If Judge Kelly Neel denies a defense motion for new trial, Demetrius Donald Dee Coleman will finally be sentenced next month for a drive-by shooting he committed in August 2019.

This morning Neel set April 19 to hear attorney Zack Curtis’s motion for new trial. If the motion is rejected, the 41-year-old Coleman will be sentenced to a possible prison term of life without parole. A jury convicted Coleman in November of first-degree murder with the special circumstance of firing from a vehicle.

The victim, 26-year-old Johnny Mack Renfro, was gunned down as he stood beside his parked vehicle on Monument Road in Rio Dell. Coleman, a marijuana broker, reportedly believed Renfro was one of several men who robbed him in Eureka.

Coleman’s defense was that a Jamaican man named “Dread” was driving Coleman’s vehicle and fired the fatal shot as Coleman hid in the back seat.

So far, District Attorney Carolyn Schaffer has not filed a written response to the motion for new trial. The judge gave Schaffer until March 18 to file one.

“If she turns it in a day late I won’t read it,” she told Coleman, who was questioning the judge himself because defense attorney Curtis did not attend the hearing. Curtis was in another courtroom.

Coleman’s girlfriend was also charged with murder, but Judge Timothy Canning dismissed her charges after a preliminary hearing.

Coleman has been in Humboldt County Correctional Facility for more than two years. He and his girlfriend were tracked down and arrested in North Dakota in February 2020.

PREVIOUSLY:

###

Also in April, the preliminary hearing may be held for Jake Henry Combs, accused of murdering a 25-year-old Whitethorn man who was shot in the head.

As a crowd of victim Trevor John Earley’s family members and friends looked on this morning, Judge Christopher Wilson set the preliminary hearing for April 15. The hearing has already been delayed twice.

Combs, who lived in Garberville, allegedly walked up behind Earley and put a gun to his temple, firing once. The shooting occurred in the early morning hours of Jan. 6 in a home on Sixth Street in Alderpoint.

Combs reportedly confessed the killing to law enforcement.

Deputy District Attorney Jessica Acosta told Judge Wilson this morning that Earley’s autopsy has been performed, but she doesn’t expect the autopsy report until May. Acosta said an officer who attended the autopsy can testify as to what he witnessed.

Wilson noted, however, that the defense could ask at that time for another continuance if the officer is not able adequately explain the autopsy results.

Acosta said she expects the hearing to take “at least four hours.”

[CORRECTION: This story originally misidentified the location of the shooting. It has been corrected.]

PREVIOUSLY: