Prominent Modesto criminal defense attorney Frank Carson and eight others, including three California Highway Patrol officers, were arrested Friday for their suspected involvement in the 2012 death of Korey Kauffman. The 26-year-old Turlock man’s body was found in Mariposa County a year and a half after he went missing. 
 
 A 326-page arrest affidavit details an alleged conspiracy with Carson as its ringleader. The defense attorney, who last year ran for district attorney, is described as a vengeful property owner trying to send a message to people allegedly stealing scrap metal and antiques from his property in Turlock. 
 
 Authorities say Kauffman was known for “scrapping,” street slang for stealing metals to sell to recyclers. On the night of his disappearance, Kauffman left a friend’s home to steal irrigation pipes from Carson’s property, according to the affidavit. 
 
 “The whole scrapper life, I didn’t approve of it,” said Tony Kauffman, the victim’s father. “You know how fathers are with their sons, we tend to be harder on them. But he chose his own path. He was a good kid with a good heart and he didn’t deserve what he got.” 
 
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 The Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department has released the arrest affidavit, which lists nine people arrested, including Carson’s wife, two Turlock business owners and the three CHP officers. 
 
 Along with the murder charge, Carson faces charges of criminal conspiracy, false imprisonment and two counts of soliciting a crime. Those in the affidavit charged with murder also face an enhancement for the use of a gun in the homicide and a special circumstance allegation of lying in wait. 
 
 Carson has said that any suggestion he’s involved in Kauffman’s death is absurd. Until Friday, officials involved in the investigation had refused to say whether Carson is a suspect in the murder, saying it would be inappropriate to comment on the pending case. 
 
 As part of the Kauffman investigation, authorities searched Carson’s property not long after Kauffman went missing. Authorities believe Kauffman was killed on March 30, 2012, somewhere in the Turlock area and his body was secretly transported to Mariposa County where hunters discovered it in August 2013. 
 
 Percy Martinez, Carson’s attorney, told The Modesto Bee on Friday that he and his client have been waiting more than a year for authorities to make their allegations public, instead of investigators frequently bringing up Carson’s name while questioning witnesses and suspects in the Kauffman case. Martinez said they look forward to fighting the allegations in court and clearing Carson’s name. 
 
 Carson’s wife, Georgia Geanette DeFilippo, faces charges of first-degree murder, criminal conspiracy and false imprisonment. Her daughter, Cristina Anne DeFilippo, was arrested on suspicion of criminal conspiracy and being an accessory. 
 
 Baljit Athwal and his brother, Daljit Atwal, who spell their last names differently, have been arrested on suspicion of first-degree murder, criminal conspiracy and false imprisonment. 
 
 The brothers, who own the Pop-N-Cork Liquor stores in Turlock, have claimed repeated harassment by law enforcement officials involved in the Kauffman murder investigation and organized protests outside the District Attorney’s Office in downtown Modesto. They also have filed a federal lawsuit against members of a local investigative task force looking into the murder. 
 
 Robert Lee Woody is listed as an arrestee in the affidavit, charged with first-degree murder, criminal conspiracy and false imprisonment. But Woody has been in custody since last year and was the only person charged with murder in Kauffman’s death until this week. Authorities had not publicly identified Woody’s alleged co-conspirators. 
 
 During Woody’s arraignment last year, Kauffman’s father said the suspect was just a “small fry” in the extensive investigation, which took years and was investigated by a task force of detectives from the Sheriff’s Department, District Attorney’s Office and Modesto Police Department. 
 
 “I didn’t know the quantity but I knew there was going to be a few more (people arrested) than just Woody,” Tony Kauffman said Friday. “It feels pretty good. We’ve come a long way, and it’s only just beginning. ... We have a long road ahead of us.” 
 
 CHP officers Walter Wesley Wells, Scott J. McFarlane and Eduardo Quintanar Jr. also have been arrested in connection with the Turlock man’s murder. Wells is charged with first-degree murder, criminal conspiracy and false imprisonment. McFarlane and Quintanar are charged with criminal conspiracy and being an accessory. 
 
