Richard Arlin Walker
Special to ICT
A forensics lab hired by defense attorneys for a Monache man convicted in a 1978 homicide is raising new questions about whether the gun identified as the murder weapon was planted by investigators.
The results of a review conducted by Forensic Analytical Crime Lab, an independent company in the San Francisco Bay area town of Hayward, found that the holster used for the weapon had a marking indicating it had been with police for five years before the shooting and that the handling of the gun and shell casings were haphazard and sloppy.
Attorneys for Douglas R. “Chief” Stankewitz of Big Sandy Rancheria, who was originally sentenced to die for the murder, said the tests confirm that the gun was not the weapon used to commit the crime. They filed a request on March 22 with Fresno County Superior Court seeking a hearing they hope will lead to Stankewitz’s freedom.
“The firearm currently in evidence and used to convict the Petitioner … was not actually the murder weapon,” according to the court filing.
ICT obtained copies of the test results, the findings of which were first reported by TheDavis Vanguard, an independent online news publication based in the Sacramento-area city of Davis, California.
James Ardaiz, a retired judge who as district attorney prosecuted Stankewitz in 1978 for the murder of Theresa Graybeal, was dismissive of the test results.
“This is the same argument the defense has been making. Nothing new here. Repetition does not make it true or accurate,” Ardaiz told ICT on March 25. “Accept the fact that Douglas Stankewitz is guilty. This purported ‘evidence’ does not show this was not the gun. Facts are facts.”
Graybeal was kidnapped on Feb. 8, 1978, as she walked to her car in a Kmart parking lot in Modesto, a Northern California city near Sacramento. Her body was found early the next morning in a vacant lot in the Fresno area, about 90 miles south of Modesto in California’s Central Valley.
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Stankewitz, who was 19 at the time, and four others were found in or near Graybeal’s car in Fresno, their hometown, early on Feb. 9 and were arrested and charged with Graybeal’s murder.
Two co-defendants — Billy Brown, 14, and Marlin Lewis, 22 — testified that Stankewitz shot Graybeal in the vacant lot when they stopped the car there, presumably to drop the 21-year-old woman off. Two other co-defendants — Teena Topping, 19, and Christina Menchaca, 25 — said they were in the car and didn’t see who fired the gun.
Stankewitz, who has maintained his innocence in the killing, was convicted of murder and sentenced to die in California’s gas chamber at San Quentin Prison. Brown received immunity for testifying against Stankewitz. The others were convicted of lesser, related charges.
All the defendants with the exception of Menchaca were Native; Menchaca was Mexican-American.
Recanted testimony
Stankewitz’s conviction was overturned in 1982 because of doubts he had been competent to assist in his own defense. He was found guilty at retrial in 1983 and again sentenced to death.
His retrial attorney, Hugh Goodwin, acknowledged in 1989 in the first of two sworn written statements that he failed to introduce Stankewitz’s mental health history, including psychiatric and psychological evaluations, that might have spared him the death penalty. Stankewitz was subjected to childhood abuse at home and in a state hospital, records show.
Read more:
—Monache man on Death Row maintains his innocence
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—Judge orders gun testing in 1978 murder case
—Death row inmate gets one more chance for parole
In 1993, co-defendant Brown recanted his testimony that Stankewitz killed Graybeal, saying his statements were coerced. The record shows that Brown, a minor at the time, had been questioned several times, often without a parent or attorney present.
In 2000, co-defendant Lewis told Laura Wass, a regional director of the American Indian Movement, that he, not Stankewitz, shot Graybeal.
In 2012, based partly on Goodwin’s sworn written statements, Stankewitz’s death sentence was overturned and he was later resentenced to life without the possibility of parole. He has remained on San Quentin’s death row, saying he feels safer there than in the general prison population.
A new review of the case prompted a re-examination of the evidence against him.
In 2019, Roger Clark, a certified police procedures consultant and retired Los Angeles County sheriff’s detective, said the 10-degree upward trajectory of the bullet that killed Graybeal — it entered below her right ear and exited near her left temple — indicated Stankewitz, at 6-foot-1 the tallest of the defendants, was too tall to have been the gunman.
