A Solano County Superior Court judge on Friday ordered a 71-year-old defendant, charged with the 1987 murder of a 6-year-old Vallejo boy, to return for more proceedings in the capital case.
During the brief morning proceeding in Department 8 in Fairfield, Judge Wendy Getty told Fred Marion Cain III to appear for another proceeding at 8:30 a.m. June 6, when the judge and the attorneys in the case will air a California Appeals Court’s pretrial ruling and also likely result in a preliminary hearing setting.
A previously convicted felon, Cain is charged with the Feb. 21,1987, killing of Jeremy Floyd Stoner, a crime with special circumstances. They include kidnapping, sodomy and committing lewd and lascivious acts on a child under 14 years of age. At his jail arraignment in 2023, with Chief Deputy Public Defender Oscar Bobrow at his side, Cain pleaded not guilty and denied all enhancements. He also is represented by co-counsel Denisse Tanasa, a deputy public defender.
Chief Deputy District Attorney Bruce Flynn represents the DA’s Office.
During the proceeding, Cain sat shackled once again in a wheelchair at the defense table, his wispy white hair and beard grown longer over time.
Although Cain was arrested on the charges in September 2023, forward movement in the case over the months has been stalled by the DA’s assertion that the Public Defender’s Office representation of Cain presented a possible conflict.
The perceived conflict stemmed not only from the case’s special circumstances, carrying the possibility of the death penalty, but also from the fact that a previous suspect in the case, Shawn Melton, who was twice acquitted of the charge several decades ago, was represented by the Public Defender.
Flynn and other prosecutors believe Bobrow could argue “third-person culpability” to a jury, asserting that Melton, despite the acquittals, was the actual killer instead of Cain. Flynn wanted the Public Defender to recuse itself from the case and have the trial court appoint an alternate counsel qualified to handle capital cases.
But Bobrow has argued that no one today in the Public Defender’s Office has any connection to the previous trial, Melton has since died, and the defense attorney in the Melton case, then Public Defender Peter Foor, who later became a Superior Court judge, has since retired.
Judge Getty granted the DA’s motion for an alternative writ of mandate, a type of court order to comply with the DA’s request or explain why they should not be forced to comply.
Cain then filed an “instant petition for extraordinary relief from that order,” according to a document from the First Appellate District Court of California. In response, the court, on April 11, granted Cain’s petition “because no conflict of interest currently exists.”
Asked to comment on the appellate court’s decision, Flynn said in the email to The Reporter, “We accept the First District Court’s ruling and are ready to move forward with the case.”
A previously reported, jail records show Cain was arrested a second time, after being first taken into custody near Medford, Oregon, on a warrant served Sept. 27, 2023, in Red Bluff by Solano County Sheriff’s deputies. He was booked into custody in Fairfield without bail shortly after noon that same day.
Before Cain’s second arrest, some additional details about the case emerged during a press conference called by Solano County District Attorney Krishna Abrams.
She recounted some of the previously published details of Cain’s Sept. 18 arrest, news that gained statewide attention after the release of a press statement Sept. 21 and a Reporter story posted online later that evening.
Abrams also provided new information about the case not mentioned in the prepared statement, including Stoner’s name. According to the criminal complaint, Stone was killed on or about Feb. 21, 1987, in Solano County.
Additionally, she cited previous felony convictions against Cain in Contra Costa County Superior Court on May 22, 1979. He was found guilty of sodomy, rape by the use of an intoxicating substance, burglary, and first-degree burglary.
Abrams also noted she reinstated the Cold Case Unit in her office after being first elected in 2014 and credited new DNA analysis and two cold case investigators, Steve Howisey and Kevin Coelho, for “working tirelessly” to solve a case she described as “every parent’s worst nightmare.” Stoner’s death “wracked” the Vallejo community, she added.
Howisey, said Abrams, “took another look at the case” in October 2022, obtaining evidence that showed a match for the initial suspect in the case, Shawn Melton. However, after a trial and retrial, with juries unable to reach unanimous verdicts, he was released from custody and eventually exonerated.
So investigators determined DNA could lead to another suspect, and it led to Cain, who, Abrams said, was initially interviewed after the killing, on March 3, 1987, but was not taken into custody.
Cain, she said, “did know the child” and was not living in Vallejo at the time of the alleged killing.
Howisey and Coelho, with members of the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office, arrested Cain at his home in Central Point, just north of Medford on Interstate 5. Coelho said Cain was “compliant” with officers’ commands.
A former Vallejo police officer, Coelho described the investigation as “very lengthy,” recalling that the case has been “talked about for years” by Vallejo officers and others. He said he “took a personal interest in this case.”
In the initial press statement, Abrams noted Stoner was abducted near his home in Vallejo. Four days after he went missing, his body was discovered on Sherman Island in Sacramento County. An autopsy revealed that the boy had been sexually assaulted.
At the press conference, she provided additional details about why Melton initially was named as a suspect in the case and arrested. She said Melton walked into the Vallejo Police Department and appeared to have his own investigative service and provided information, as Abrams explained, “only the person responsible for the child’s death would know.”
Abrams told The Reporter that, given the charges against Cain, he “is eligible for the death penalty at this time, but we will not make the final decision until after the preliminary hearing is concluded.”
Gov. Gavin Newsom in 2019 signed an executive order halting executions in California while he’s in office, but capital punishment convictions remain possible in the Golden State.