Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers. And I'm Britt. And the story I have for you today is about a young man who heads off to college in one of the most beautiful places in the nation with dreams of becoming a lawyer. Instead, he is stabbed to death at an off-campus party. But a case that seemed straightforward when it began proves to be anything but that. And years later, his mom is still fighting for justice and praying that someone will come forward with the information needed to finally close this case. This is the story of David Josiah Lawson.
It's about 3 a.m. on Saturday, April 15, 2017, in the small California city of Arcata. That's when a 911 call comes in. The caller tells a dispatcher that a group of people outside his neighbor's place are screaming and getting into a fight. And within a minute, another 911 call comes in. It's not just a fight. Someone has been stabbed twice. Then another call about someone at the party who has a knife and even possibly a gun. So whatever's going down is going downhill fast. Right. They need to get someone out there right away. By 3.05 a.m., three officers from the Arcata Police Department arrive separately at the scene, and it is pure chaos.
And all of this is going down in this like super cramped cul-de-sac that is shared by four houses with these cars parked all along either side. There's anywhere from 50 to 100 people outside. Some are spilling into the street, running around, some are leaving. And through the screaming and crying, police learned that a young man had been stabbed and is desperately in need of an ambulance. Now, not only that, but witnesses quickly point out the guy that they say stabbed him. He is still there in the crowd being held up by two young women. And this dude definitely looks like he's been in a fight. His clothes are bloody, his right eye is all swollen, and he's bleeding from his nose and mouth.
So this guy and the two women that are holding him up, they try and walk past the police. But one of the officers actually handcuffs the man and puts him in his cruiser. The other two officers go to find the victim. Now, he's on the east side of the cul-de-sac laying face up in a front yard between a couple of hedges. And he's surrounded by a group of like 10 to 15 people. One of them is giving him CPR. Others are holding his hands. Some are trying to elevate his legs. They've got his shirt pulled up and he's bleeding from two visible stab wounds. And things aren't looking good. I mean, there's foam around his mouth and they can tell that his condition is grave.
Firefighters and EMTs arrive at 310, and they pull the victim out from the bushes to this more open area, which is an upsetting sight that riles everyone up even more. Like, this crowd is angry. They're getting really scared. The ambulance hasn't arrived yet. People are starting to panic. I mean, literally, it's like chaos. There's pushing and shoving, and first responders are starting to get, like, freaked out. Yeah, I mean, I'm getting anxious just hearing about it. I'm sure it was terrifying and confusing for everyone there. Absolutely. And it gets even worse because when police request more units to help, there aren't any available. Basically, they're on their own.
Finally, at 3.15, the ambulance gets there. And four minutes after that, the victim is on the way to the hospital with lots of partygoers not too far behind. Once the scene clears out a little, police try and get a sense of what they're dealing with. They see pools of blood on the pavement, and they find a kitchen knife under a red Ford Mustang that is parked on the west side of the cul-de-sac, the opposite side that the victim was found on. Now, meanwhile, an officer talks to the suspect. KCET made a documentary about this case for SoCal Connected and included some body cam footage of that exchange. I got a bunch of people saying you stabbed this dude.
So if you couldn't understand him, the man says that he's really out of it and says that the guy who was stabbed was the one who got aggressive. And he says he can't remember much more, and when the officer asks if his prints are going to be on the night that they found, he says he just can't remember.
Now, meanwhile, at the hospital, investigators are learning that the victim is 19-year-old David Josiah Lawson, known as Josiah to his friends and DJ to his mom. He's a sophomore at Humboldt State University, where he shares a place off campus with a couple of friends. And one of those friends actually manages to grab Josiah's cell phone and call his mom. Charmaine Lawson is jolted awake by the sound of her phone ringing at around 3.30 in the morning. Her son's name flashes on the call log, so she's expecting to hear her son's voice. But instead, she hears a young woman crying hysterically. And at first, Charmaine can barely comprehend what this friend is even saying. She thinks maybe Josiah got like a cut or something.
But when she goes and calls the hospital, a nurse tells her that Josiah is in surgery, which like immediately lifts that sleepy fog that you're in. Like she is right away awake and starting to panic because like she's piecing it together. He wouldn't need surgery for a minor injury. Right. Even more concerning to her is that the nurse wouldn't tell her what his condition was. She just says that the doctor is going to be in touch. Which is, I mean, unsettling in itself. Like the nurse is like, I'm not touching this. You have to wait for a doctor, like someone who's like really assessing this serious situation. Does his mom at least live like close by so she can head straight to the hospital?
No, so this is the thing. Their whole family lives in Paris, California, which is like 720 miles away. Oh, wow. That's not going to keep her from waking up her other son and reaching out to family so they can plan an emergency trip to go see Josiah. So she's actually on the phone with her mother making these plans when she gets another call from the hospital. And this time it's a doctor on the other end. And the first thing he tells her is, I'm sorry. They worked on Josiah for as long as they could, but he didn't make it. Her oldest child is dead.
Charmaine told our reporter Nina that she just remembers hearing herself screaming and then the sound of her son falling to the floor, just overwhelmed with grief. I mean, the thing she kept thinking is like it hadn't even been 24 hours since she last spoke with Josiah. It was when she was heading to an appointment on Friday afternoon. And like they only got to talk for a second. And she meant to call him back. But she's a single mom of three. She had to pick up her other son. She was driving his friend somewhere. They had to fill out this like scholarship application for him. Like a nonstop mom life. Exactly. She was so tired that at night she just fell asleep on the couch.
She didn't get to call Josiah. And now she's trying to, like, wrap her mind around the fact that she'll never be able to call him or talk to him again. She'll never get to hug him or see that huge smile of his. And she doesn't even at this point, like, she doesn't understand what happened to him, right? Right. So not long after getting that call from the hospital, the police reach out to her. An officer tells her how sorry she is. And she says that the crowd actually made it difficult for first responders to reach Josiah and that by the time they had got him to the hospital. And the hospital is, like, literally just three minutes from the party. But even in that short time, he had already lost too much blood from multiple wounds.
