BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — The realtor who helped Trezell and Jacqueline West purchase a house in California City and the owner of a pest control business that serviced the property faced questioning Monday that mainly focused on how many children they saw during their visits.
Both said they didn’t count the children and couldn’t give an exact figure, but realtor Rick Dees recalled seeing one child sitting with an “upset” look as other children played happily around him. He asked the Wests about the boy and they told him the child was always upset.
In court, Dees identified a photo of Orson West as the upset child he believes he saw on Sept. 11, 2020, three months before Orson, 3, and Orrin 4, were reported missing. They were the youngest of the six children the Wests’ cared for.
Dees’ testimony came on the fourth day of Trezell and Jacqueline West’s trial. The couple is charged with second-degree murder, among other offenses, in the deaths of the adopted boys, who prosecutors say were killed three months before reported missing.
Defense counsel has said the couple had nothing to do with the boys’ disappearance. The trial is expected to last until early June.
Following Dees’ testimony, Joseph Karschamroon, owner of Antelope Valley Pest Control, testified he saw a lot of children when he went to the couple’s home on Sept. 15, 2020, but repeatedly said he didn’t count them and couldn’t give a number.
The prosecution alleges both Orrin and Orson died sometime in September 2020.
Later Monday, California City resident Robert Avelar testified he was outside working on his truck and doing yard work the day the boys were reported missing. He said he didn’t see any toddlers or anyone else walking through the area before police and citizen volunteers began showing up.
Avelar said he saw a couple vehicles go by before 6 p.m. One was the Wests’ white van, the other a car driven by a Black woman that went driving through unmarked roads in the desert before returning to a street where Avelar later lost track of it. It doesn’t appear the driver of that car was ever identified.
Multiple clips taken from surveillance cameras on Avelar’s home were played. Timothy Hennessy, one of the attorneys representing Trezell West, noted there was a gap of 14 minutes from one clip to the next and asked what happened to the intervening footage. Avelar testified he gave all the footage to authorities and said the cameras are motion activated.
Asked if there was more footage taken during that time period, Avelar said, “I’m sure there was.”
Alekxia Torres Stallings, lead counsel for Jacqueline West, questioned California City police Officer Michael Kelakios about his failure to write a report regarding his visit to the West residence the morning of Dec. 23, 2020. Kelakios spoke with Trezell West and walked through a dirt and brush lot east of the home but, other than his body worn camera footage, didn’t document his investigation.
And even the footage has issues — Kelakios said the date and time seen on it are inaccurate. He said he never spoke with the boys’ biological family or determine where they were when the children were reported missing. He said he passed along the name of a neighbor he spoke with to another officer.
“I did not do a followup investigation,” Kelakios said.
Additionally, the officer repeatedly said he didn’t recall getting in trouble with the department for stating his opinion of the case in a Facebook post. Torres Stallings showed him a transcript and played a video without sound but Kelakios said he didn’t remember either making the post or getting in trouble.
The last witness called Monday was California City Police Chief Jesse Hightower, who testified to calling in support from Kern County search and rescue and the California Highway patrol to help with the search. A lieutenant at the time, Hightower established a command post outside the West home where he gave assignments to officers and citizen volunteers.
A CHP helicopter circled the neighborhood and desert for three hours using infrared imaging but located no children. Questioned by Torres Stallings, CHP Officer Zachary Edwards said infrared can not pick up heat signatures in homes or vehicles unless a person is near an open door or window.
Hightower will resume testifying at 9 a.m. Tuesday. Clips from his body-worn camera will be played for the jury.
Follow along with 17 News’ live-tweeting of the trial.
