File photo.

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PREVIOUSLY

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WARNING: This story includes descriptions of testimony that readers will almost certainly find disturbing.

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In the long-delayed resumption of a preliminary hearing for Daryl Ray Jones, officers from both the Arcata and Fortuna police departments took the stand this week to recount a series of threatening phone calls made to local businesses and schools last winter.

Jones during an August court appearance. | Photo by John Chiv.

Jones, who faces multiple felony counts of making terroristic threats, sat silently at the defense table throughout the days’ testimony, wearing a white dress shirt. Whenever he leaned forward, the shirt pulled tight across his shoulders and the “3XL” printed on the back of his inmate jumpsuit was legible through the thin fabric. 

In their testimony, officers described numerous phone calls in which a male voice threatened to commit violent acts. In at least one case, the caller expressed a desire to rape, kill and mutilate children.

The threats, made from several different phone numbers in late February and March of 2025, prompted lockdowns at several local schools and preschools. Under questioning from Deputy District Attorney Roger Rees, the lead prosecutor in the case, officers said the calls sparked fear in business employees, school secretaries, administrators and others.

Jones is being represented by Meagan O’Connell with the county’s Conflict Counsel Office. In cross-examining the officers, she questioned whether they could be certain about specific details, often challenging their assertions that the people who answered these calls found the threats credible and were scared by them.

Fortuna Police Officer Bryce Sancho testified about threatening calls made to that city’s Starbucks and Trish’s Out of the Way Café. The caller made “nonstop calls threatening to kill everyone inside” the latter establishment, Sancho said. 

Fortuna Police Detective Thomas Macleod testified about responding to Rainbow Junction Children’s Center, a Fortuna preschool and daycare that was put on lockdown after receiving multiple calls from a man who threatened to shoot up the school. 

The most explicitly violent threats recounted in court thus far were made during a call to Jacoby Creek Elementary School on March 19. Arcata Police Officer Robert Duggan testified that a school secretary there answered the phone and spoke to a man who said he planned to “kill you and all of the children I can get my hands on.” 

The caller went on to say he wanted to “slit all of the children’s throats” and “really wants to rape all the little girls, cut their backs open and peel the skin off so he can see their ribs,” Duggan testified. The secretary was afraid that the caller could be across the street, and after she told the school principal about the call, a shelter-in-place was ordered.

Death threats were also called in to Fuente Nueva Elementary School that same day, and the school was placed on lockdown, according to testimony from Arcata Police Sergeant Abraham Jansen. 

The next day, March 20, a secretary at Sunny Brae answered a call from a man who said, “I’m going to kill you and all the children in the school,” according to Duggan’s testimony. While most of the threatening calls had been made from cell phones with a 707 area code, this one came from the Oklahoma-based area code of 580, Duggan said. Jones has history in Humboldt County but was living in Oklahoma at the time of his arrest. 

Other officers testified to threats called in to yet more schools, including Arcata Elementary School, Pacific Union Middle School and Coastal Grove Charter School.

Arcata Police Officer Kasey Burke testified that on March 20, she responded to Arcata Elementary and found staff crouched behind a desk in the administration office with the lights off. The school’s secretary had answered a from a man who addressed her by her first name and said, “I’m going to kill you, arrogant bitch,” Burke said. 

When a call came in to Pacific Union the next day, Burke responded to the scene and managed to speak with the caller. By this point, the Arcata Police Department had identified Jones as a suspect, and so when a school secretary answered a call and promptly handed the phone over to Burke, the officer engaged the caller in conversation while addressing him as “Daryl.” 

“Did the person correct you [or] indicate that wasn’t their name?” Rees asked.

“No,” Burke replied. 

During the phone conversation with Burke, the caller said he wanted to rape children. Burke testified that he told the caller this wasn’t a wise decision, but the caller reiterated his desire to rape children. When Burke asked him why, the caller said it was “because he was sad,” the officer testified. Under cross-examination from O’Connell, Burke said the caller also admitted to being depressed. 

While school employees may have been scared by these calls, Burke said he wasn’t.

“I believe that Daryl, the person I was talking to, was doing this in a manner to get attention, and probably, likely, mental health stuff was going on with him,” Burke said.

While Burke was on the Pacific Union campus, employees and administrators recounted their own conversations with the subject. Principal Mathew Bigham reported that the caller had expressed his intent to rape children and said, “little boy or little girl, don’t matter.”

In a call to Coastal Grove, the caller again said he planned to shoot and rape children and told a secretary, “I’m gonna shoot you; I’ll be there in 30 seconds,” Burke testified. 

Officer testimony extended through the afternoon on Monday and resumed this morning, with other Arcata police officers relaying information about threatening calls made to the Best Western in Valley West, Humboldt Brews downtown and Arcata High School. These calls, made in late February, included more threats to harm and kill.

Jones was arrested on March 21 of last year. Legal proceedings against him were delayed after Judge Kelly Neel expressed doubt about Jones’s ability to understand the charges against him and participate in his own defense. Jones was subsequently examined by local clinical psychologist Dr. Mark Lamers, and the preliminary hearing began in August. 

The preliminary hearing is intended to lay the groundwork for a jury trial. But that hearing was itself delayed after just a day and a half of testimony when Rees admitted that he had failed to turn over some important court documents to the defense counsel, O’Connell. He cited a filing mistake. 

The preliminary hearing is scheduled to continue tomorrow.