Now, the one bright spot or good news, if anything can be good news in a situation like this, is that the officer tells Charmaine that a suspect was arrested at the scene. His name is Kyle Zollner. He's 23 and not an HSU student. He's a local from the nearby town of McKinleyville. Now, he's already been booked into the county jail and will likely be charged with murder. And they even have what they believe to be a murder weapon. So it sounds like they've started to connect the dots about what happened that night. Well, it seems like police have. But over the next couple of days, Charmaine has to piece together the series of events for herself that led up to the stabbing as...
best as she could by talking to her son's friends who were with him that night. But there are so many people involved and so much chaos that it's hard to follow. However, the basic story that she is able to put together by talking to them is this. There was a party on Friday night that went into Saturday morning at a house at the end of a cul-de-sac off Spear Avenue. Now, Josiah was president of Brothers United, which is this cultural club at HSU, and one of the members was DJing at this party. So Josiah stopped by for a bit with a group of people, including his girlfriend, Ren Bobadia.
He and Ren, along with two other guys that he's friends with, were leaving at around 2.45 in the morning when they were approached just outside of the front door by several people that they didn't know. Now, it's determined later that those people were Kyle and his girlfriend, Lila Ortega. And Lila was being trailed by three friends of her own. Now, what they learn is that Lila's cell phone had gone missing. And when they kind of come in contact, these two groups come in contact with each other. Kyle asked Josiah's group if they had seen it. But Lila was apparently much more confrontational. She was basically accusing them of stealing it and telling them to empty their pockets. Now, from there, two separate fights broke out.
Wren started fighting Lila, and then Kyle started fighting one or more of the three guys. The fights eventually stopped, and as Josiah, his two friends, and Wren made their way down the cul-de-sac towards Spear Avenue to leave, their faces and eyes started to burn, and they realized that they had been sprayed with some sort of harsh chemical. Like pepper spray or something? They have no idea what it was. They just know that it is, like, burning. In fact, Josiah and one of his friends were, like, doubled over from the pain. So Wren wanted to know what they had been sprayed with, and so she went back up to the house to confront the women about it.
The two guys Josiah was with just left to find their car. They were like completely done with this party. And they said that they heard Josiah asking someone for a ride home. So they figured that he was heading out too. Now, meanwhile, just before 3 a.m., one of Josiah's friends named Paris Wright saw Ren, his girlfriend, arguing with two women outside. Now, he didn't know the two women or the guy standing with them who was later determined to be Kyle. But according to Paris, it wasn't unusual to see Ren arguing with someone, so he really didn't pay much mind to it. He said he went down to Spear Avenue, and that's where he ran into Josiah, who was heading back up towards the party to find Ren so they could leave. Now, no more than 30 seconds passed before Paris heard screaming. He looked toward the house and saw Ren fighting with two women, Lila and Lila's friend Naya.
So Paris went over toward them, and when he got closer, he saw Josiah and Kyle on the ground in this patch of grass or like a small yard next to the driveway right by a red Mustang. Now, they were both facing up, both laying on their backs, but Kyle was on top of Josiah, and Josiah had Kyle in a headlock with his left arm around his neck and his right arm around his body. Now, Paris thought this was strange, like not a real typical fight move. And he was actually afraid that Josiah was going to choke the guy out. So he went over to pull them apart. He was telling Josiah, like, let him go. But the only response that he got was this blank stare from Josiah. And when Paris finally got them apart, Josiah started to get up and then kind of just fell back down. And that's when Paris noticed the blood. So he pulled up Josiah's shirt and saw a stab wound on his left side near his hip. So Paris just turns to Kyle and says, did you just stab my friend? But at the same time, he's also like scared, thinking that this guy could stab him too. Right. So he didn't even give Kyle a chance to respond. Instead, Paris just punched him.
And then two of the girls with Kyle jumped on him to try and stop the fight. And then Paris doesn't know what happened after that with Josiah. The next time he saw Josiah, he was laying on the grass on the complete other side of the cul-de-sac. Paris said that his focus was on making sure that Kyle stayed put until the cops got there. Now, for her part, Josiah's girlfriend, Ren, isn't sure what happened either because she said she was fighting the women at the same time that whatever was happening to Josiah was happening. And she had some nasty looking injuries too. She had like bite marks on her breasts, bruises on her face, and this small puncture wound on her forearm that looks like she got jabbed at some kind of sharp object.
To me, at least, that sounds pretty open and shut. Who else could have stabbed Josiah in this whole time, right? And if they can get Kyle's prints or something off the knife they found, then it's pretty much case closed. Well, yeah, and from what Charmaine is gathering, basically she's piecing together that this is just some kind of terrible fight that got too out of hand. But to your point, it's pretty open and shut. But that's why she is so shocked when, according to Time Standard reporter Manny Araujo, police tell her that they might have to let Kyle go.
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The way it works in California is that prosecutors have to file charges within 48 hours, not counting weekends when a defendant is in jail. That means Humboldt County District Attorney Maggie Fleming has until Wednesday to make the call. And so far, to her, police don't have much. The dozen or so witnesses that they've talked to all have different versions of what happened, and not one of them can actually put the knife in Kyle's hand. Like, there are lots of people who saw parts of what led up to the fight, they saw parts of the fight, and they saw the aftermath, but no one that they've spoken with admittedly saw the stabbing itself. So...
What you're saying is at this massive party, no one, no one saw anything. Well, on Monday, there is someone that does finally come forward. Someone who says that they saw the whole thing. He's a friend of Josiah's named Jason Martinez. And according to a police report, he tells a detective that early Saturday morning, he was walking up the cul-de-sac with a couple of friends when he saw two men in that small yard by the Mustang. And he says they weren't yelling or hitting each other or anything, but he thought that they were arguing because their stances just looked aggressive. And he says then suddenly someone shouted, oh, he has a knife.
