Judge throws out murder charge against one of two men accused of Oakland hills body disposal

OAKLAND — In a striking reversal of a previous judge’s ruling, a Bay Area man has been freed from jail after his charges were reduced from murder to accessory after the fact in the stabbing of a man whose body was discovered in the Oakland hills.

Marquise Johnson-Simon, 23, of Oakland, had originally been charged as an active participant in the stabbing death of 21-year-old Donald Stanifer. But on Aug. 12, after hearing arguments from Johnson-Simon’s attorney and prosecutors, Judge Thomas Reardon threw out the murder charge. Another judge, Morris Jacobson, approved Johnson-Simon for release with electronic monitoring at a Sept. 7 hearing.

Johnson-Simon was charged along with co-defendant Elijah Jordan-Brooks, 22, of Pittsburg, of murdering Stanifer after a party on July 5, 2020. Police say Stanifer was stabbed to death and his body was dumped down a ravine at the Huckleberry Preserve in the Oakland hills, where it wasn’t discovered until nearly two weeks later. Both suspects were arrested in May 2021.

Stanifer’s mother, Greer Adams, wrote a letter to Jacobson imploring him not to approve the release and saying she disagreed strongly with Reardon’s ruling.

“This young man should have been behind bars from the onset, but he was allowed to walk around free for two years (sic), while my son, Donald Stanifer, had to be eulogized!” Adams wrote. “His bail should be revoked as far as the evidence is concerned.”

At a preliminary hearing, prosecutors contended that Johnson-Simon was guilty of murder because of DNA evidence found under Stanifer’s shirt. Johnson-Simon’s attorney wrote in a motion to dismiss the murder charge that the DNA linkage “only proves at best that he was present when Mr. Stanifer was buried,” and that to infer anything more would be “guesswork.”

“The Magistrate’s ruling would justify a murder charge against anyone who comes in contact with a crime scene,” the attorney, Joseph Patrick McPeak, wrote in the motion. He later argued that one could conclude Johnson-Simon was simply a passenger in Jordan-Brooks’ car when the body was dumped, not someone who attempted to dispose of evidence.

In their arguments to Reardon, prosecutors relied on preliminary hearing Judge Mark McCannon’s ruling that held Johnson-Simon on the murder charge and said that GPS phone records prove they were together before, during, and after the homicide.

The prosecution’s evidence includes a 16-second video that appeared to show part of the body disposal. According to witness testimony, Jordan-Brooks shared the video — which depicted Stanifer’s lifeless, bloody body in the backseat of a car — to a woman he’d met while working at Kentucky Fried Chicken in Emeryville years earlier, then later confessed to killing Stanifer. Prosecutors have surmised that robbery was a motive, noting that Stanifer was found without gold rings, his grill, or his wallet.

Jordan-Brooks remains on a no-bail hold with a pending murder charge. A trial date has not yet been set.

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Author: Nate Gartrell

EastBayTimes