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News
Pine Hill Shootings Leave ‘Horrible’ Toll
Sheri releases new details on shooting that left two dead, two wounded
By Thadeus Greenson
thad@northcoastjournal.com Law enforcement bringing Russel l Albers into custody after a high speed chase.
CREDIT: HCSO
Editor’s note: Be advised this story contains descriptions of domestic violence that readers may fi nd disturbing. Skip to the bottom for information about local domestic violence services.
According to Humboldt County Sheri William Honsal, Russell Albers’ girlfriend had made the decision to leave him and their abusive relationship behind.
Speaking to the Journal on Dec. 29, the day after Albers was arrested on a double murder warrant following a 15-mile high-speed chase about 36 hours after he is alleged to have shot four people at a Pine Hill home, Honsal provided new details about the Dec. 27 shootings that left two people dead, two injured and a 4 year old without her parents.
Albers’ girlfriend, Honsal said, left him several days before the shootings, around Christmas Eve, and went to stay with her sister, Jennifer Paddock, 42, her sister’s boyfriend, Daniel “Danny” Garcia, 51, and their 4-year-old child, at their home in the 400 block of Crane Street, in the Pine Hill neighborhood south of Eureka.
“Our victim basically fl ed and sought refuge — she was in an abusive relationship with this guy, based on their history, and was wanting to separate herself and start a new life,” Honsal said, adding it’s unclear how, but “the suspect ended up fi nding out where she was.” When Albers arrived at the residence, Honsal said his girlfriend agreed to come out on the porch to speak with him. The two talked a bit, the sheri said.
Garcia and Paddock, shot in the abdomen and chest, respectively, were pronounced dead at the scene. Honsal identifi ed the other victim as a family friend who just happened to be at the residence.
The Humboldt County Sheri ’s O ce received a 911 call from within the residence at 12:12 a.m. All dispatch could hear initially was an open line, with yelling in the background and a child screaming. Honsal said he believes this call was made by the family friend, who didn’t speak because she didn’t want to alert Albers to the fact that she was still alive.
About this time, Honsal said, according to witness statements, Albers was forcing his wounded girlfriend out of the residence into his car.
“He transported her around Eureka for a bit, and then dropped her o at Mad River Hospital,” the sheri said, declining to say specifi cally what Albers and the victim spoke about during the drive other than that the girlfriend told investigators she pleaded with him to take her to the hospital.
According to a HCSO press release, when the girlfriend was dropped o at Mad River Community Hospital — a 23-minute drive from Crane Street, absent detours — she underwent surgery to treat the gunshot wound.
Exactly where Albers went from the hospital is unclear, Honsal said, noting that the gun used in the shootings has still not been located. The HCSO put out a press release about the shootings later that morning, naming Albers as the suspect and encouraging anyone who saw him to immediately call 911. The press release included a photo of Albers, taken when he was booked into jail at 2:02 a.m. on Oct. 30 on suspicion of domestic battery.
That arrest involved the same girlfriend
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Albers is alleged to have shot, Honsal said, adding that when deputies responded to the call, she told them Albers had assaulted her, punching her in the face. Because there was no injury visible, Honsal said Albers was arrested on suspicion of misdemeanor domestic battery.
But Albers posted $25,000 bail and was released about four and half hours after his arrest, and no charge was ever filed in the case.
Humboldt County District Attorney Stacey Eads, who took over for predecessor Maggie Fleming earlier this month, said prosecutors felt there was insufficient evidence to prove a crime occurred beyond a reasonable doubt, saying there was no evidence to corroborate Albers’ girlfriend’s statement, which she later “recanted.” Eads said the sheriff’s office then requested she be charged for making a false police report but her office declined to file that charge, either, determining there was insufficient evidence to prove a crime had occurred.
Honsal said his department was actively searching for Albers when a citizen called at about 1:45 p.m. on Dec. 28, saying they’d seen him and his Toyota Tundra truck on Pishka Court in McKinleyville. Deputies responded immediately and one caught sight of Albers getting into his truck and leaving the area, sparking the more than 15-mile high speed chase that ended when California Highway Patrol officers ran Albers’ truck off the road and rammed it until it was immobilized before officers took Albers into custody without further incident.
Honsal declined to give details about what Albers had been doing on Pishka Court, but said he “was not being harbored, let’s just say that.”
On Dec. 30, Albers made his first appearance in Humboldt County Superior Court, pleading not guilty to 11 charges, including two counts of murder, attempted murder and kidnapping, and denied a host of special allegations. If convicted, he faces life in prison without parole.
While relieved law enforcement was able to bring Albers into custody before he caused further harm, and that no one was hurt in the chase, Honsal said this case is simply tragic and has taken a toll on all involved.
Attempts to reach Humboldt County Domestic Violence Services for this story were unsuccessful. But in previous interviews with the Journal, experts said it’s important for the community to understand that abusers are often very adept at zeroing in on the vulnerabilities of the person they are harming and using specific tactics to exert power over them, to control them and keep them in the relationship.
It’s an epidemic that is especially acute in Humboldt County, which historically averages about 50 percent more domestic violence-related police calls per capita than the state average, with more than 40 percent involving some kind of weapon. Humboldt County District Attorney Investigator Lynn Soderberg, a more than 30-year veteran of law enforcement, previously told the Journal that while many look at domestic violence cases with tragic outcomes and ask why the victim didn’t just leave or cooperate with authorities, she says that’s unproductive and misses the point.