And when Jason looked over, he says he saw Kyle, who had a knife in his right hand, quickly jab Josiah twice in his chest and abdomen. And then after getting stabbed, Josiah ran straight across the cul-de-sac and dove into some bushes, which would have been the same area that he was when first responders arrived. Okay, but Jason didn't see them, like, on the ground, like, fighting or wrestling, like, no headlock, nothing like that? No, no, that's what's so strange. Like, this is the statement you want, but it completely contradicts all of the other statements that police have gotten so far. Yeah. Plus, they have a problem because Jason can't describe the knife that he says he saw, and he's not sure where Kyle even pulled it out from.
In fact, he didn't even realize that Josiah was one of the two men fighting until like a few minutes later. He said everything just happened so fast. But even though this doesn't quite fit, it is still an eyewitness account, and it is the only one they have to go on right now. Meanwhile, word of Josiah's death has spread far and wide. The HSU community is devastated. And according to Mad River Union reporter Paul Mann, concerns are being raised that first responders were slow to respond to the party. One of Josiah's friends, this guy named Elijah Chandler, tells reporters and the public that officers didn't perform first aid on Josiah because they were more worried about the crowd, most of whom were people of color getting out of control. He says that police and other responders just kind of stood around doing nothing or doing like a half-assed job while he gave Josiah CPR trying desperately to save him as Wren screamed hysterically nearby.
Basically, Elijah thinks that the situation would have been different if Josiah was white. And he tells North Coast news TV reporter Nazi Javi that he thinks the only reason Kyle approached Josiah and his friends about the phone in the first place is because they're black men. Kyle is white and so are three of the four women he was with. Though his girlfriend Lila is described as maybe white and Latina. And several people at the party remember that as Josiah bled out, Lila said that she hoped he died. A couple of them say that Lila actually said that she hoped that N-word died. Whoa. Yeah. I mean, that makes it sound like this attack could have been racially motivated then, right? Well, I mean, once these accounts reach police, they seem to take it seriously. And the chief tells reporters that they're actually looking into whether it could have been racially motivated. And I do have to pause here just for a second and tell you a little bit about Humboldt County because I think the setting of this story comes up over and over again. I think it matters. The Cal State HSU campus is in Arcata.
And students make up nearly half of the city's 17,000 plus residents. Arcata has been called one of the most enlightened places in America. But as is the case in many college towns, the relationship between a university and surrounding community can actually be strained. Locals and students say that there is a town divided, basically, an us versus them mentality. And the college city and county are all predominantly white. According to SoCal Connected, HSU was under pressure years ago to increase diversity on campus, in part because it meant more grant money. So the school at that time focused on recruiting efforts in communities with large minority populations to bring in more students of color.
And it actually worked to some extent because the number of Latino students quadrupled over a decade. But black student enrollment hovered persistently around three to four percent, which is less than 300 students. And there are very few non-white faculty and staff members. So black students say that they don't always feel safe in town or even supported on campus. But for Josiah, HSU was his dream. He decided to study criminal justice because he became interested in politics and law after Trayvon Martin was shot to death.
Charmaine even remembers his orientation, the police chief and college president assuring parents that their kids were in this safe environment. And she says that Josiah generally seemed happy there, although he did tell her that a white guy on a bus had called him a racial slur. And when they got into an argument, it was Josiah who got kicked off the bus. Some of his friends even say that there are enough racial incidents to put them like a little on edge. And in the wake of Josiah's death, more and more students of color at HSU share stories about racism that they've experienced in the area. So HSU and Arcata authorities would have been well aware of this issue then? Oh, they absolutely were. And Josiah's death just kind of puts the students even more on edge than they already were.
Now, as all of these things are coming to light, things are moving kind of fast because Kyle's public defenders make the decision not to waive his right to a speedy preliminary hearing. Meaning that when the DA charges Kyle with murder on April 19th and he pleads not guilty and gets his bail set at $1 million, the prosecution has 10 days to put their case together for a preliminary hearing. Yeah, that feels really unusual. We don't typically see the sort of like full steam ahead approach like this. Not with 10 days, no.
And according to North Coast Journal reporter Thaddeus Greenson, it's implied that his lawyers think that the case against him is shaky. So if they, like, push really hard, it gives the prosecution less time to, like, find more evidence. Right. And sure enough, behind the scenes, at least one deputy district attorney, which is what Humboldt County calls its assistant DAs, basically believes charging him was premature. Okay, but why? I mean, yes, there are some different accounts, but it seems like there was no one else who had this opportunity to kill him. Okay, well, there are actually a few reasons. Okay, so for one, Kyle's face is pretty banged up in his mugshot, which leads some people to question whether he stabbed Josiah in self-defense.
But Josiah's friends say that Kyle's injuries are from a fight that happened after the stabbing. Plus, Kyle himself told police he never would have stabbed someone and that he didn't even bring a knife to the party. He also says he wasn't even at the party. What? What do you mean he wasn't at the party? We have multiple people saying they saw him there. Well, and the police arrested him there, right? Like, how could you not be there if that's where we found you? I think he's not partying there. So according to Kyle, he just dropped his girlfriend Lila off there along with her three friends, Naya, Casey, and Angelica. Then he says he went home and just waited for them to call so he could pick them up. And then he heard from Lila at like 2.30.
And when he heard from her, she was upset because her phone was lost or stolen or whatever. So that's when he came to get them and just help her search for her phone. He's like, it's like 3 a.m. at that point. He said he just asked the first people he saw, two black eyes who were leaving the house. And then he said they got aggressive immediately because they thought that they were being accused of stealing it. And he says they told Kyle that they weren't going to empty their pockets out. Then he says a third guy came out of the house and one of them punched him in the face and he was knocked backward, became disoriented, and then got attacked by several men. So he says he doesn't remember anything after that until police grabbed him.
