By Abigail Henderson
WOODLAND- A man allegedly robbed a home in Davis and was chased out the back door by one of the four residents, and now faces a preliminary hearing.
The defendant, Christopher Jones, allegedly stole a laptop, speaker and power cord from a Davis home. One resident woke up and ran after Mr. Jones and jumped on his back in an attempt to keep him there. Mr. Jones allegedly punched and kicked her multiple times. Christopher Jones is charged with 1st-degree burglary and 2nd-degree robbery, with time enhancements because the crime was committed with a person present.
The first of seven witnesses testifying in this half of the prelim, Officer Alex Torres of the Davis Police Department, was the responding officer to the scene of the burglary.
He saw firsthand the wounds allegedly inflicted by Mr. Jones on the fighting resident and located all the evidence at the scene. Officer Torres collected a cell phone left behind.
When he first inspected the phone, he noticed a Lyft notification, but then turned it off and booked it into evidence.
The next three witnesses were all police service specialists testifying to how and when they collected all the data from the cell phone.
They collected data from apps like Facebook, Verizon, Metro PCS, Instagram, and Google.
Sherry Kolb, a police service specialist, gave testimony on how she manually went through the black LG phone that was left behind. She found, in the sent messages, phrases like, “I’ve got Macs,” referring to MacBook pro laptop computers.
These messages were sent on multiple occasions and to multiple recipients.
Ms. Kolb also searched through the photos on the phone and found six screenshots of laptops and their serial numbers. After cross-reference, three of the laptops came back as reported stolen.
Photos of the defendant were identified in the photos and Ms. Kolb used this to identify Mr. Jones as well.
In the Lyft app, Ms. Koln found a recent trip where Mr. Jones was dropped off at a local Davis “ampm” gas station. The scene of the crime was less than a mile from the gas station.
The last key testimony came from the head investigator, Officer Janelle Bestpitch. All data found off the phone was sent to her and was compiled into a comprehensive report on all the information.
Officer Bestpitch also identified contacts within the cell phone and confirmed the “mom” contact as Christoper Jones’ mother. She had previous contact with his mom so identification was easy.
The second half of the witnesses will testify as the prosecution brings forth at least ten more witnesses during this preliminary hearing.
