Jurors in the trial of double-murder suspect Ulisses Rodriguez began deliberating yesterday afternoon on whether Rodriguez is guilty of murdering a Southern Humboldt couple who were shot dead and set on fire.

The jury began discussing the case shortly after 3 p.m. after hearing closing arguments from Deputy District Attorney Luke Bernthal and defense attorney Andrea Sullivan. Deliberations will continue this morning.

Bernthal called the evidence against Rodriguez “overwhelming” and the killings a cold-blooded execution. Sullivan pointed the finger at other workers at the marijuana grow in the China Creek area and said this case is not about a few pot plants but about methamphetamine.

The victims, 32-year-old Jeremy Kuemmel and 31-year-old Tiffany Ellebrecht, had been working on the property while living in Kuemmel’s Ford Expedition. Their charred bodies were found inside the Expedition, which was parked in a turnout on Briceland Road, doused with gasoline and set on fire.

One of the main issues is the credibility of witnesses John Doe and Chano Sanchez, who testified Rodriguez told them “I killed (Kuemmel and Ellebrecht )” and he needed help dealing with the bodies. Bernthal described Doe and Sanchez as giving truthful accounts of the slayings, backed up by abundant physical evidence.

Sullivan, however, laid out a scenario in which Doe was selling meth to the couple, who were destitute. Doe and others conspired, killed the couple and left the burning Expedition on a main road “to send a message,” possibly that meth buyers need to pay for the product.

Although Doe believed Rodriguez shot the couple because they returned to the property after he ran them off for stealing plants, Bernthal suggested a different motive: Rodriguez, already so broke he couldn’t buy food for his workers, and plotting to rob his own grow, didn’t want to pay the couple for their labor.

The day of the killings — Aug. 14, 2018 — Rodriguez got a text from a property co-owner who said she and her brother were “done” with the operation. That meant no money at harvest time, and no money to pay employees.

“She was going to shut down the defendant’s grow site,” Bernthal told the jury. He also referred to a text from Rodriguez — after the homicides — saying “We’ll see if they give me 25 to leave.”

Rodriguez decided Kuemmel’s and Ellebrecht’s lives weren’t worth a couple of pounds of marijuana or a few thousand dollars, Bernthal said.

“That’s just about as cold-blooded as it gets. This was more of an execution than a homicide.”

Kuemmel, standing at the driver’s side door of the Expedition, was shot several times in the back. Ellebrecht was sitting in the driver’s seat, and at least one of the bullets passed through Kuemmel and entered Ellebrecht’s arm and chest.

“He finished her off with a shot to the temple,” the prosecutor said.

The physical evidence recovered during the investigation included seven .357-caliber bullets found in a burn barrel at the grow site. On Rodriguez’s cellphone was a photo of him holding a .357 revolver with a seven-round chamber.

One of the prosecution witnesses testified that after driving by and seeing the burning SUV, he noticed a Hispanic-looking bearded man wearing a black T-shirt and khaki shorts. He was standing by a car parked in a space too narrow for parking. The witness later saw Rodriguez’s mugshot and believed he was the man he saw.

Video surveillance footage shows Rodriguez at the Shell service station in Redway, pumping gas into a gas can. He is wearing a black T-shirt and khaki shorts.

Sullivan said the man on the side of the road “could have been anybody.”

Her theory of the case is that Doe was selling methamphetamine to Kuemmel and Ellebrecht. Both had ingested a large amount of meth before they died. With help from other workers at the grow, Doe killed the couple and left the Expedition on a road where a car passes by “every 16 seconds.”

Sullivan said the loss of a few marijuana plants does not warrant this level of violence. When she saw a photo of the burning Expedition, Sullivan said, “It screamed meth.”

It would have taken three people to accomplish the crime, she argued. One to drive the Expedition, one to drive the getaway car and one to be the lookout. For Rodriguez to do it alone “Is not factually possible.”

There was one man with Rodriguez: David Kane, who had just arrived from Hawaii and was there when the shootings occurred. Black latex gloves on the property contained DNA from both Rodriguez and Kane.

The video of Rodriguez pumping gas into a can shows he pumped for 30 seconds, Sullivan said. To create the inferno that destroyed the Expedition would have taken “can after can after can” of gas.

She questioned why Doe and Sanchez didn’t go immediately to the police after the couple were killed. Instead they went to the home of Randy Reese, who suggested they speak to a lawyer.

“Voila!” Sullivan said. “Suspects become witnesses.”

She also questioned why, if Rodriguez had just cold-bloodedly murdered two people, he allowed two witnesses to leave the property. Doe and Sanchez testified Rodriguez told them to go buy gasoline and be back in an hour. They didn’t go back.

“His plan was to burn them,” Doe testified.

As to Doe and meth, he admitted he used the drug for a time because he was so traumatized by the killings and being forced to chain up the bodies. Also, about a year after the incident, he was arrested in Humboldt on a meth-related offense.

Sullivan said Doe displayed classic symptoms of methamphetamine abuse, such as suffering hallucinations. Doe said he had mental health issues because of what he had seen and experienced.

Rodriguez is charged with two counts of murder, making criminal threats (to Doe) and arson. He also is accused of personal use of a firearm and the special circumstance of having multiple victims.

Judge Gregory Elvine-Kreis instructed the jury on the definitions of first-degree murder, second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter.

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