In 2019, Roger Clark, a certified police procedures consultant and retired Los Angeles County sheriff’s detective, said the 10-degree upward trajectory of the bullet that killed Graybeal — it entered below her right ear and exited near her left temple — indicated Stankewitz, at 6-foot-1 the tallest of the defendants, was too tall to have been the gunman.
Allen Boudreau, a retired criminalist for the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department, wrote in a sworn statement in 2020 that he examined the evidence before testifying in the trial and was told by a deputy district attorney during trial testimony “to assume” that Graybeal was 5-foot-7, though the coroner documented her height as 5-foot-3.
In addition, Clark reported that in his examination of the evidence, he found it to have been carelessly handled and not verified according to procedure.
“Proper police procedures were not followed in the keeping of evidence [and] maintenance of [the] evidence room,” Clark reported. “Additionally, the prosecution never tested the car for blood, gunshot residue, or the bullet; these tests were standard procedure at the time of the incident and could have been exonerating to Stankewitz. The car was returned to [the] victim’s family on 2-10-78, 2 days after the crimes, without giving the defense the opportunity to inspect it or test it for evidence.”
Possible blood stains were visible on articles of clothing worn by some of the co-defendants, but those clothing items were not tested, Clark said, and some pieces of evidence appear to be missing.
The property/evidence report – an inventory of evidence – dated Feb. 9, 1978, includes a Titan .25-caliber handgun, a .25-caliber shell casing and a magazine with two .25-caliber rounds.
But Clark said no tests were done to confirm that Graybeal was killed with a .25-caliber weapon. The lack of evidence leaves open the possibility that Graybeal was killed with a gun other than the one introduced as evidence by investigators, according to Alexandra Cock, a member of his legal team.
Stankewitz petitioned for a resentencing hearing in 2021, contending he had been entitled to a hearing when his death sentence was reduced. Had the court heard mitigating evidence at that hearing, he might have received a sentence of life with possibility of parole, Cock said.
With credit for time served, he would have been immediately eligible for release.
In June 2022, California’s 5th District Court of Appeal ruled that Stankewitz is entitled to a hearing. The appellate court vacated Stankewitz’s sentence of life without the possibility of parole, though he remains convicted of murder.
Fresno County Superior Court Judge Arlan Harrell has scheduled a status conference for May 4.
Chain of custody
Forensic Analytical Crime Lab was founded in 1994 and is staffed by a forensic pathologist and six forensic scientists. The company has, according to its website, conducted more than 150 post-conviction investigations, “supporting the convictions in most; but leading to the exoneration of over 50 wrongly-convicted defendants, including several that had been sentenced to death.”
The crime lab’s report seems to back Clark’s statement that evidence in the Graybeal murder had been carelessly handled. Within the evidence box received by the crime lab were unsealed envelopes and evidence “all loose inside the box,” the company wrote in its report.
“The descriptions on the evidence submission form do not reflect the evidence labels on packaging or what was contained in the box,” according to the report.
Test firing of the gun in evidence, a Titan .25-caliber, semi-automatic pistol, showed that casings in the evidence box — one that prosecutors said was collected at the crime scene and others fired in later tests of the gun — did come from the Titan handgun, the crime lab reported.
But there are two inscriptions on the stainless steel belt clip of the gun’s holster, ostensibly made by law enforcement when the weapon was taken into custody. One, on the top edge of the clip, is inscribed “351 7/25/73” – representing an officer’s badge number and the date July 25, 1973. That’s when the gun was recovered by Sacramento city police after it had been reported stolen there.
The second inscription is “T.L III / 2-10-78,” for Fresno County Sheriff’s Detective Thomas Lean III and the date, Feb. 10, 1978, the day after Graybeal’s body was found.
The firearm, according to Stankewitz’s legal team, “could not have been the murder weapon as it was in law enforcement custody the entire time from when it was collected in 1973 through today.”
The legal team wrote to the court, “A review of all evidence paints a picture of officers searching for an appropriate murder weapon to plant in the vehicle over the span of several days.”
