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By Darcy Ellis
and Mike Bodine
Register Staff
12-3-2009 Almost one week after Bishop resident James Williams was killed on Thanksgiving night and his cousin, 21-year-old Morgan Wade Kinney, Jr., was arrested for his murder, someone else has reportedly confessed to the crime.
According to Inyo County Sheriff’s Investigator Jeff Hollowell, investigators interviewed and apprehended a 17-year-old male juvenile Tuesday morning who ultimately confessed to the “brutal attack” that cost Williams his life on Nov. 26 – just five days after Williams turned 29.
Hollowell said the arrest and subsequent confession came as a result of “active follow-up investigation.” He added that the suspect was one of four individuals initially detained for questioning that evening. However, he said that he has yet to talk to anyone else who was at the scene who will confirm that the juvenile did in fact commit the crime.
In the days following Kinney’s arrest, the Sheriff’s Department had received many phone calls, mostly anonymous, stating that Kinney was the wrong guy, and even giving the name of the juvenile who was arrested Tuesday morning.
“It was typical rumor-mill stuff,” Hollowell said, explaining that no action could be taken until more credible witnesses and contacts could be made and more leads followed.
The male juvenile is being held at the Inyo County Juvenile Detention Center in Independence, literally across the street from where Kinney remains in custody on a parole violation pending further investigation.
Kinney was first taken into custody late last Thursday after sheriff’s deputies responded to an ambulance request at 299 N. Barlow Ln.
Upon arrival, according to a press release issued Nov. 27, they discovered Williams on the floor of the home suffering from blunt-force trauma to his head and Kinney “passed out” nearby.
Williams was pronounced dead by Symon’s Ambulance personnel sometime after 10:08 p.m. – when the ambulance arrived, according to the Bishop Police Department’s computer-aided dispatch records – and before 10:28 p.m., when the Sheriff’s Department’s CAD logged Kinney as having arrived at Northern Inyo Hospital by ambulance.
Three women, who requested anonymity because of the high level of emotion and tumult on the reservation right now, were at the residence with both Williams and Kinney the night of the attack. They said Kinney had been suffering from alcohol poisoning and was at one point having seizures on the living room floor as they waited for the ambulance to arrive.
There are differing versions as to what took place that night at 299 N. Barlow, but the women take exception to information previously given to the Register that indicated there was some sort of large party going on at the house.
According to the women, a small contingent of family and close friends had gathered that evening to socialize and drink. They admit that some of those in attendance, including Williams and Kinney, over-indulged that night, and by about 9:30 p.m. most everybody had gone home or was very intoxicated.
They said Kinney, who is allegedly “allergic to alcohol,” had been trying to start fights with some of the people in the house, and Williams was attempting to calm him down. As the gathering cleared up, the three women recalled Williams trying to call his girlfriend for a ride home. One of the women walked to her nearby house, another retired to a back room and the third said at this point she was “black-out drunk” and does not remember anything that occurred from that point on.
The next thing the woman in the back room could recall was the intoxicated woman screaming from the front room. Following the cries, the woman discovered Williams lying on the floor and the intoxicated woman holding Kinney as he convulsed and foamed at the mouth.
According to the young woman, she called 911 right away – not after 20-30 minutes as a source initially told the Register.
Records from the Bishop CHP Office confirm CHP dispatch received a young woman’s 911 call via cell phone at
10:04 p.m. (all 911 cell phone calls in California are automatically sent to the CHP).
According to the dispatch supervisor, a young woman requested an ambulance for a male subject who was not breathing. The dispatcher then “immediately transferred the call” to the Bishop PD, which, according to the PD, “dispatched Symons (Ambulance) and then transferred the call to the Sheriff’s Department.”
After the woman got off the phone with all three dispatchers, she had time to run to the home of the second young woman, who had left the party 20 minutes earlier. The older woman then ran to the scene and tried to perform CPR on Williams. She said she could find no pulse, and two sheriff’s deputies arrived shortly thereafter, although they were expecting an ambulance.
Hollowell said that the deputies were dispatched at 10:07.51 p.m. and were on-scene literally five seconds later, at 10:07.56, because they had copied the previous radio traffic reporting a “subject down and not breathing” and were already en route.
He did admit the deputies arrived prior to the ambulance, but said this was for safety reasons, “because of the type of scene.” Apparently, the deputies had been advised of a “physical disturbance” at the home in addition to the need for an ambulance. Hollowell said the Symons ambulance was already in the area by 10:07 p.m. and was advised to stage at West Line and Barlow until the deputies could secure the area and give the go-ahead.
“Once the deputies determined there was no additional threat, that’s when they allowed the ambulance to come back in,” Hollowell said.
Hollowell could find no record in the Sheriff’s Department logs of when exactly that was, but cited the PD report that states the ambulance was allowed in at 10:08 p.m.
The “physical disturbance” report appears to be the results of the young woman’s original 911 call. She said she reported that both Williams and Kinney were “drunk and fighting and now both of them are on the ground and one them is not breathing.”
According to law enforcement, there was no physical disturbance in progress when the deputies or ambulance arrived at the house. But Hollowell said “there were people all over,” inside and out, although he declined to say, for the sake of the investigation, whether these people had been there throughout the evening or had shown up to see what the commotion was about.
The three women believe that the sight of so many people gathered around the home is what has contributed to the misconception that there was some sort of raging party going on at the house that night.
Four individuals were initially detained at the scene, according to Hollowell: Kinney, for suspicion of murder; two juveniles for probation violation; and one female adult for public intoxication.
The three women do wonder why it took so long to get Kinney to the hospital.
Hollowell was unable to confirm whether Kinney was suffering from alcohol poisoning – a life-threatening condition that can affect heart rate, breathing and gag reflex and can potentially lead to coma and death.
It was initially reported, in the Sheriff’s Department’s Nov. 27 press release, that Kinney was discovered passed out on the floor of the house. However, there seems to be some discrepancy among the deputies’ reports as to Kinney’s actual condition.
According to Hollowell, “one deputy believed he was unconscious, one believed he was conscious but incoherent.”
It’s also unknown at what point Kinney was seen by EMTs.
But at 10:28 p.m., according to the Sheriff’s Department’s records, Kinney arrived at NIH and Williams had already been declared dead.
The CHP received one more call that night, a request at 10:27 p.m. for traffic control on North Barlow Lane from the Bishop PD as investigators settled in for a long night at the crime scene.
The deputy coroner entered the home at 1:15 a.m. and didn’t leave, by his estimation, for another hour-and-a-half. Hollowell was the last to leave that night at 3:41 a.m.
While there were several agencies and officials who responded to the incident at 299 N. Barlow last Thursday, newly-appointed Tribal Public Safety Officer George Maycott was not one of them.
Maycott said he was unaware of the news until he returned from his home in Southern California for the holiday weekend.
Investigators at this point are awaiting the results of Williams’ autopsy, performed Monday at a forensic facility in Southern California to determine the cause and manner of his death.
His family, meanwhile, has scheduled funeral services for 11 a.m. Saturday at the Barlow Lane Gym.
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