 At a Friday afternoon news conference, CHP Commissioner Joe Farrow said Wells no longer works for the agency. Wells had been with the CHP for seven years until June when his employment ended as a result of conduct unrelated to the murder investigation, according to Farrow, who said all three officers knew each other. 
 
 According to the affidavit, “the CHP officers involved in this investigation have all attempted to use the office of the California Highway Patrol to thwart the investigators’ attempts to interview them.” 
 
 McFarlane and Quintanar were placed on administrative leave as soon as the task force concluded the Kauffman murder investigation. Farrow said their peace officer powers have been revoked pending the result of an internal investigation. McFarlane had been with the CHP for 13 years and Quintanar for 12 years. Wells and McFarlane most recently worked in the Merced area, and Quintanar most recently worked in the Modesto area. 
 
 “I am here saddened by this news,” Farrow said during the news conference. “The California Highway Patrol is a very proud organization that values integrity … to hear news like this is devastating.” 
 
 He said news of officers involved in an alleged criminal conspiracy affects all law enforcement agencies, and it “rips at the soul of an organization.” 
 
 Carson challenged Fladager for office last year 
 
 Carson has been an outspoken critic of Stanislaus County District Attorney Birgit Fladager and her office while making arguments in court and during his unsuccessful bid for district attorney last year. 
 
 He has challenged the District Attorney’s Office on several fronts in recent years, including filing a civil lawsuit against the county and a prosecution investigator accused of harassing Carson in a courthouse hallway. The civil trial was scheduled to start this week, but it was suddenly postponed and hasn’t been rescheduled. Carson said Tuesday that he had no idea why it was delayed. 
 
 Martinez said he’s not surprised by the timing of the arrests, considering the civil trial that was supposed to start this week. “Whenever Mr. Carson shakes their tree, they (law enforcement officials) turn around and shake his tree.” 
 
 Carson also has pushed for contempt charges against the prosecution investigator and a chief prosecutor who also was handling the murder case against Woody. 
 
 Investigator Steve Jacobson is accused of questioning an alternate juror while the jury deliberated in the trial of one of Carson’s clients. Chief Deputy District Attorney Dave Harris is accused of failing to promptly notify the court that Jacobson had improper contact with an alternate juror. The contempt case was put on hold pending an appellate court decision on whether Carson is allowed to participate in that court proceeding. 
 
 Carson’s attorney suggested that authorities arrested his client on a Friday so he would have to wait all weekend in the county jail before making his first court appearance early next week. Authorities have 72 hours to bring a defendant before a judge for his arraignment, where the defendant can ask for his bail amount to be set. On Friday afternoon, Carson and others charged with murder were being held without bail. 
 
 “We anticipated it would go down like this,” Martinez said. 
 
 Sheriff, D.A. would not answer questions 
 
 Local investigators on Friday declined to answer any questions about the murder investigation, directing news reporters to the lengthy arrest affidavit that details the 3-year investigation. 
 
 “It took a lot of work, it took a lot of time ... and it has finally come together,” Fladager said about the multiagency task force. 
 
 She said prosecutors are expected to file formal charges early next week, and the defendants are expected to make their first court appearance. 
 
 Stanislaus County Sheriff Adam Christianson said the investigation would not have been possible without the diligent work of Mariposa County sheriff’s Detective Sherre Hendricks. “We hope to serve justice to the Kauffman family,” Christianson said. 
 
 Kauffman’s father was reading the arrest affidavit chronicling the evidence gathered in his son’s slaying. He said he’d only just begun Friday morning but was surprised by some of the information, such as the arrest of McFarlane. 
 
 The CHP officer lived next door to Korey Kauffman, so Tony Kauffman sought him for guidance about the intricacies of missing persons investigations. “I am old school, I look up to police officers,” he said. “You don’t expect them to be involved in the murder of your child, that’s for damn sure.” 
 