To be fair, he did sound really disoriented in that clip you played earlier and didn't even say something that he was completely out of it. Well, right. I mean, he got hit pretty hard. And from the perspective of a defense lawyer, that could be a reason that he pulled out a knife. But it's actually Kyle himself that rejects this self-defense idea. Even after the sergeant kind of gave him that out. Basically, the sergeant was like, hey, listen, if you were getting your ass kicked by a bunch of people and needed to defend yourself using a knife, it wouldn't be unreasonable. But then Kyle's like, no, no, no, I wouldn't do that. He said he'd rather take a beating than stab someone. So as the DA's office reps for the hearing, they have their work cut out for them.
Statements from witnesses are, again, wildly inconsistent. And an early theory quickly falls apart. Investigators thought Kyle might have had the murder weapon stashed in the front pocket of his hoodie. But a lab tested the sweatshirt against some fibers found on the knife and told the DA's office that it was an exact match. But then the lab comes back and is like, oops, JK, we were wrong. It's not a match after all. What? Yeah, and the one fingerprint on the knife can't be properly tested. Now, to make matters worse, it's becoming clear that the initial police reports left a lot to be desired. Officers didn't properly secure the crime scene.
they didn't seize Kyle's car, which was parked in the cul-de-sac. In fact, Angelica's mom, who if you remember, she's one of Lila's friends, Angelica's mom was allowed to drive the car back to Kyle and Lila's apartment before the sun even came up. Perfect. So even if there's any physical evidence in there, it's been contaminated and the chain of custody has been broken and it's unusable. Yeah, and that's not even all. I feel like everything's been contaminated because in all of the confusion, I guess police told witnesses to just leave without getting statements or even contact information from them. They also didn't separate the ones who did stick around. Like Lila was hanging out right near the cruiser.
talking to Kyle after he was handcuffed. This is like crime scene 101. Exactly. Now, there are a couple of things working in a state's favor. Kyle is a chef for a catering company. And what do chefs have access to? Knives. Oh. The knife police found under the Mustang was not like your average knife. It was this high-quality kitchen knife with a six-inch blade. And they determined that there aren't any others like it in the party house. So it wasn't pulled from inside. Someone brought a kitchen knife outside, not from the house that they were at.
When investigators speak with Kyle's boss, they learn that Kyle keeps his work knives in this special bag, which they find during a search of his home. Now, the knives in his bag are different from the one at the scene, but when they show photos of the bag to his boss, the boss points out an empty slot where a paring knife should be. And get this, Casey, who, if you remember, is another one of Lila's friends, Lila's Kyle's girlfriend. Casey went back to Kyle and Lila's place after everything went down. Lila didn't get home until later that morning because Kyle went to the hospital and she followed him there, but Casey tells investigators that when Lila arrived, she grabbed Kyle's car keys, went outside, and came back in with the knife bag. She opened it and started to cry and said, quote, there's usually four in here, but there's only three, end quote.
I hate this sort of thing because on one hand, yes, the missing knife is 100% suspicious. But on the other hand, if it's not the same brand and they can't determine if that fingerprint is his, it's like 50-50, right? It's a mess is what it is. But I just keep coming back to who else could have stabbed Josiah. Yeah, I mean, again, this is something that seems clear but is getting so friggin' messy. And to top it all off, jail booking records published by the Lost Coast Outpost show Kyle was charged with felony assault with a deadly weapon for a domestic violence incident back in 2013. So again, it's just like more stuff that you're like, it seems like we know.
But for that domestic violence, it doesn't seem like anything came of it. For investigators, it's still worth noting. Now, Kyle's family really tries hard to counter the narrative that's been emerging from police and Josiah's friends since his death. They put out a statement to the media with a new version of events pieced together from Lila and a couple of her friends. But it contradicts what Kyle told investigators. So Kyle's family's story contradicts Kyle's story? Yes. His family says that when Kyle initially asked the two men about the phone, one of them hauled off and punched Lila, giving her a black eye. And that is what prompted the fight between him and Kyle. And they say that the guy that he fought, meaning Kyle, was not even Josiah. But whoever he is, apparently Kyle got him in a hold and then released him.
While they were wrestling around on the ground, his car keys and cell phone came out of his sweatshirt, and as he's looking for them, then they say he was attacked by multiple people who started kicking and punching him. He was knocked unconscious for a few minutes, and two of Lila's friends sprayed mace to get the attackers off him. And while he was still on the ground, someone shouted that a person had been stabbed, so he was, like, out cold when it happened and couldn't have done it, is what they're saying. Okay, so if Lila's saying she was punched in the face, does she really have that black eye? I'm not sure about that. I know she was part of the fight.
So it's possible that she had some injuries or bruising, but I don't know specifically. To me, the only thing interesting about this is it's one of the stories that includes the mace or pepper spray or whatever that you really don't get in the other stories. Well, I was also going to say it also has like someone in a chokehold or a hold, I guess. Someone? But it's the wrong person? Yeah. I don't know. But it's so weird that his family is saying this and that's not even what he said. Yeah, that's what I can't get over, I guess. Now, his family also tries to clear up that 2013 assault charge. They say that it is, quote, nothing but a sibling fight between Kyle and his sister that has been ridiculously overblown and did not involve a weapon, end quote.
And I don't know if that explanation does him any favors, but either way, there's a clear divide forming in the community. Residents argue amongst themselves online about whether racism is a problem in the area or not. Unsurprisingly, virtually all of the people who think it is not a problem are white. And some think the whole county is being unjustly maligned. So it is against this backdrop that Kyle's preliminary hearing starts on Monday, May 1st, the same day as Josiah's funeral.
