MAR 2, updated MAR 3, 2022
Orrin and Orson West case: How we broke the story (kget.com)
A few weeks ago 17 News received a tip: A couple vans had pulled up outside a home on Aspen Avenue in California City and disgorged a group of people escorted by deputies.
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The tipster provided video of a group of people in casual dress examining a yard, deputies and other, unidentified men in suits visible.
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After viewing the video, our best guess was the casually dressed group was the Kern County grand jury. We surmised they had been assigned the task of reviewing evidence for possible charges in the West investigation.
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After receiving the tip, I spent every morning and most afternoons at the courthouse, specifically Department 1, where we believed it most likely information about the case would be heard. Maybe I’d show up and find Trezell West sitting among the defendants or District Attorney Cynthia Zimmer in the audience holding a stack of documents.
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Also, dozens of times a day, I plugged the names of Trezell and Jacqueline West into the sheriff’s online inmate search and Kern County Superior Court’s defendant search. Days and then weeks passed without a hit.
I did, however, notice something interesting on repeated visits to the sixth floor of the courthouse, which is where the grand jury meets. On one occasion I saw a man who was clearly an investigator walk into a room, and on another I saw one of the county’s top prosecutors, Eric Smith, who handles the DA’s highest profile cases.
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On Tuesday afternoon I went back to Department 1. The grand jury was waiting outside the courtroom. They were let in shortly before 1:30 p.m. I was told to wait outside.
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About the same time Tuesday, KGET and Telemundo Valle Central reporters tracked the Wests to the tiny post office in the community of Edison, southeast of Bakersfield.
In the nearby convenience store, Trezell West gave a false name to reporters Christian Galeno and Jose Gaspar . . . but said he knew the West family.
A moment later, a clerk confirmed he had just checked the man’s ID — it was Trezell West.
A customer overheard the conversation and, when West drove away in an RV, the customer followed him and snapped a cellphone picture.
The customer posted the RV photo on a local Facebook page, where it received dozens of comments and shares before it was removed.
Back at the office, I repeatedly looked up the adoptive parents’ names. Shortly before 5 p.m., the Superior Court website showed Trezell West had been charged with two counts of second-degree murder, two counts of willful cruelty to a child and a charge of falsely reporting an emergency. Jacqueline West was not listed.
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