correct? Wilson admitted.

Yes.

Jai Goell showed the jury maps and drawings Wilson had made during interrogations.

detailed sketches showing where James Dallas had supposedly been standing, where CHP Officer Walter Thompson’s car had been parked, specific locations, specific positions.

Go hell reminded the jury.

Mr.

Wilson later admitted all of that was a lie.

He never saw Dallas or Thompson there.

He made it up.

But look at the detail.

Look at how specific he was.

This is what Mr.

Wilson does when he lies.

He gives you elaborate details to make it sound true.

The prosecution’s rebuttal was straightforward.

Ferrer argued that yes, Wilson had lied about some things, but that didn’t mean he’d lied about everything.

That the core testimony about the Patel brothers killing Morrison had remained consistent even when other details changed.

She pointed out that Wilson had agreed to a plea deal that would send him to prison for 7 years and 4 months, that he wasn’t walking away from this, that he had nothing to gain by continuing to lie.

But there’s something that doesn’t quite add up about that argument.

Wilson had been arrested in March 2014 facing murder charges with a possible death penalty.

He’d spent more than a year in jail as the only suspect.

Then in August 2015, eight other people were arrested.

Suddenly, Wilson wasn’t alone anymore.

He was a cooperating witness with a plea deal that would give him less than 8 years in prison.

The defense argued Wilson had every reason to stick with whatever story the prosecution wanted because the alternative was going back to facing a murder charge by himself.

The trial stretched into its 14th month.

Closing arguments began in midJune 2019.

Marisa Ferrer spoke to the jury for hours over multiple days.

She walked through every piece of evidence, the text messages showing Dallas’s escalating frustration, the phone records placing people in the general area, Wilson’s testimony about what he’d witnessed.

She acknowledged the DNA
evidence didn’t match the defendants, but she argued this wasn’t exculpatory, that there could be innocent explanations for unidentified DNA on a bullet.

Ferrer told the jury this wasn’t about whether Wilson was a perfect witness.

It was about whether his core testimony, corroborated by other evidence, proved the defendants guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The defense closing arguments took a different tone.

Hans Hertinson told the jury that investigators had an agenda from the beginning.

That they’d decided James Dallas was guilty because he’d challenged the district attorney in an election.

That they’d worked backward from that conclusion, feeding information to Robert Wilson until Wilson gave them a story they could use.

Hertinson argued, “They had an agenda.

Robert Woody gives you the reason why you should acquit.

It’s investigator Bunch’s theory.

And now Wilson’s trying to adopt that theory.

He told the jury to look at the interrogation transcripts to see how investigators suggested details, how they told Wilson what they already knew and just needed him to confirm.

How Wilson facing death penalty slowly adopted their version of events.

Jai Gohel focused on the DNA evidence.

He told the jury this wasn’t a minor detail.

This was the murder weapon, the bullet that killed Kobe Morrison, and it had DNA from an unidentified person who wasn’t any of the defendants.

Gohel argued if the prosecution’s theory is correct, Deepak Patel’s DNA should be on that bullet or Rajie’s or Robert Wilson’s or someone’s DNA who was actually there.

But it’s not.

It’s someone we can’t identify.

Someone investigators didn’t even try to identify because if they found out who it really was, this whole case falls apart.

Percy Martinez representing Dallas argued that his client had become a target because he’d beaten the district attorney’s office in court too many times, that he’d embarrassed them by running against the incumbent DA, that this prosecution was revenge dressed up as justice.

Martinez pointed to the fact that six of the nine original defendants had been cleared of charges, that judges had looked at the evidence and found it insufficient, that only Wilson’s word stood between the remaining defendants and a quiddle.

On June 26th, 2019, Judge Barbara Zuniga gave the jury their instructions.

She explained the law, what murder meant, what conspiracy meant, what reasonable doubt meant.

The jury began deliberations.

Two days later, on June 28th, 2019, the jury returned their verdict.

Not guilty on all counts.

James Dallas, Rajie Patel, Deepac Patel.

The courtroom erupted.

Families of the defendants wept.

Defense attorneys embraced their clients.

Dallas, who’d spent months in jail before being released on bail, stood quietly as the verdicts were read.