No information has been obtained showing that the gun was returned by the Sacramento Police Department to its owner after it was recovered. That would mean, however, that sometime between 1973 and 1978 the gun somehow went from Sacramento Police Department custody to the custody of the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department. But how? Cock said she could only theorize.
And if the gun was used in the murder of Graybeal, how did it get from Sacramento Police Department custody into the hands of the killer?
Cock believes Graybeal’s injury was consistent with a .22-caliber handgun, not a more powerful .25-caliber, although that has not been tested. She believes the gun used to commit the crime was thrown away by one of the co-defendants, that the Titan .25-caliber handgun was used as evidence in its place, and that investigators pinned the crime on Stankewitz because of their past experiences with him and his family.
In a Feb. 13 interview with ICT, Ardaiz called assertions that the gun was planted “ludicrous” and said the weapon had a clear chain of custody. He said the handgun was found by Fresno city police in Graybeal’s car, he said. When Graybeal’s body was found in an unincorporated area of Fresno, city police turned over all evidence to the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department, which had jurisdiction, Ardaiz said.
Investigators found via the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System that the gun had been reported stolen in Sacramento several years before. The Sacramento Police Department verified on Feb. 8, 2023, in response to a public records request submitted by the defense team, that a Titan handgun was stolen in June 1973 from the overnight bag of a 36-year-old man while he slept in that city’s Plazo Park. The report does not state that the handgun was returned.
“Their argument is that this gun was not used to kill the victim, that this gun was planted,” Ardaiz said. “The reality here is, Douglas Stankewitz left the Sacramento area prior to the killing of Theresa Graybeal. The gun in question was stolen in Sacramento several years before. The gun in question was never in the possession of the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department [prior to the murder]. The gun was in Sacramento, where Douglas Stankewitz’s mother and family were. All co-defendants indicated the gun was received from Douglas Stankewitz’s mother. There was only one gun, [the co-defendants] said Stankewitz had the gun, and Stankewitz killed Theresa Graybeal.”
‘They just wanted any Stankewitz’
Stankewitz said in an earlier interview with ICT that he was low-hanging fruit for investigators.
“I was the target because I’m Indian and because of my family and my family name,” he told ICT. “My family was known for violence, was known for trouble, was known to start trouble and to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. But police knew I didn’t do it. They just wanted any Stankewitz.”
Ardaiz, who had prosecuted other Stankewitz family members by 1978 when Douglas Stankewitz was arrested for Graybeal’s murder, told an investigator assisting Stankewitz’s legal team in March 2020 that he was a logical suspect. He repeated that in an interview with ICT on Feb. 13 this year.
“He was a very violent young man who came from a very violent background,” Ardaiz told ICT. “I don’t have any question about why he turned out the way he did. He’s not stupid. He may not be well-educated, but he is not stupid. I don’t have any question in my mind that Douglas Stankewitz murdered Theresa Graybeal. None. And I have never seen anything that would cause me to believe that that is not accurate.”
Ardaiz said the Graybeal murder “was and is consistent with his background and previous violent criminal conduct.”
Lean, the Fresno County sheriff’s detective who investigated the Graybeal murder, was interviewed in 2020 by an investigator assisting Stankewitz’s defense team. Lean described the Stankewitz family as having had “a reputation in the community,” that several family members had gone to prison and they were “known in the law enforcement community.”
Stankewitz doesn’t deny his past. He said his mother was an abusive alcoholic and that his father and siblings spent time in prison. Stankewitz alternated between foster homes, a state hospital and juvenile hall during his childhood and early teens. When he was 15, he was the driver of a car fleeing the scene of an alleged robbery and assault; a passenger in the car was killed in a shootout between Stankewitz’s brother and a pursuing police officer.
But Stankewitz denies killing Graybeal.
“If I could talk to [the Graybeal family] today, I would tell them I feel bad that they lost their daughter, their wife, whoever she was to them,” he told ICT on Nov. 16, 2021. “She was only 22 years old. That was a devastating loss to everybody. I hold her in my prayers every morning, her and her family. I wish it hadn’t happened, but I didn’t do it.”
