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Jodi Lynn Miller, 48, of Rancho Cucamonga, and Jesse Robert Thurbush, 43, of Victorville murdered James Cidney Brown in 2019.
After three days of deliberations on the Southwest Justice Center, a Murrieta jury returned with the homicide verdict, in addition to discovering Miller and Thurbush responsible of housebreaking, false imprisonment and particular circumstance allegations of killing in the midst of a housebreaking and killing through the fee of a theft.
Jurors have been unable to succeed in a unanimous resolution, nonetheless, on whether or not Miller was moreover responsible of sentence-enhancing gun and nice bodily damage allegations.
Riverside County Superior Court Judge Stephen Gallon scheduled a sentencing listening to for Miller on June 7 and Thurbush on July 26.
The defendants are every being held with out bail — her on the Smith Correctional Facility in Banning, him on the Byrd Detention Center in Murrieta.
Their co-defendant, James Max Robinson, 43, of San Bernardino, reached a plea take care of the District Attorney’s Office on the outset of the trial, admitting voluntary manslaughter. In change for the admission, prosecutors dropped homicide and different costs in opposition to him.
He’s being held with out bail on the Smith jail and is due for sentencing on June 14.
According to a short filed by Robinson’s legal professional final 12 months, when he tried unsuccessfully to have among the costs in opposition to his shopper dismissed, Miller was the alleged ringleader, and he or she invited Robinson and Thurbush to her Rancho Cucamonga dwelling on the evening of Nov. 2, 2019, to smoke methamphetamine.
The transient, primarily based on proof introduced through the trio’s 2022 preliminary listening to, mentioned Miller wished to steal marijuana and cash from Brown, about whom she’d acquired data from a buddy, James McCance, who tended to the illicit outside hashish develop on the sufferer’s property within the 39000 block of El Toro Road.
Miller acquired a structure of the property from McCance. She persuaded Robinson and Thurbursh to affix her within the theft, and the threesome set off within the predawn hours of Nov. 3, 2019, courtroom papers mentioned.
They arrived simply earlier than 6 a.m., slicing via a fence to achieve entry, then parking exterior the sufferer’s home, the place Miller armed herself with a revolver, and the 2 males armed themselves with rifles, with Robinson remaining exterior to look at for regulation enforcement.
Miller and Thurbush slipped into the house via an unlocked backdoor and located a employee, John Fuggiero, asleep on a entrance room couch and Brown asleep in his room with the door shut, the transient mentioned.
The defendants subdued Fuggiero with zip ties and sprayed him within the face with pepper spray, then proceeded into Brown’s room, the place Robinson discharged spray into the sufferer’s closed eyes, inflicting him to wake in a panic, bolting out of the room, in response to courtroom paperwork.
Miller was immediately within the fleeing man’s path and fired a number of pictures at him, paperwork mentioned.
“She was standing there with a gun and … shot Brown as a result of he was working at her,” in response to the transient.
Miller and Thurbush ransacked the property for 20 minutes, on the lookout for cash and marijuana packages, then fled, together with Robinson, sheriff’s investigators mentioned.
Fuggiero freed himself from the restraints an hour later, calling 911.
Deputies arrived at 7:30 a.m. and located Brown dead within the entrance room.
Fuggiero was handled for minor accidents.
After Central Homicide Unit detectives searched the grounds, the unlawful develop was razed, and all remaining hashish was seized and destroyed.
The investigation spanned virtually 18 months earlier than the three defendants have been related to the homicide and arrested in the summertime of 2021.
Court information present Miller has a previous felony conviction in one other jurisdiction, but it surely was not specified, whereas each Robinson and Thurbush every have priors for housebreaking.