The Patel brothers, who’d remained in custody throughout the trial, were released immediately.

Outside the courthouse, Jai Goell spoke to reporters.

He was angry.

They should drop the charges against the CHP officers immediately.

He said they took these officers careers.

They destroyed lives.

The jury has determined that Carson and his codefendants did not kill Kobe Morrison.

It’s over.

Marlisa Ferrer declined to comment, citing professional responsibility rules about pending cases.

The cases against CHP officers Walter Thompson and Scott Davidson were still technically active, though both had been dismissed at various stages and refiled.

After the verdicts in the Dallas trial, prosecutors quietly dropped those cases.

No press conference, no explanation.

The charges simply disappeared from court records.

Robert Wilson remained in custody.

His plea deal was finalized in August 2019.

He was sentenced to 7 years and 4 months in prison.

Given credit for time served since his 2014 arrest, Wilson would be eligible for parole in less than two years.

At his sentencing hearing, Wilson made a brief statement.

He apologized to Morrison’s family.

He said he wished he’d told the truth from the beginning.

He didn’t elaborate on what the truth was.

The civil lawsuits filed by Elena Dallas, Christina Russo, and Eduardo Herrera Jr.

proceeded.

As of the records available, those cases were still pending with both sides engaged in discovery and depositions.

The question of what actually happened to Kobe Morrison on March 17th, 2012 remained unanswered.

The jury didn’t find that Dallas and the Patel brothers were innocent.

They found that the prosecution hadn’t proven guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

There’s a difference.

But in the American justice system, that difference is everything.

Some facts are established.

Morrison disappeared that night.

His remains were found 16 months later with a bullet fired through his body.

Someone killed him.

Someone moved his body to that remote forest location.

But who? The prosecution’s answer was Dallas, the Patel brothers, and their co-conspirators.

The jury’s answer was, “The evidence doesn’t prove that.

” Wilson’s answer kept changing depending on when you asked him.

The unidentified DNA on the bullet might have provided an answer, but investigators never pursued it.

The major DNA profile on the murder weapon belongs to someone who was never identified, never questioned, never charged.

Morrison’s mother gave a statement to local media after the verdicts.

She said she didn’t know what to believe anymore, that she wanted justice for her son, that she felt like she’d never get it, that everyone involved seemed more interested in winning than in finding out what really happened.

Her name was Patricia Morrison.

She’d sat through portions of the preliminary hearing and most of the trial.

Reporters noted that she often sat alone in the gallery watching testimony, taking notes on a yellow legal pad.

She never spoke to the defendants or their families.

She never made a scene.

She just watched day after day as lawyers argued about her son’s death.

After Robert Wilson testified, a reporter asked Patricia what she thought.

She said she didn’t know if Wilson was telling the truth, that she wanted to believe someone was finally being held accountable, but that something felt wrong about the whole thing, that her son deserved better than this.

She told the Modesto bee in an interview that Kobe had called her on Friday evening, March 16th, that he’d sounded good, upbeat, that he’d told her he had some work lined up, that he was going to start saving money, that he’d promised to come by for Sunday dinner the next day.

He never showed up.

She called his phone Sunday afternoon.

It went to voicemail.

She called Monday.

Voicemail again.

By Tuesday, she knew something was wrong.

The police told her that young men like Kobe sometimes took off for a while, that he’d probably turn up.

She’d filed the report anyway, insisting something had happened to her son.

She was right.

But being right didn’t make the answers any easier to accept.

After the verdicts, Patricia stood outside the courthouse and told reporters she felt empty, that she’d hoped the trial would give her closure, that she’d hoped to understand what happened to Kobe.

Instead, she had more questions than before.

“I still don’t know who killed my son,” she said.

Her voice was steady, but her hands shook.

“I know the jury did their job.

I know they looked at the evidence, but somewhere out there is the person who did this and they’re still walking around.

She was probably right about that, too.

The preliminary hearing lasted 18 months.

The trial lasted 14 months.

Nine people were arrested.

Six were eventually cleared.

Three went to trial and were acquitted.

One pleaded guilty to a version of events that kept changing.

The cost to Stannislouse County was never officially disclosed, but estimates ranged as high as $7 million.

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