Soderberg also noted that batterers can become more abusive if they feel their control over their victims slipping, making separation a sometimes terrifying prospect.
North Coast Rape Crisis Center Community coordinator Paula Arrowsmith-Jones also pointed out in a previous interview with the Journal that abusers are often very adept at “zeroing in on the vulnerabilities” of the person they are harming and using specific tactics to control them and keep them in the relationship. In many cases, the perpetrator and the victim also have long histories together, sometimes with children, mixed finances and overlapping social circles.
Resources, however, are available. Humboldt Domestic Violence Services, a nonprofit dedicated to promoting the rights and welfare of domestic violence survivors, operates a 24/7 support line with trained domestic violence advocates [(707) 443-6042 or (866) 668-6543], and offers individual counseling, assistance filing for restraining orders, trained advocates to accompany survivors to appointments and hearings, healing support groups and emergency shelter. The North Coast Rape Crisis Team, another local nonprofit dedicated to ending sexualized violence, also operates a 24-hour hotline [(707) 445-2881 in Humboldt County and (707) 4652851 in Trinity County], and offers a variety of support, counseling and advocacy services.
Honsal said Albers’ case is a horrible example of the cyclical nature of domestic violence and he hopes people in violent, abusive situations know that help and resources are available.
The Sheriff’s Office asks that anyone with information about the shooting, including the whereabouts of the firearm used, to call the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office at (707) 445-7251 or the crime tip line at (707) 268-2539. l Thadeus Greenson (he/him) is the news editor at the Journal. Reach him at (707) 442-1400, extension 321, or thad@northcoastjournal.com.
Still recovering from one earthquake, Rio Dell is hit with another as a storm looms
Thadeus Greenson
thad@northcoastjournal.com
Already battered from the magnitude 6.4 earthquake on Dec. 20, the city of Rio Dell suffered “far more significant” damage in the 5.4 quake that rattled Humboldt County on New Year’s Day, according to City Manager Kyle Knopp.
“These earthquakes were absolutely scary,” he said. “After the first event, we had a lot of people in shock and very visibly so. And then the second aftershock was just as impactful psychologically to people. The lived experience in Rio Dell is that it is the aftershocks that are the most dangerous and the most impactful. In ’92, it was the second aftershock, I believe, that actually broke the gas line in Scotia that burned down part of the town. In this community, that’s a lived experience, just the knowledge that the initial event is just the beginning.”
Nick Angeloff, president of the Rio Dell Chamber of Commerce, which has partnered with the Rio Dell Community Resource Center to create a relief distribution hub out of the chamber office at 406 Wildwood Ave., said the cumulative impact of the two events, coupled with the sense that more may be looming, is taking its toll.
Forty-one homes have been deemed unsafe for occupancy and red tagged since the Jan. 1 quake, Knopp said, with 170 people now displaced between the two events — equivalent to about 5 percent of the city’s population. Thirteen people spent the night of Jan. 1 in a Red Cross shelter set up at the local middle school, with 12 there the following night. And Knopp said the numbers could grow as inspections continue in the coming days, noting the city has requested a team of 16 state inspectors to assist with the effort.
“These are all just initial damage assessments, all done on paper by the local team,” Knopp said, adding that inspectors from the county and the city of Eureka came to Rio Dell after the latest quake struck at 10:35 a.m. on Jan. 1, deemed an aftershock of the Dec. 20 temblor.
Knopp said the aftershock’s shaking was felt more severely in a different part of town than that of the Dec. 20 quake, which was felt strongest in the northern part of the city. The aftershock, Knopp said, caused more damage in the southern part of the city, hitting the business district and some higher-density housing especially hard. Knopp said 29 of the housing units red tagged after the Jan. 1 temblor were units in a single, 49-unit, federally designated low-income apartment complex, while adding that businesses are also reporting more damage, including broken windows and cracked walls.
The red tags have a reverberating impact in town, Angeloff said, as the toll of the ongoing disaster comes into sharper focus.
“Almost 10 percent of our housing stock has been red tagged,” he said. “After this earthquake, it’s going to be at least 10 percent of our our town that is homeless and that’s traumatic, and everyone knows somebody. And we’re all helping each other out but it’s significant here and there is a lot of PTSD, a lot of trauma. I can’t emphasize that enough.”
Knopp said he was told that a number of displaced people staying in the Red Cross shelter chose to “hightail it out of town in fear of another aftershock coming.”
If there’s good news from the Jan. 1 quake, Knopp said it’s that the city’s water distribution system fared better than it had on Dec. 20, noting that other than “one particularly troublesome” section servicing 10 to 15 homes, the rest of the system is currently operational.
There are, however, other infrastructure concerns. Knopp said the aftershock created more “road deformations,” noting the most significant appears to be cracks that have appeared in a concrete structure support on Monument Road that was created to repair damage to the road in the 1992 earthquake. The damage may look worse than it is, Knopp said, adding that he’s also concerned about a slip-out on Upper Monument Road in the face of the upcoming storm. If the road is deemed unsafe — or a section of it comes down — Knopp said that would isolate about a dozen residences within city limits, as well as a host of others
