Newsom move on capital punishment: These 19 death-row inmates have ties to the North State

Gov. Gavin Newsom's moratorium on California's penalty made waves throughout the state Wednesday, and it stands to have a particularly significant impact in the North State, where almost 20 of the state's more than 700 death-penalty inmates have ties.

Newsom called the death penalty "fundamentally immoral," and complained that it tends to discriminate against minorities and people with disabilities, while also sapping state coffers dry as lengthy appeals work their way through the legal system. 

Although Newsom's move doesn't do anything but prevent executions from happening while he's in office, Shasta County Sheriff Tom Bosenko said it's still "very frustrating and disappointing." 

Bosenko complained that Newsom could have halted certain cases or types of cases instead of all of them, and the moratorium robs victims' families of justice. 

"He did it with a very broad brush," Bosenko said. "All murders are heinous, but there are some that have been committed that are perhaps more egregious than others."

Newsom's halting to the death penalty comes after California voters rejected a ballot measure to repeal it altogether in 2016. Statewide, voters rejected it with 53.15 percent. 

In a prepared statement on Newsom's controversial move, Shasta County District Attorney Stephanie Bridgett pointed out California voters' will in 2016.

"Voters in California and Shasta County have demonstrated that they support the death penalty for those murderers who are the worst of the worst," the statement reads. "The governor’s action sends the wrong message to the People of California as well as surviving victims of these offenders."

Bridgett didn't return a message seeking further comment before press time Wednesday. 

Here's a look at which current death-row inmates have ties to the North State, in alphabetical order.

Note: This list is not comprehensive, since the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation classifies inmates by the county in which they were convicted, not the county where the crime happened. If a local inmate's trial was relocated to another part of the state, they may not be on this list. 

• Max Barnett, 73, Butte County. Age at offense: 41 (July 6, 1986). On death row since November 30, 1988. He kidnapped four men and tortured and stabbed one of them, Richard Eggett, to death over a grudge with the victim stemming from a gold-dredging trip they took together in the county a year earlier, prosecutors said. 
• Steven Crittenden, 51, Chico. Age at offense: 19 (January 13, 1987). On death row since June 12, 1989. He was convicted of breaking into a Chico couple's home and robbing them, then beating and stabbing to death husband and wife William and Katherine Chiapella. Prosecutors say he had written "Just the beginning" on two mirrors in the couple's home with lipstick. 

• Tomas Cruz, 50, Shasta County. Age at offense: 23 (October 21, 1991). On death row since September 22, 1994. Cruz was convicted of shooting and killing Shasta County sheriff’s deputy Kenneth Perrigo with his own gun as the deputy transported Cruz and another offender from Burney to jail in Redding.
• Todd Garton, 49, Shasta County. Age at offense: 29 (May 16, 1998). On death row since April 27, 2001. The Palo Cedro man was convicted of a murder-for-hire plot that saw his wife and her unborn child killed by a friend. Prosecutors said he told his co-defendants he was a hired assassin and someone put a hit out on his wife, Carole Garton, because she used to be in the Irish Republican Army, but it was all a scheme to get them to help him kill her and try to kill his co-defendant and lover's husband. 

• Dannie Hillhouse, 57, Butte County. Age at offense: 29 (March 9, 1991). On death row since October 21, 1992. He was convicted of robbing and killing Brett Schultz, who had bought him beer at Chico's Madison Bear Garden. 
• Jackie Hovarter, 66, Humboldt County. Age at offense: 32 (August 24, 1984). On death row since December 11, 1990. He was convicted of kidnapping, raping and murdering teenager Danna Elizabeth Walsh in Humboldt County, and raping another girl, then shooting her twice in the head and dumping her in a river, only for the girl to survive and testify against him. 
• Jerrold Johnson, 57, Lake County. Age at offense: 37 (December 19, 1998). On death row since November 17, 2000. He was convicted of breaking into the home of an elderly woman whose newspaper he used to deliver, stealing from her and beating her to death while she was trying to bake Christmas cookies. The victim, Ellen Salling, was 76.
• Jerry Kennedy, 63, Colusa County. Age at offense: 38 (March 15, 1993). On death row since December 21, 1993. Kennedy was convicted of robbing and killing Oregon man Glenn Chambers at a rest-stop bathroom in Maxwell. 
• Thomas Lenart, 72, Shasta County. Age at offense: 47 (July 15, 1993). On death row since October 13, 1995. Convicted of murdering Anderson bartender Oberta Toney while robbing her place of work. 
• Milton Lewis, 66, Shasta County. Age at offense: 36 (December 24, 1988). On death row since December 11, 1990. Convicted of stabbing to death James Rumsey at a Redding apartment complex while trying to rob him on Christmas Eve, and stabbing and trying to kill Rumsey's wife, Helen. Lewis had been walking by with a teenager who stopped to say hi to Rumsey, and Lewis then attacked the couple, prosecutors said. 
• Robert Maury, 61, Shasta County. Age at offense: 28 (May 25, 1985). On death row since November 6, 1989. He was convicted of murdering three women in the county and raping another, then calling in tips about their bodies so he could collect reward money. Maury said he hated women. The four he killed were Averril Weeden, who had been renting Maury a room; and, in separate cases, Belinda Jo Stark and Dawn Berryhill, both acquaintances of his. 

