Fate of CHP officer's killer argued in Yolo trial's penalty phase

Brendt Volarvich, the 22-year-old Roseville man convicted of murdering a California Highway Patrol officer, is a white supremacist and tried to have a witness killed while awaiting trial, prosecutors told jurors Monday.

Jurors heard the allegations for the first time during opening statements in the penalty phase of Volarvich's trial in the Yolo County courthouse.

Earlier this month, the same jurors found Volarvich guilty of killing Officer Andy Stevens with a single shot to the head during a Nov. 17, 2005, traffic stop on a rural county road.

Their conviction of Volarvich for first-degree murder with special circumstances, including the killing of a police officer to avoid arrest, makes him eligible for the death penalty.

While defense lawyers urged jurors to spare Volarvich's life, former Yolo County District Attorney David Henderson argued that lethal injection was warranted.

He showed jurors a photograph of a shirtless Volarvich. Tattooed in capital letters across the man's stomach was a word Henderson said showed Volarvich's affiliation with white supremacist prison inmates, who embraced the derogatory term as a matter of pride.

The first prosecution witness, Shyla Stafford, 19, said she dated Volarvich in 2005. She said he owned a sawed-off shotgun and "would say little things, like 'if it wasn't white, it wasn't right.' "

A Yolo County jail employee testified that Volarvich had asked not be housed with black or Latino inmates.

While in jail, Volarvich sent a note to a fellow white supremacist asking him to kill Chris Wilson, who had provided information to police during the murder investigation, Henderson said.

Volarvich was caught in jail with a makeshift blade of sharpened metal, and had threatened a black inmate by hanging a noose on his cell, Henderson said.

"Mr. Volarvich wanted everyone to know that, even though he was held in jail, he continued to be a threat to other people," the prosecutor told jurors.

He contrasted Volarvich with Stevens, whose picture was projected on a courtroom screen.

Stevens was an exemplary officer, Henderson said, "courteous, professional and willing to help out."

His death at 37 had left his family bereft and had shaken his fellow officers, the prosecutor said.

To do their jobs, CHP officers have to forget that they face potential danger every time they make a traffic stop, he said.

"If they have to deal with the fear and threat daily, it tears them down," he told jurors. The killing of a fellow officer "brings that fear to the forefront."

A number of officers, along with Stevens' widow and parents, are expected to testify.

In the defense's opening statement, attorney Clyde Blackmon insisted life in prison without the possibility of parole was an adequate punishment for Volarvich. He said Volarvich had experienced a traumatic upbringing.

Volarvich's father, a former Los Altos police officer and investigator for the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office, abandoned his family for another woman, then shot himself during a botched bank robbery, he said.

That "shattering event" sent Volarvich, 12 at the time, spinning out of control into a world of drugs and petty crime. He spent his teenage years in and out of juvenile hall, drug treatment and psychiatric care, the lawyer said.

"It got so bad he had to be committed to a psychiatric hospital for a week," Blackmon said.

The defense lawyer said Volarvich's mother, Sheila Volarvich, was a graduate of Stanford University and had married the handsome young Dennis Volarvich.

Later, the man was fired from the District Attorney's Office after he was found to be having an affair with the widow of a murder victim, Blackmon said.

A second affair resulted in Dennis Volarvich leaving his wife and three sons, he said.

In 1997, the older Volarvich robbed a Fremont bank, was cornered by police, and shot himself in the head.

Blackmon argued that Volarvich's ability to appreciate the gravity of his actions and control his behavior had been affected by his heavy methamphetamine use and attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.

Blackmon said jurors could consider Volarvich's "youthfulness" at the time of the shooting. He had just turned 20.

Showing a photograph of Volarvich at 18 months, Blackmon said he and co-counsel Fred Dawson would show how Volarvich went from a "sweet-looking little boy" to the man who murdered Stevens.

Volarvich's mother and other family members would testify, he said.

The penalty phase is expected to last two weeks.

A second man, Gregory Zielesch, 50, of Woodland also was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy in the officer's death. Prosecutors said he supplied Volarvich with a revolver, which was used to kill Stevens, as part of an unrelated murder plot.

Zielesch, who is not eligible for the death penalty, faces the possibility of life in prison at his sentencing on May 21.

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