Attorney Meagan O’Connell with defendant Daryl Ray Jones. | Photo by John Chiv, used with permission.

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PREVIOUSLY

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WARNING: This story contains quoted testimony that includes strong language (aka “swear words”) and threats of violence to children.

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Daryl Ray Jones, the Oklahoma man accused of terrorizing multiple Humboldt County school communities through a series of threatening phone calls earlier this year, appeared in court today for a preliminary hearing.

With Deputy District Attorney Roger Rees prosecuting the case and Conflict Council Supervising Attorney Meagan O’Connell representing Jones, the hearing took place in Courtroom 4, where two local law enforcement officers took the stand to recount responding to the barrage of threats, which began on Feb. 27 with a call to the California Conservation Corps (CCC) office in Fortuna.

On the witness stand, California Highway Patrol Officer Travis Sarvinski testified that a CCC employee named Raquel Ortega called 911 after receiving multiple calls that day from a man unknown to her who threatened to come down and kill her specifically.

Another employee in the office, Deborah Nelson, spoke to the caller as well and heard him say, “Kill Raquel, bitch” and “I’mma kill you too, bitch,” according to Sarvinksi.

Nelson and Ortega received more threatening calls from the man on Feb. 28, March 7 and March 18, Sarvinksi testified. Reading from his own police reports, the officer said that during one such call the male voice said, “You know I’m planning on coming up there and killing all y’all motherfuckers” and, later, “Call the cops, bitch. Y’all dead.” 

Sarvinski said he authored a search warrant for phone records and found that the phone number from which the calls were made matched one that had been provided by the Arcata Police Department in connection to other threatening phone calls.

The caller had made reference to showing up in a red pickup or coupe, and a red 2000 Nissan Frontier parked near the CCC office was found to be registered in Jones’s name, Sarvinski said. Employees searched a database and found that Jones had worked for the CCC until 2017.

Next on the stand was Ryan Flowers, a former Eureka Police Department officer (where he served as school resource officer for one year) who is now employed by the Cal Poly Humboldt Police Department. Flowers testified that in March he responded to a series of threatening phone calls that led to lockdowns at Eureka High School, Alder Grove Charter School, Sweet Peas Learning Center, Little Saplings Preschool and Grant Elementary School. 

Secretaries at each of these schools were scared by the threats, which referenced plans to shoot up the schools, kidnap children and murder kids and employees, according to Flowers.

Periodically during the witnesses’ testimony, O’Connell lodged objections about Rees’s questions, sometimes challenging whether he had sufficient foundation, other times accusing him of leading the witnesses. Judge Canning sustained a few of these objections but allowed much of the testimony to proceed. During her cross-examination, O’Connell sought to cast doubt on the identify of the caller.

The start of this morning’s hearing was delayed a bit by a request from regular court reporter John Chiv to take photographs during the proceedings. O’Connell objected, accusing Chiv of being biased and questioning whether he should even be considered media. But Judge Canning ruled that he does meet the state’s definition of media, and he granted the request for photography, though only after calling a recess and allowing Jones to change out of his bright orange inmate jumpsuit and into dress clothes that O’Connell had retrieved from her office.

The trial of Jones has been delayed by questions regarding his competency to stand trial. This preliminary hearing, which is intended to lay the foundation for a jury trial, is scheduled to continue Tuesday morning at 9:15.