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As Charmaine lays her son to rest, prosecutors lay out their case for the first time. A deputy DA calls witness after witness over the next few days, and their testimonies are just as inconsistent as their statements to police. How many people were at the party? Anywhere from 15 to 300, depending on who you ask. How did the fight start? Lila accused Josiah's group of stealing her phone and demanded that they empty their pockets. Or one of Josiah's male friends punched Lila when she and Kyle calmly inquired about her phone. Or Lila bit Ren's breast. Or Ren clocked Lila, so Josiah and Kyle started fighting too. Or all three guys immediately jumped Kyle. And so on and so on and so on.
Right. It's like everyone we hear about has a different story. So how do you even sort through or make sense of all of that? Girl, if I even went over everyone's story, every inconsistency by inconsistency, we'd be here for the next week. And we're like only halfway through now. Basically, depending on who's telling the story, Kyle was attacked by one to 15 men at various times. Some people say Kyle was unconscious when Josiah got stabbed. Others say they definitely saw the two of them fighting right before it happened. A few people, including Casey, testify that they heard Lila say she hopes Josiah dies. And at least two witnesses say that they heard her say she hopes that N-word dies specifically.
But Lila denies saying anything like that. And she testifies that contrary to Casey's story, Kyle's knife bag was in their apartment, not his car, when she got home that morning. She said she didn't even open it. So all that being said, if you're really interested in breaking this down and truly going inconsistency by inconsistency, you can actually check out the full hearing transcripts. They've been posted on a website called The Lawson Case that we'll link to in the blog post. But despite all the inconsistencies, there are a few things that most of the witnesses agree on, which are, by all accounts, Kyle was polite. And it sounds like Lila was freaking out about her phone. A fight broke out after they approached Josiah, his two friends, and Ren. Naya and Angelica pepper sprayed Josiah's group. Then another fight started, and then maybe a third fight.
Lots of people remember some sort of bloody altercation happening in that little patch of grass by the Mustang, which I think is so interesting because there was actually no blood found on the grass in that area. Oh. Basically, the pools of blood only start on the pavement by the Mustang, which is like 11 feet north of where the knife was found. And then it like drips across the cul-de-sac into the yard where Josiah's friends administered first aid. Anyway, a couple of people remember seeing something in Kyle's hand, but what they didn't see is a knife. But again, you're talking about trial. That's why they have this Jason Martinez, right?
He's the only one that they can like use to put the knife in Kyle's hand. So he takes the stand on Wednesday, May 3rd and recounts the party right up until the moment he sees a man facing off against Josiah and someone yells out he has a knife. But there's a big problem. Not only is Jason unable to identify Kyle as that man, he says that he has no idea what Josiah's opponent looked like. What? What do you mean he can't identify Kyle? This guy is supposed to be their star witness, right? Yeah, yeah. Now he's saying he doesn't know if the guy was white or black or tall or short. He also suddenly has no memory of even seeing a knife in this mystery man's hand. What? He says all that he saw was a guy, quote unquote, take action with his right hand and jab Josiah twice.
Now, all hope is not lost for the prosecution because there are audio recordings of the witness interviews. So during a court recess, the deputy DA runs to his boss's office and says, listen, we need to listen to the actual recordings of Jason's interview right now. Yeah. And so they go back and listen. Like, is he lying on the stand? Is he making up a new story? And basically, when they play it back, it turns out that Jason did tell Detective Eric Losey that he saw someone stab Josiah. But just someone? Just someone. So I don't know how this got lost in translation, but even on the initial recording, apparently he never said that he saw Kyle stab him. He said it was just a guy.
Again, didn't name Kyle, didn't even describe him in any way. Oh my God. And for some reason, the detective never even asked him to. But somehow in the written report, Losey turned that statement into Jason saw Kyle stab Josiah. Oh my God, this is a disaster. I think that's putting it lightly. Everything has basically fallen apart and the hearing wraps a few days later. Both sides try and sum up their case for the judge. The prosecutor acknowledges how confusing the situation is. All of the witnesses had different vantage points at the party. No one really sees themselves as the aggressor. If they do, they don't admit it. And some stories like Jason simply cannot be explained.
But at the end of the day, what the prosecution is saying is like there's only one reasonable scenario that he can think of, which is this. After the first fight, Kyle could have easily grabbed a knife out of his car while Josiah and his group were walking toward the street. Wren went back up the cul-de-sac to confront Lila, and Josiah followed her. He thinks while Wren fought Lila and Naya, the two boyfriends, Kyle and Josiah, also went at it, and Kyle stabbed him. Now the defense gets a chance to wrap up as well, and Kyle's lawyer tells the judge that the prosecutor is focusing on Paris and Casey's testimony while conveniently ignoring pretty much everyone else's.
But even based on Paris's account, if Kyle stabbed Josiah, who then put him in a chokehold? Then Paris separated them and immediately punched Kyle. When would Kyle go throw the knife under the Mustang? Like, he's like, it doesn't even make sense. Your story doesn't even make sense. He says the entire case was built on assumptions. But after five days of fractured testimony, no one has put forth any evidence that Kyle even had a knife, let alone stabbed someone. In fact, the evidence points to someone else being responsible. Now, all of this is a lot to take in, but the judge issues his ruling that very afternoon. And he issues it with a detailed explanation.
Oh. All they know is his cause of death was a stab wound to the chest. Now, the judge attributes the confusing, conflicting testimony to trauma, witnesses in various stages of sobriety and people processing stuff differently. For the most part, he doesn't think anyone is intentionally lying. He says he's even impressed with Josiah's friends, especially considering how emotionally charged the situation is. If they just wanted to blame Kyle, it would have been easy to say that they saw him with a knife or say they saw him stab Josiah, something to like shore up a murder charge. Right. But they're not. They're all saying what they believe. But that being said, no two stories match. The only thing not in dispute is that Josiah was stabbed to death by someone at the party and there were lots of people there.
Somehow no one saw it happen, which the judge finds hard to believe. Now he admits that based on what's known at this point, the judge can't think of anyone besides Kyle and his group with a motive. But there isn't enough evidence to support a homicide charge right now. So he's dismissing it. That's got to be a crushing blow for Josiah's family. It was. And his family, his friends, even the HSU community were all heartbroken and furious. Not just at Kyle and Lila and her friends, but...
In their minds, at the system itself, at the police, at the ambulance drivers, and the EMTs, at the people who refuse to see that there is a bigger problem here. And there was a lot of anger toward prosecutors. Some wonder why they put so many witnesses on the stand when all they needed was like one or two. Because this wasn't a trial. This was a hearing. And there's a lower standard of proof at a hearing. Yeah, like this hearing was just to convince the judge that there was probable cause. Basically just reasonable suspicion that the defendant, Kyle, did whatever crime they were charged with and should actually stand trial for it. The whole beyond a reasonable doubt thing isn't even applicable here. Yeah, that's not what they were aiming for.
The DA defends the strategy. She tells KHSU News that if the full roster of witnesses didn't get them probable cause, there was no reason to think that one or two of them would. Plus, it's not ethical to cherry pick your witnesses just to eke out a win. And even if it was, she tells Lost Coast Outpost reporter Rhonda Parker that the maneuver can backfire. So they go to trial with a weak case and the person's acquitted. That's it. At least now they still have the opportunity to take another shot. Again, to your point, this wasn't a trial. This was them saying, are we actually going to press charges and officially go to trial? And the judge just dismissed it and was like, not enough to go off of. Yeah. So you can bring them again. Right. But the case ends up languishing for months.
There are protests and vigils and public forums. There were calls to charge Kyle with a hate crime, which actually would have been even harder to prove in court. Meanwhile, Kyle's supporters and lawyers say that he was railroaded from the beginning by police who wanted a quick arrest, and that the allegations of the narrative of the whole incident, like the fights, everything, being racially motivated is just wrong. And so it's at this point that rumors start swirling on Craigslist of all places, which I have not seen before. Okay. So apparently along with WebSleuth and Reddit, now I need to start like deep diving into Craigslist for every case, which I like didn't see coming. Yeah, I can honestly say I don't think I've ever heard of Craigslist rumors, but yeah, add that to the case spiralist, I guess. Yeah. But basically the rumor was posted by an anonymous person who said that it was actually Josiah's friend, Elijah, who accidentally stabbed him while trying to stab Kyle during a brawl at the party. Now, police find and speak with the person who wrote the anonymous post. Nothing's ever really that anonymous online.
And according to Mad River Union reporter Kevin L. Hoover, Chief Chapman tells the community that the poster is a non-credible troll pushing a make-believe story. The department even put out a statement in September saying that Josiah's friend is not a suspect. But all of the locals still seem to believe some variation of this theory, that it's actually one of Josiah's friends that killed him by accident during the fight with Kyle. Okay, but is there any proof that any of his friends could have stabbed him? No, no, none. It's just all rumors and speculation. Now in October, Kyle files a civil claim against the city of Arcata.
Among other things, he alleges that after he was beaten unconscious by multiple people at the party, he was then arrested without probable cause and held in a police car at the scene without medical treatment. He says that Arcata PD intentionally filed a false report with the DA, which led to him being charged with murder. Now, that same month, retired FBI agent Tom Parker agrees to serve pro bono as a consultant on the case for Arcata PD, which for Charmaine is kind of like this ray of hope. I mean, it's become clear to her that the case needs outside attention. She has zero faith in Arcata police at this point, or any Humboldt County authorities for that matter, including the DA and college administrators.
And honestly, I don't blame her. I mean, based on the way they've handled Josiah's case from the very beginning. Right. Now, meanwhile, over the next few months, police quietly confirm that the knife they found at the scene under the Mustang is, in fact, the murder weapon. Forensic test results show that Josiah's blood is on the blade and they find his blood on Kyle's clothes. And they also find Kyle's DNA on the knife handle and under Josiah's fingernails. Okay, so case closed. We have DNA on a weapon. I feel like we're done here. Not so fast.
Because other court records detail more testing, which apparently shows DNA from two other unknown people on the knife as well. Plus, the DA says that if someone is bleeding during a fight, finding their DNA on a weapon associated with that same fight doesn't actually prove anything. So it's not really the slam dunk that they needed. But it still feels like they're heading in a direction, though, right? And it feels like the right direction. So maybe there's some light at the end of the tunnel for this case, after all? I mean, that's the hope. But nothing in this case is that simple. Because suddenly, on April 9th, 2018, Tom Parker, that retired FBI agent, actually terminates his contract with the city.
Oh, according to North Coast Journal reporter Kimberly Ware, Tom is frustrated by what he deems to be a lack of cooperation from local police. He says that he can't work with an agency that lies to him and ignores the very recommendations that he was brought in to provide. Like, for instance, I guess he wanted to get a test done that would compare sharpening striations on the murder weapon to other knives from Kyle's job. But I guess that ship has sailed now because the catering kitchen that he worked for is closed. Police also haven't brought in an expert to test what appears to be a bloody knife swipe on Kyle's pants. Tom tells reporters that he's convinced the case can be solved within a few months with the right people working it.
but that it doesn't seem to be happening. He describes the situation to SoCal Connected Producers as, quote, almost a perfect storm of incompetence, lack of interest, and this very subtle, below-the-surface racism that seemed to exist in the community, end quote. Hello, he is not holding back at all. No, no, no, no. And the city pushes back. Officials say that Tom wasn't this critical in updates that he shared with them about the case and that a lot of his recommendations have been followed, but some probably just aren't doable, like obtaining certain warrants or making people cooperate with law enforcement. But then something really unexpected happens.
