By Terry Vau Dell
The Chico Enterprise-Record
OROVILLE, Calif. - A jail informant read excerpts Tuesday in court of what he clams was a series of hand-written confessions by a Chico jail-mate to the murder of his girlfriend.
The purported admissions, which came as a surprise to the victim’s family, were introduced during the first of a two-day preliminary hearing in Butte County Superior Court for Robert Andrew Carlos, 40.
Carlos is accused of killing his live-in girlfriend, Julie Ann Bayne-McGaffick, 44, whose body was found floating in the Sacramento River April 13, about two weeks after she disappeared from the couple’s Chico apartment.
Although the jail informant said he had tried to get some “consideration” in his own stolen property case, he told Judge Steven Howell he turned over the incriminating correspondence to the authorities because “for murder, I felt it was the right thing to do.”
In one of four handwritten notes, which police said were authenticated by a handwriting expert as having been penned by Carlos, the accused slayer allegedly confessed: “I spun out ... We both fought and I killed the bitch.”
The notes, which the informant claimed Carlos had passed to him in his adjoining cell at the Butte County Jail, contained veiled references about shooting a woman and tossing her body “in the wash” before being dumped in the river.
Members of the victim’s family, including the slain woman’s mother, said they had been unaware of the purported confessions and planned to personally thank the jailhouse informant, whose identity is being withheld by this newspaper for his protection.
During the pretrial hearing, several Chico police officers testified that although efforts were made to clean up the couple’s Orange Street apartment, a large pool of blood was found under a bedroom carpet and a smaller amount in the front passenger side of Carlos’ pickup.
According to assistant district attorney Helen Harberts, DNA tests determined the latter blood was that of the victim, though, identical tests are still not completed on the stain recovered from the bedroom.
Police said co-workers of Bayne-McGaffick reported seeing her and her live-in boyfriend frequently argue and overheard at least one verbal threat by Carlos to kill her, prior to her death.
But defense attorney Kevin Sears got police to concede the victim was facing sentencing on a felony narcotic sales conviction at the time of her death, and had received numerous threats from others involved in the local drug scene.
On the night the Chico mother of three disappeared, a couple in an adjoining apartment told police a loud verbal argument erupted during which they thought they heard both Carlos and his girlfriend vow “I’ll kill you.”
Lead police detective Terry Moore testified the neighbors responded by loudly playing two songs, including the Beatles “All you Need Is Love” to try to calm down the combatants.
The neighbors never heard a gunshot and Sears got police to acknowledge the victim was able to send a cellular phone text message to a friend that night complaining of being struck in the head.
After the songs stopped playing, the neighbors reported hearing sounds like cupboards banging and the next morning, what may have been a female yelling in the adjoining apartment.
Bank records showed that in the days after the woman vanished, more than $2,000 was withdrawn from her Chico bank account via a series of ATM transactions made at an Oroville gaming casino.
Carlos, who allegedly was having an affair with another woman, also pawned some of his missing girlfriend’s jewelry and a camera containing photos of Bayne-McGaffick and her children, police testified.
When Bayne-McGaffick still had not showed up for work at a Chico convalescent facility by April 14, a co-worker filed a missing person’s report.
That was one day after seeing news accounts of an unidentified woman’s body being pulled from the river.
Though an autopsy listed the cause of death as “blunt force trauma,” a pathologist told police the victim’s injuries were consistent with a gunshot wound to the forehead.
But the level of decomposition and other factors, made that difficult to positively confirm.
Besides multiple skull fractures, the dead woman also sustained a severely broken arm, which Moore testified was consistent with an attempt to ward off an attack.
Copyright MediaNews Group, Inc. and ANG Newspapers