Court proceedings are expected to continue on Monday for the man accused of double murder in Arbuckle, which could eventually lead to a resolution the families of the victims have been waiting on for four years.
Martin Christian Ehrke, the 50-year-old accused of killing Kimberly Lynn Taylor, 39, and Jessica Lynn Mazak, 25, at his family’s farm on January 25, 2018, was returned to the custody of the Colusa County Jail on Tuesday, after staying less than a year in a California State mental hospital.
After multiple starts and stops in the criminal proceedings, Colusa County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey A. Thompon had found Ehrke not mentally competent to stand trial, despite conflicting psychiatric evaluations to determine his mental state, issues that were first raised in June of 2019.
Colusa County District Attorney Matthew Beauchamp has long disputed Ehrke’s mental incompetency claim based on the meaning under the law.
Ehrke’s defense-commissioned psychiatrist, however, claimed Ehrke suffers from a neurological disorder and lacks the mental capacity to actively participate in his legal proceedings, according to previous court testimony.
Ehrke is accused of murdering the two Colusa women, who were reportedly staying at his home at the time of their deaths.
Taylor’s body was found inside a freezer and Mazak’s body was discovered submerged in a nearby pond on his family’s Hillgate Road property.
Colusa County Sheriff’s Deputies made the gruesome discovery not long after another of Ehrke’s roommates returned home and discovered blood inside the home and the women gone.
Autopsies determined the cause of death to both women was blunt force trauma, according to the coroner.
At the time of Ehrke’s declaration of mental incompetency last April, the accused killer was awaiting a Miranda hearing in which the judge would determine if statements Ehrke made to law enforcement after he was detained should be admitted as evidence.
Ehrke was arrested in Colusa on the evening the bodies were found. He has pleaded not guilty to the two first degree felony murder charges, and two special allegations of committing multiple murders, which could have sent him to death row, if convicted, had Gov. Gavin Newsom not suspended capital punishment.
Ehrke is represented by Public Defender Brandon William. ■