 Farrow offered his condolences to the victim’s family, saying, “I can’t even imagine what news like this does to family and friends.” ||||| The lead came in one week ago, a tantalizing DNA hit that triggered a rush of excitement among Sacramento investigators working to solve the 44-year-old mystery of the East Area Rapist suspected of 12 murders and at least 51 rapes the length of California from 1974 through mid-1986. 
 
 Detectives began focusing on Joseph James DeAngelo, a 72-year-old retiree and former police officer living on a quiet street in Citrus Heights, conducting secret surveillance on him, studying his routines and, finally, collecting two separate samples of DNA from items he had discarded. 
 
 On Tuesday afternoon, in what Sacramento Sheriff Scott Jones called a "perfectly executed arrest," FBI agents and detectives took DeAngelo into custody when he stepped outside his home. 
 
 "He was very surprised," an elated Jones said Wednesday at a news conference outside the Sacramento District Attorney's Crime Lab that helped lead to the arrest. "It looked as though he might have been searching his mind to execute a particular plan he may have had in mind… "He was not given the opportunity. It happened almost instantaneously and he was taken into custody without any incident at all." As Jones, Sacramento District Attorney Anne Marie Schubert and other law enforcement leaders discussed the break in the case Wednesday afternoon, authorities were filing or preparing to file 12 murder charges in Sacramento, Orange, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. The arrest brought international attention to a case that has generated a recent best-selling book, a documentary and theories that the East Area Rapist, also known as the Golden State Killer, the Visalia Ransacker, the Original Night Stalker and the Diamond Knot Killer, may have escaped to commit similar crimes in Australia. Schubert said Wednesday there was no evidence to support that, but noted that the investigation into DeAngelo is just beginning after decades of dead-end leads. "The answer has always been in Sacramento," Schubert said. "For over 40 years, countless victims have waited for justice." DeAngelo was being held without bail in the Sacramento County Main Jail and is scheduled to make his first court appearance Friday afternoon. He had never before been connected to the case, and had no obvious criminal past that authorities were aware of, other than a shoplifting incident at a Greenback Lane store where he was accused of stealing a hammer and dog repellant. That incident that got him fired in 1979 from his job as an Auburn police officer. But Jones, Schubert and a team of other investigators statewide launched a renewed effort in 2016 to solve the case, and said Wednesday that persistent detective work and DNA evidence led them to DeAngelo. Schubert, Jones and other officials would not disclose why they began looking at DeAngelo six days earlier, saying it was too early to reveal that information. But they were adamant that the clue did not come from a tip. Instead, they said, DNA evidence from one of the old crimes and new technologies led them to begin studying DeAngelo last week. At one point, they collected "discarded DNA" from him, but said the genetic material was not substantial enough, so they returned to find more. Jones said such collections can be made from something as simple as getting a used soda can from someone, but he would not disclose the details of how they obtained it. "This was a true convergence of emerging technology and dogged persistence by detectives," Jones said. By Wednesday, Schubert's office filed the first charges in the case, two counts of murder stemming from the Feb. 2, 1978, slayings of Katie and Brian Maggiore in Rancho Cordova. 
 
 
 
 
 
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 The couple, believed to be the first killed by the East Area Rapist, were shot while walking their dog. Brian was shot in the chest in a neighbor's backyard, while Katie was shot in the head outside their home. 
 
 Those charges were filed alleging special circumstances of multiple murders, a designation that could lead Schubert's office to seek the death penalty. 
 
 The East Area Rapist terrorized portions of Sacramento with sexual assaults from 1976 through 1978. Authorities believe DeAngelo raped 37 people in the Sacramento area and Central Valley. 
 
 He is believed to have committed at least nine sexual assaults in Sacramento, six in Rancho Cordova and Citrus Heights, four in Carmichael, three in Davis, two in Orangevale and one in Antelope between June 1976 and July 1978. From there, authorities suspect he moved on to rapes in the Bay Area and later homicides and rapes in Southern California. 
 
