Careaga homicides trial leaves courtroom for trip to home where family was killed
PORT ORCHARD – Jurors hearing evidence in the trial for the three men accused of killing four members of the Careaga family in 2017 left the Kitsap County Courthouse in a motorcade on Thursday to visit 12 sites associated with the cases. Prosecutors have presented photos and videos showing various locations as they've made their way through the marathon trial, but on Thursday, jurors viewed them with their own eyes.
The jury view, which involved a significant amount of planning and security, had been in the works for months. Prosecutors had indicated that they were planning visits at some point during the trial and signaled in recent days that the trip was approaching but kept the exact date a secret. The three defendants, their attorneys, jurors, Judge Kevin Hull and a local law enforcement contingent headed up by the Kitsap County Sheriff's Office traveled in a caravan to the various sites, most notably the fire-damaged Careaga family home on Tenino Drive in the greater Seabeck area, which was set ablaze and was where the bodies of Christale Careaga and two teens, Hunter Schaap and Johnathon Higgins, were found in January 2017, and a Mason County tree farm, where John Careaga's body was found in his burned-out truck.
Once the caravan returned to the courthouse Thursday afternoon, Hull indicated that the visits went to plan: "I can't see everything, but I didn't observe any what I would call nonsense. I didn't observe anything going on in the public areas that were of concern to me. I guess from my perspective, it went according to plan."
After jurors filed back in, he instructed them that the site visits were for the sole purpose of helping them to understand the evidence presented in the courtroom and said they should not give any consideration to the significant law enforcement presence associated with the trip.
The trip was essentially a rolling drive-by of the 12 locations, which included the residence of Robert Watson, one of the defendants; Juanito's Taqueria, the Careaga family's taco shop; the home of a former girlfriend of Danie Kelly, another of the defendants; The Garage Bar & Grill; Hank's Grocery; the Camp Union Grocery store; the Careaga residence; and a tree farm in Mason County where John Careaga's truck was found. The trip had support from local law enforcement, a Washington State Patrol airplane and had medical assistance available as well, Kitsap County Prosecuting Attorney Chad Enright said. In total, he reported that more than 75 people were involved.
"I think this is probably the largest and most complex jury view I have ever seen," he said. "Credit to all the law enforcement agencies who came together to get this done."
"It’s really important for the jury to know how remote some of these locations are, and I don’t think pictures or witness descriptions really do it justice," he added. "You really need to be there to see how remote these locations are. A lot of this case is going to be about the ability to get from one location to another, and so there are a lot of different locations involved, and I think it helps the jury to recognize how each location is geographically related to another location."
The trial resumed this week after missing a few days because of a handful of COVID-19 cases (Hull said Monday that three jurors and two attorneys had tested positive), and Hull ordered that everyone other than witnesses and attorneys questioning those witnesses wear a mask inside the courtroom.
This article originally appeared on Kitsap Sun: Careaga case jury visits sites related to evidence in trial Thursday