• Andrew Mickel, 39, Washington. Age at offense: 23 (November 19, 2002). On death row since April 28, 2005. Mickel was convicted of shooting and killing Red Bluff police officer David Mobilio as the 31-year-old filled up his car at a gas station. Mickel left a handmade "Don't Tread on Me" flag near the body of Mobilio, whom he said in an online post he killed because he was protesting a perceived police state and "corporate irresponsibility." 
• Curtis Price, 71, Humboldt County. Age at offense: 35 (February 19, 1983). On death row since July 10, 1986. Convicted of killing and robbing a woman in Humboldt County and killing a man in Los Angeles County in a related incident. Prosecutors said Price was part of a prison gang and killed Robert Barnes after Barnes testified against the gang because his own son was also a member. Price then killed Elizabeth Hickey while robbing her a few days later. 
• William Proctor, 57, Shasta County. Age at offense: 21 (April 21, 1982). On death row since July 8, 1983. Convicted of breaking into a 55-year-old widow and elementary school teacher’s Burney home and torturing, raping and murdering her. Prosecutors said Proctor had been friends with Bonita Stendal's son as teenagers. A pair of newlyweds who stopped to take a picture at a vista point near Lake Britton found her body. 

• Cherie Rhoades, 49, Modoc County. Age at offense: 44 (February 20, 2014). On death row since April 20, 2017. Convicted of killing four people at a tribal meeting in Alturas. Rhoades was convicted of going on a shooting spree at a meeting of the Cedarville Rancheria, of which she used to be chair. She killed Rurik Davis, 50; Angel Penn, 19; Glenn Calonico, 30; and Sheila Russo, 47. All but Russo were relatives of Rhoades.
• Charles Riel, 57, Shasta County. Age at offense: 25 (November 3, 1986). On death row since October 25, 1988. Convicted of robbing, kidnapping and murdering Weed truck-stop clerk Edward Middleton in Shasta County. Riel hit Middleton with a tire-iron while driving through Shasta County, then convinced the newly anointed "blood brothers" with whom he'd swapped blood to finish the job by stabbing Middleton to death, prosecutors said. 
• David Rundle, 54, Placer County. Age at offense: 22 (September 7, 1986). On death row since September 21, 1989. A jury convicted him of raping and murdering two teenage girls, Caroline Garcia and Lanciann Sorensen, in separate incidents. Lanciann was 15 and Garcia was 18. He casually knew both victims and claimed he killed them in a rage when both of them did things that reminded him of his abusive childhood. A witness said he told them he killed them because he didn't like "sleazy women."
• Gerald Stanley, 73, Butte County. Age at offense: 35 (August 11, 1980). On death row since February 8, 1984. Stanley, a Shasta County resident at the time, was convicted of killing two of his wives and another woman throughout northern California. He killed one wife, Kathie Stanley, by shooting her as their two children sat between them in the car, and the other, Cindy Rogers Stanley, from across the street with a shot through the heart from a high-powered scope rifle as she sat by the pool with her father, a friend and her son. 

• Scott Varner, 38, Shasta County. Age at offense: 25 (November 29, 2005). On death row since April 16, 2010. Convicted of kidnapping, robbing and murdering Redding resident Jeannette Mariedth after she agreed to give him a ride to Shasta Lake. She'd been putting her groceries away at her apartment complex when Varner and a woman he was with asked her for the ride. 

Alayna Shulman covers a little bit of everything for the Record Searchlight. In particular, she loves writing about the issues of this community through long-form storytelling. Her work often centers on local crime, features and politics, and has won awards for best writing, best business coverage and best investigative reporting in the California News Publishers Association's Better Newspapers Contest. Follow her on Twitter (@ashulman_RS), call her at 530-225-8372 and, to support her work, please subscribe.