By Julia Asby and Hongyi Wen
SACRAMENTO, CA – Defendant Cody Houtz’s preliminary hearing here Thursday in Sacramento County Superior Court didn’t go very well.
Not only was his case set for trial May 24 on felony stalking and threats—and a misdemeanor violation of a court order—but his bail was increased.
The entire episode, according to testimony presented at the preliminary hearing, began after the victim revealed the child that she shared with defendant Houtz could have been fathered by someone else.
Houtz allegedly blew up the victim’s phone with calls and threatening messages. 
About a week later, a verbal disagreement during a court ordered visitation broke out and led to Houtz honking in front of the victim’s house and throwing rocks at her house, allegedly.
Previously, a protective order had been put in place by a judge to restrict Houtz’s behavior in the interest of protecting the victim and preventing further stalking or harassment.
Officer Ricky Lazaro, who was working as a telephone report taker, received a call from the alleged victim on Jan. 15, reporting a “domestic violence restraining violation against her ex-boyfriend and the father of her child, by the name of Cody Houtz.”
Lazaro recounted that the victim said she and her mother received multiple calls, voice messages, text messages from a No Caller ID number, that “indicate(d) that she was a wh–e, that paternity test will be taken, that she will be cut off from any financial support. The messages left on her mother’s phone regarding accusations against her mother for raising [the victim’s] two sisters to be wh–es.”
The victim emailed the voice messages to the officer, who told the court, “Two of the messages indicated the desire to give a paternity test, accusation of the victim offering oral sex for income, cutting child support. There were the messages that [the victim and her mother] were pieces of s–t. Excuse the profanity.”
On Jan. 23, Officer Lazaro received another phone call from the same victim regarding violation of the protective order, complaining that during the victim’s court ordered visitation with her daughter to Houtz’s house, Houtz was allegedly not acting in a peaceful manner as required by the protective order.
Lazaro said, “On this day, [the victim] had phoned me that she attempted to stick to the court ordered visitation by visiting Mr. Houtz at his address in Sacramento. At which point, she felt the need to leave. She and her daughter went home, she received several voice messages, several calls.”
He continued, “The voice messages that she emailed to me indicated that the individual was extremely upset, threatened to give them exactly what they were going to get. I believe the phrasing was ‘you and your family are pieces of s–t, better watch your back, you and your family are going to get what is coming to you.”
Houtz also went to the victim’s house later at night, said the officer from the stand, noting the victim “advised me that Mr. Houtz arrived and constantly honked his horn for about 5 to 7 minutes and then left.”
Despite Lazaro’s attempts to reach Houtz regarding the incidents on Jan. 15, 2021, and on Jan 23, 2021, Houtz never picked up the phone, he said.
Assistant Public Defender Eliza Hook confirmed with Lazaro that the victim did not initially want to press charges against Houtz and wanted to settle the matter in family court. The victim is also seeking full custody of the daughter.
Hook continued to question the officer about the voicemails that Houtz allegedly sent to the victim and her mother.
Lazaro said that the victim revealed that she had possession of both her and her mother’s phone since she knew that Houtz would try to contact her on both phones.
Hook insisted, “So her mother did not receive any of these messages, it was [the victim] that was receiving them through her mother’s phone?”
Lazaro said, “Both phones, her mother’s phone and her phone. Yes.”
According to Lazaro, the victim did not understand why her phone was being blown up by Houtz on Jan. 15. Hook questioned whether Lazaro had viewed the previous messages that were sent between the victim and Lazaro.
Lazaro testified he only received the conversation Houtz had with the victim on some phone application. Regardless of some spelling errors, Lazaro said that Houtz’s message was clear: ”Blur you, f–king w–re.”
Hook asked Lazaro, “Did she show you the message that she sent to him? Stating that his daughter is likely not his because she (the victim) had been having sex with another man on a cruise.”
“No ma’am, I never received these messages.” Lazaro said.
While it is true that the next day, Jan. 16, the victim was supposed to take her daughter to visit Houtz, the victim did indicate fear about how Houtz was going to react on the next day.
“No ma’am. She did not indicate that she did not want to comply with it, she indicated that she was fearful because she did not know how Mr. Houtz was going to react that time.”
Hook argued that, “So she did not want to comply with the court ordered visitation.”
Lazaro maintained, “Whether or not she wanted to or not, that was not expressed to me. However, I did suggest that regardless of her fear of interaction that she do her best to follow the visitation order.”
Regarding the Jan. 23, incident, Hook questioned whether Lazaro knew that the victim had not been responding to texts and calls earlier that day. Lazaro said he did not know anything regarding this.
Lazaro revealed that the victim and Houtz had some in-person verbal disagreement during the visitation, which made the victim leave the house around 3:30 p.m.
According to the police report, Houtz drove to the victim’s house and honked the car horn for about 5 to 7 minutes at around 5:30 p.m. that day in front of her house. There were no allegations of Houtz directly making threats toward the victim.
Hook revealed during court hearings that when Houtz was in front of the victim’s house, he also called 911 for police assistance. Lazaro was unaware of the call by Houtz.
Officer Patrick Scott also testified he had spoken with the victim after an incident in which she felt her safety was being threatened. Over the course of the preliminary hearing, Officer Scott revealed that he had seen around six screenshots worth of text messages allegedly sent by Houtz in an effort to intimidate and threaten.
While the screenshots and context of the messages were not shared over Zoom, Officer Scott described how the messages included threats to set the victim’s family on fire, starting with her father and killing her last.
Officer Scott testified that on the night of the incident, the victim heard a loud thump outside her house, and after going downstairs she saw Mr. Houtz outside of her house throwing items at the house. Scott recalled that the victim remembered hearing Houtz yell “F—k you b—-h.”
Deputy District Attorney Scott Scheweibish noted the victim’s allegations that Houtz claimed he wanted to burn her family alive, and Officer Scott described how the victim’s father was there that night and witnessed Houtz throw items toward the house and the victim’s family cars.
Scheweibish asked Officer Scott if Houtz confirmed to him that there was a restraining order that still allowed contact with the child, and Scott responded “yes.”
Officer Scott recounted his conversation with Houtz the day of the incident wherein Houtz admitted to sending text messages but claimed that he was “just texting her to see his daughter.”
Hook began her questioning of Scott by asking him if the victim had told him she was refusing court ordered visitation with Houtz, to which Scott simply replied “no.” Hook also pointed out that the victim had asked the police to do a welfare check on Houtz a few days earlier.
Hook attempted to cast doubt on the authenticity of the text messages by asking Officer Scott: “Can you say with any level of certainty whether any of these text messages were edited in any way before they were sent to you?”
Officer Scott responded by saying no and clarified that he did not know if the text messages were edited before being forwarded to him.
Julia Asby is a third year student at UC Davis majoring in Political Science with a minor in Sociocultural Anthropology. She is originally from Sacramento.
Hongyi Wen is a junior at UC Santa Cruz majoring in Sociology. He is from Guangzhou, China.
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