Trial in 2021 slaying of Land Park woman will be in 2026; hearing set for January
Trial for Troy Davis, charged in the murder and attempted rape of a woman inside her Land Park home in 2021, will not begin until 2026.
Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Bowman on Friday ordered attorneys to return Jan. 16 for a pre-trial hearing, at which time a date could be set for trial to begin.
Mary Kate Tibbetts, 61, was beaten, strangled and sexually assaulted Sept. 3, 2021, in her 11th Avenue home before it was set ablaze in a crime that shocked her Land Park neighborhood and resonated blocks away at the State Capitol and City Hall. Her body was recovered from the charred home.
Davis, a parolee with a lengthy criminal history in Sacramento and Santa Cruz counties, was arrested days later on suspicion of murder in Tibbetts’ killing along with felony charges of entering a home for a burglary, assault with intent to commit rape, and two allegations that the 51-year-old Davis killed Tibbetts’ two dogs, Molly and Jenny.
Davis did not know Tibbetts. Authorities said Davis broke into her home through a window and killed her dogs, then sexually assaulted and killed her before setting the house alight.
The case ignited prosecutors’ anger at the time. Davis had been charged in a vehicle theft case that June, months before the 11th Avenue slaying, but was arrested and released on zero bail.
Davis’ arrest on the theft charge happened at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic as Sacramento Superior Court officials instituted an emergency bail schedule to control the number of inmates held in jail custody. Vehicle theft was among the charges listed as zero bail crimes. People arrested on zero bail are released on their own recognizance within 12 hours of their booking with a signed promise to appear in court on the charges.
Davis did not appear for his scheduled hearing on the June car theft charge and disappeared.
Proposed legislation that would have ruled that a defendant’s ability to pay bail should not deterrmine their freedom was scuttled following Tibbetts’ killing; and groups including the California District Attorney’s Association blasted zero bail, saying crimes like Tibbetts likely would not have happened otherwise.
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