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The day after Tom steps down, the chief of police abruptly resigns. What? Why? Did it give any reason? Not that I can tell. But a few days after that, Charmaine files her own civil claim against the city, alleging that they violated her 14th Amendment right to equal protection. She accuses Arcadepedia of being inept, incompetent, and racially biased. She lists a litany of mistakes and says that even though multiple agencies offered to help the department, the chief turned them all down and then told her that they were getting assistance from others. So she was straight up lied to. That's what it sounds like.
Now, despite all of this going on, police are actually feeling confident as they wrap up their investigation in November of 2018. According to Times-Standard reporter Dan Squire, since the chief left, they've brought in more resources, tied up some loose ends, and turned the case over to the DA. So, Charmaine waits for news. But once again, months pass with no movement. And then on March 13, 2019, the DA announces that a grand jury declined to indict Kyle or anyone for Josiah's murder. Britt, have you heard the old adage about a prosecutor being able to indict a hand sandwich? Yeah, it's kind of just a saying, right?
Yeah, it's basically saying that the deck is so heavily stacked in the state's favor for a grand jury proceeding that they almost always get an indictment. So Josiah's loved ones are dumbfounded by this. A couple of days later, still in disbelief, Charmaine goes to a protest vigil outside Humboldt County Court. And according to a segment on the investigation discovery show Still a Mystery, one man waits hours to speak privately with her. He tells her that he was on the grand jury and he thinks a great injustice was done, that the person responsible for stabbing Josiah is walking free in their community. Whoa, that's a risky move. Grand juries are supposed to be super confidential. Yeah, they are.
But I mean, this guy was so upset that he sits down for an interview with reporter Nazi Javid with his identity hidden, basically to reveal the reasons that he thinks the grand jury failed. And there are some bombshells in this. He says that during deliberations, 15 of the 18 grand jurors agreed that Kyle had stabbed Josiah. Like they took a mock vote just to see how many would convict him of murder or manslaughter. And there were a handful for each. But the majority thought that it was self-defense. And the deputy DA presenting the case told them that they could not indict Kyle if they decided that he had stabbed Josiah in self-defense.
The DA tells NBC reporter Freddie Brewster that giving grand juries information about self-defense is required by law and that because Kyle was the one assaulted in the first fight, there's no question that self-defense would be raised during a jury trial. But Kyle specifically said that even though he didn't remember what happened, he definitely would not have stabbed anyone and would have rather gotten a beat down. Right. I mean, it's literally impossible for a person to argue that they did something in self-defense while simultaneously saying that they didn't do it at all. Obviously, both things can't be true at the same time. I know.
The other thing is the grand juror also said that the deputy DA told them they could subpoena Kyle, but they discouraged them from doing so. Huh? Yeah, and I don't understand why. And I guess the whole time, like, tensions were high. Jurors were getting angry. They were getting super emotional. Many of them seemed to think that they had to decide if Kyle was guilty or not. And some actually misunderstood the DNA evidence that they were presented with. And get this, according to an article in the HSU student newspaper, The Lumberjack by T. William Wallen, an anonymous source, not sure if this is the same grand juror or someone else, but an anonymous source says that one of the witnesses who testified for the grand jury was a man whom Josiah had allegedly punched in the face.
back in January of 2017. Now, legal filings show that this guy actually lived in the same cul-de-sac where the party was held, but he couldn't identify Josiah until after he was murdered when his picture was on the news. So, again, this is brought up in the grand jury thing, and this source that's coming forward thinks that this witness who brought this up was basically just brought in to make Josiah look bad. And remember, the DA's the only one presenting this. There's no defense at a grand jury thing. Right. Now, the DA denies that that's why this witness was brought in. She says that it's her office's responsibility to present any evidence that is relevant to the charges.
Okay. Which I get. Like, again, present what you have. Like, this is truly the case that we're asking you to bring to trial. No surprises, right. But here's where, like, I don't necessarily fully buy that, because guess what they didn't present? According to that source, they didn't present anything about Kyle's criminal history. The deputy DA apparently told them more than once that Kyle had no past violent acts or criminal history. Which, again, not accurate. No, and I'm not sure what ultimately happened with Josiah and that neighbor. It looks like there was an investigation pending at the time of his death, although I'm not sure how, if the witness didn't know who he was.
Yeah. But I do know Josiah wasn't convicted of anything in connection to it. Just like Kyle was never convicted of assault with a deadly weapon. Right. So why even bring up one and not the other? Million dollar question. And this is when Charmaine has finally had enough. She writes an open letter to the community calling for the State Department of Justice to take over the case. And at this point, even the DA agrees that it should go to another agency. So she formally asked the attorney general to take over. But the AG denies that request.
All is not lost, though, because you see, back in 2018, the city council had hired the National Police Foundation to conduct an independent review of Arcata PD's response to Josiah's murder. Their team basically spent a whole year investigating, and the report ended up getting delayed a few times. So it's not until February 2020 that the report is finally released. And to Charmaine, that report justifies so much of what she's been saying because it detailed a laundry list of, quote, organizational failures, tactical missteps, and investigative and leadership errors which have damaged the investigation and marred the department's reputation and credibility in many areas of the community. End quote. Woof. Yeah.
And there's one saving grace. The foundation said that officers responded quickly and professionally to an emotionally charged, chaotic situation. And EMS and fire crews made significant efforts to try and save Josiah's life. But pretty much everything else was a mess. The chief did nothing to stop false narratives from spreading, including the one about first responders not helping. Many officers at the scene weren't properly trained to even handle major crimes. Like case in point, the acting watch commander only taped off a small area of the driveway within the cul-de-sac because she saw a pool of blood there. And I guess just assumed that's where the stabbing occurred. But according to the foundation's report, the stabbing...
did take place on the adjacent lawn area. And when she found the knife and didn't see any blood on it, she apparently never considered the possibility that it had been wiped off or moved by someone. Oh my God. Oh, and remember Eric Losey? He was the officer who messed up the eyewitness statement, who like put Kyle's name in when- How could I forget? Yeah. Well, he was promoted to detective on his way to the scene. Oh. Which I've never heard of happening. I guess they were planning on promoting him in like a couple of weeks. I don't know if they were short staffed that night or what, but basically they were like, meh, why not now? We could use the extra hands. Okay.
