By Oliver Camarena
WOODLAND, CA – The long-running attempted murder trial of Theo Kelso and Isaiah Berkley reconvened Tuesday with another round of witnesses being called to testify here in Yolo County Superior Court.
Kelso and Berkley are being charged with attempted murder, assault with firearm, dissuading a witness, threatening to commit a crime with intent to terrorize, robbery in the first degree and attempted second degree robbery.
The first witnesses Tuesday were a father and his son who separately testified to what they saw on Feb. 3, 2019.
The son, 14 at the time of the incident, recalled he was out on the street in the cul de sac in front of his house. He and two friends were jumping ramps on scooters when he said he heard a loud screech from a car coming quickly around the corner.
At that point, he was laying on one of the ramps in the middle of the street and had to get up and run to the side of the street as the silver car started driving down the cul de sac towards the group.
The witness testified that the car was going much faster than the speed limit on the residential street, estimating it around 60 miles per hour.
The car went straight for the ramps the boys were playing on and collided with them, causing one of the ramps to be wedged under the front of the car as it reached the end of the cul de sac and made a U turn.
The witness then said a red car then made the same turn into the cul de sac, though stopped once it saw the silver car making a U turn at the end of the cul de sac.
He said the silver car then sped up and past the red car while it watched and turned the corner, causing the ramp that was wedged under the car to come out. The red car chased the silver car and the witness recalls hearing three gunshots as the cars left his view.
The witness testified to seeing a driver in the silver car and two people in the red car, but could not give good descriptions of them.
Deputy District Attorney Jesse Richardson then provided the witness with pictures of the two cars in which he confirmed they were the same two cars that he saw that day.
The next witness was the first witness’s father who talked about the incident from his perspective. He said he heard the loud screech but was on the side of the house, causing him to run to the front where he saw the silver car at the end of the cul de sac with the ramp under it.
He similarly recounted the scene of the two cars driving out from the cul de sac with the silver car driving past the red one, and then the red one following in pursuit.
He chased after the cars when he heard gunshots which caused him to slow down. Further down the road, he saw shell casing and went back to his house to get cones to put around the shells for the police to see when they later arrived at the scene.
The last witness of the morning was a detective, who was being recalled as a witness to finish his testimony from the previous day.
The detective noted how both Kelso and Berkley’s Snapchat accounts were investigated, and Snapchat provided the police with additional information once a warrant was provided.
The information that the police were able to obtain from Snapchat was in the form of instant messaging, videos, and photos.
DDA Richardson showed the officer several instant messaging conversations that were done over Snapchat. One of them talked about a “toy” which the detective said was slang for a gun.
In another conversation between Berkley and someone else, they spoke about going to an address because someone “half P of loud,” which the officer explained means a half pound of marijuana.
There was later a different chain of messages that alluded to setting up a drug buy and then robbing the seller in what the officer said was called a “weed rip.”
The trial is set to be ongoing throughout the rest of the week.
