My daughter, Erica, and her ex-husband, Joe, got along better than most married people I know, and they agreed to move from Iowa to California. Although Joe didn”t smoke pot, or anything else, because Erica was, and remains, active in Medical Marijuana, they moved onto Eddy Lepp”s farm. Although massive, Eddy”s farm was legal under California law.
When the federal DEA busted Eddy”s farm, Joe moved to Nice, started Glassman windshield repair, got a job as a soccer coach at Upper Lake High, and with Erica, started the Hey Taxi service in Lake County. Joe slept about four hours a night. During the time the service was running, three or four drunks a night would get rides home that otherwise would have to drive or walk. I”m sure there were fewer DUI”s and public intoxication arrests when the taxi service was available.
But June 27, 2007, Morgan Matthew Jack murdered Paul Joseph Womachka. He stabbed Joe four times in the neck, duct taped his hands to the steering wheel of the taxi, and then drove the taxi, and Joe”s body, into the lake. Jack says he wasn”t responsible because he had gotten drunk at the bar at Robinson”s Rancheria, where he lived at the time. Drunk at a bar where it was known he was on parole!
Between the sparse evidence accumulated, without any cooperation of the tribal witnesses from Konocti Vista where the crime was committed and the prosecutor”s plea-bargaining the case to accidental homicide (how could any of that be “accidental”?), Morgan Jack will be eligible for parole before Eddy Lepp. Apparently, in Lake County, you”re better off violently murdering a good man than growing medical marijuana.
Michael Goetz
Lucerne