There were also instances where police severely summarized statements that don't actually reflect what some people said and how their stories changed. And apparently Kyle's interview only lasted 15 minutes, even though he never refused to answer more questions. Police also didn't coordinate with the DA's office, which found out about the murder from the news. And they didn't accept help from other agencies. So to sum all of this up, they totally botched the entire investigation. Pretty much. And I could go on and on. These are just some of the problems that they bring up. And many of these same issues are raised again a few months later in July when the county's civil grand jury.
which also did an investigation, releases a report of their own. All in all, the civil grand jury found evidence of, quote, failures, ineptitudes, and poorly executed police work, end quote. But they didn't find anything directly pointing to racial bias or corruption in Arcata's response. That being said, they think it's too early to say that Josiah's murder was not a hate crime. In July of 2021, Charmaine and Arcata settle her lawsuit. According to Freddie Brewster's reporting, the city doesn't admit to wrongdoing, but it agrees to pay her $200,000 to donate $25,000 to the David Josiah Lawson Memorial Scholarship Fund, and they agree to paint a memorial mural.
As for Kyle, most of his initial lawsuit was dismissed, but a U.S. District Court judge allowed his malicious prosecution claim against Losey to go forward, and they actually went to trial this past October. The crux of his case was that Losey, who now works at the county sheriff's office, violated his federal rights by deliberately preparing a false police report, which led to him being charged by the DA. Now, his lawyer argued that police focused on Kyle because he's white, even though evidence pointed more toward alternative suspects. For instance, fibers found on the knife were the same colors as various pieces of clothing worn by Josiah's friends and girlfriend, but police didn't bother to collect any of their clothes.
Losey, meanwhile, argued that while it's true the focus of the investigation was and still is on Kyle, that's because the evidence points to him as the culprit. The eyewitness statement debacle was not the only reason he was charged with murder. And Losey said that he wasn't being malicious, he just made an honest mistake. Okay, fine, sure. But an honest mistake or not, it still had a huge impact on the investigation. And this was not just any, like, run-of-the-mill investigation. It's been one that I think multiple people now have said has been specifically handled poorly from the start. Right. And the jury agrees. They determined that it wasn't just a simple error, and Kyle proved most of the criteria for malicious prosecution.
So they awarded him more than $700,000. And they even asked that Losi issue a public apology to everyone involved so that he can help the community heal. But here's the thing. The judge actually overturned the jury's verdict, deciding that there was probable cause to arrest Kyle. And the judge went on to pick apart Kyle's arguments one by one. And listen, there's like a lot of details back and forth, and I don't want you guys to get lost in it. So bottom line is, according to the judge, Kyle was the only person at the party who was covered in blood, which was not consistent with the injuries he had. He's the only person that we know of who has motive and the only person seen fighting with Josiah.
Basically, he's the only one who had the opportunity to stab him, is what the judge is saying. Now, that doesn't mean that the judge is saying, yes, Kyle did it, end of story. All she needed to decide was if Losi had probable cause at the time of Kyle's arrest. Right, because, of course, this case has to just keep going and going and going. Yeah, and it's still not over yet. Kyle will have a chance to appeal the judge's ruling, and he's going to be back in court one way or another soon because he's got another claim pending. He alleges that a lawyer for Arcata threatened that he would be prosecuted for murder unless he dropped the civil case. The lawyer says that he wasn't threatening Kyle, he's just making a...
state the obvious comment about how unusual and risky it is for the sole suspect in an open murder case to sue police, let alone take it all the way to trial. But no matter what ends up happening, Josiah's death changed everything for the community. The DA decided not to run for a third term. The college president retired amid calls for her to resign. There's a new police chief, and the department has implemented a bunch of new practices in the wake of the two critical reports. But I mean, where we are now, it's been well over five years. Yeah. And no one has been held accountable for Josiah's murder.
Charmaine keeps pushing for justice and hopes for the AG to take over her son's case. And she'll keep fighting for him because she wants to do everything she can to ensure that no other parents get the devastating phone call that she got. She still goes to Arcado all the time. Once she was passing out flyers for a coat drive in Josiah's honor and a man experiencing homelessness took one and told her that he knew her son. He had seen him skateboarding around town with a pizza box and asked him if he could have a slice. So Josiah opened up the box and told him to take as much as he wanted. The man told Charmaine that the memory stayed with him ever since because most people don't let him physically touch anything of theirs. That's a story Charmaine will never forget.
She wants her son's legacy to live on, for the world to remember him. Not just his death and the things it exposed in the community, but him, his life. The Arcata police chief says that they've made strides in the case, but there are still hurdles to overcome. Eyewitness accounts from the party, including the stabbing itself, are crucial to bringing this case back into court. And it's hard to believe that no one has any video from the party. And even harder to believe that no one saw what happened. So anyone with knowledge about the murder of David Josiah Lawson, please call the Arcata Police Department's confidential tip line at 707-825-2590.
There's a $55,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the person responsible for Josiah's death. You can also check out our blog posts for other ways to help, including a GoFundMe and details on how you can contact the attorney general and ask the office to take on Josiah's case. You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. And be sure to follow us on Instagram at CrimeJunkiePodcast. Don't forget, you can listen to this episode and all our episodes ad-free and get extra bonus episodes you've never heard in our fan club. You can find that on our website as well, CrimeJunkiePodcast.com. Just click fan club and we'll be back next week for another episode.
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