Stankewitz’s legal team has vowed to help him adjust to life on the outside should he be released. Stankewitz, now 64, would live with a member of his legal team, Cock said.
Stankewitz said he would look for employment as a general worker in construction. And he looked forward to a home-cooked meal.
In the meantime, he meditates and exercises daily in his cell, listens to his radio, talks with his legal team, and works on his case for two or three hours. He has a typewriter in his cell and checks out materials from the prison law library. Every other day he gets 15 minutes to shower, and twice a week can exercise in the yard. He also participates in various worship services.
David Graybeal, who later remarried and started a family after several years of struggling to cope with his wife’s death, told ICT in February 2022 that Stankewitz should spend the rest of his life in prison.
“It doesn’t matter who pulled the trigger. They were all guilty of kidnapping and murdering Theresa,” he told ICT. “She was a beautiful young woman who had her whole life ahead of her. They didn’t need to kill her.”
Meanwhile, Marlin Lewis died in 2000, Cock said. Billy Brown died in 2006. Teena Topping died in 2015 or 2016. ICT could not confirm Christina Menchaca’s whereabouts.
TIMELINE: THE GUN
Fresno County sheriff’s investigators and prosecutors say a .25-caliber Titan handgun in evidence was the weapon used to kill Theresa Graybeal on Feb. 8, 1978. A crime lab, however, states that markings on the handgun’s holster indicate the gun had been in the possession of law enforcement since 1973.
Here’s a timeline of the gun, based on court documents, the crime lab analysis and the defense team of Douglas Stankewitz, who was convicted of Graybeal’s murder.
*June 7, 1973: A Titan .25-caliber handgun is reported stolen from an overnight bag in a park in Sacramento, California.
*July 25, 1973: The handgun is found by a resident and turned in to the Sacramento Police Department. The receiving officer inscribes their badge number and the date on the stainless steel clip of the holster: 351 7/25/73.
*Feb. 8, 1978: Theresa Graybeal, 21, is carjacked by a woman and three men in a Kmart parking lot in Modesto, California. The group drives the car, with Graybeal in a passenger seat, to their hometown of Fresno. Graybeal is reportedly told by one of the carjackers, Douglas Stankewitz, that they needed a ride to Fresno and she would not be harmed.
*Feb. 9, 1978: Billy Brown, a Fresno teenager who had been with the group during the carjacking and the drive, tells his mother that he witnessed a shooting; the mother calls the Fresno Police Department. Stankewitz and the others are found in Graybeal’s car in Fresno. “No firearm is found on or near [Stankewitz],” according to the defense.
*Feb. 9, 1978: One of the carjacking suspects leads city police to the place where they dropped off Graybeal, a vacant lot on 10th and Vine in an unincorporated area outside the city of Fresno. Graybeal is found dead from a bullet wound to the neck. Because the scene is outside the city limits, the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department takes over the investigation. Investigators report finding a .25-caliber shell casing at the scene.
*Feb. 9, 1978: Sheriff’s investigators take photographs of a .25-caliber Titan handgun and black holster in Graybeal’s car. On the stainless steel clip is the inscription “351 7/25/73.”
*Feb. 10, 1978: Sheriff’s Detective Thomas Lean III, an investigator of Graybeal’s murder, inscribes his initials and the date, T.L III / 2-10-78 onto the stainless steel clip of the gun holster, indicating he recovered the weapon and booked it into evidence that day. He checks the gun on the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System, which reports the gun’s initial sale by a licensed gun dealer in Stockton and its June 1973 theft in Sacramento, but it doesn’t indicate when or if the firearm was released from police custody.
*Feb. 8, 2023: Sacramento Police Department reports, in response to a public records request submitted by the defense team, that a Titan .25-caliber handgun was stolen in June 1973 from the overnight bag of a 36-year-old man while he slept in that city’s Plazo Park. Like the CLETS report from 1978, the department public records response does not state that the firearm was returned to its owner, or when or if the firearm was released from police custody.
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