 As the rapist moved from area to area, authorities dubbed him with his various nicknames before concluding that they were looking for the same suspect in each crime. 
 
 It was unclear how DeAngelo, who is believed to have lived in Citrus Heights for three decades and raised a family, may have conducted the crime spree, which stretched from Visalia in 1974 to Southern California in May 1986, without attracting attention. 
 
 But authorities said his police training may have helped. DeAngelo was a police officer in Exeter near Visalia, and then in Auburn from August 1976 until he was fired in September 1979. 
 
 SHARE COPY LINK FBI agents and law enforcement from Sacramento County and Southern California search a home this morning in Citrus Heights 
 
 In addition to the murder counts filed in Sacramento, Orange County prosecutors filed four counts of murder with special circumstances late Wednesday. 
 
 He is accused of killing Keith and Patrice Harrington in their Dana Point home in August 1980; of murdering and raping Manuela Witthuhn in Irvine in February 1981; and of the May 1986 murder and rape of Janelle Cruz in Irvine. 
 
 In their case, Orange County authorities added enhancements to the charges that will allow them to seek life without parole or the death penalty against DeAngelo. Those enhancements include three rape allegations, three robbery allegations and four allegations of lying in wait. 
 
 "This defendant has been able to live here in a nice suburb in Sacramento," Orange County DA Tony Rackauckas said. "Our team is going to work hard to make sure he never gets out." 
 
 Two additional murder counts were expected in Ventura County in the March 13, 1980, slayings of Charlene and Lyman Smith, who were bludgeoned by a piece of firewood. Charlene was raped before being killed. Lyman was soon to become a county judge. 
 
 DeAngelo also is suspected in four murders in Santa Barbara County. 
 
 Robert Offerman and Debra Manning were killed on Dec. 30, 1979, in Goleta. In July 1981, Cheri Domingo and Gregory Sanchez were killed a few blocks from the Manning and Offerman murders. 
 
 Sanchez suffered a nonfatal gunshot wound to the cheek before being bludgeoned with a garden tool. Domingo was raped before being killed. 
 
 Jones said detectives have been searching DeAngelo's home seeking clues such as firearms or other evidence that might tie him to the case. 
 
 "There is a lot of material in his house, a lot of stuff to go through," Jones said. 
 
 Other search warrants are expected to be issued in coming days, and the sheriff said DeAngelo family members have been contacted. 
 
 "We have interviewed some family members," Jones said. "They are cooperative and, certainly, it's quite a shock to them, as you might expect." 
 
 SHARE COPY LINK Here is a quick look at the timeframe of the East Area Rapist case. Crimes occurred in the Sacramento area and in Southern California. He was also known as the Golden State Killer and Original Night Stalker. 
 
 Bruce Harrington, whose brother and sister-in-law were killed in Dana Point in 1980, appeared at the news conference Wednesday and described his long fight to get the state to compile a DNA database after the slayings. 
 
 "For the 51 ladies who were brutally raped: Sleep better tonight," Harrington said. "He isn’t coming through the window. He is now in jail and he is history." 
 
 
 
 
 
 SHARE COPY LINK Joseph James DeAngelo, 72, was arrested around 2:30 a.m. Wednesday in connection to the East Area Rapist case, officials say. Also known as the Golden State Killer, the serial rapist is responsible for raping at least 45 women and killing 12. 
 
 Then-Citrus Heights resident Jane Carson-Sandler was sexually assaulted at knifepoint by a man believed to be the East Area Rapist in 1976. Carson-Sandler, who now lives in Sun City, S.C., told The Island Packet newspaper Wednesday she had been contacted by two detectives about the suspect's arrest. 
 
 The man's arrest picture was not familiar to Carson-Sandler, she said. 
 
 "I just found out this morning," she told The Island Packet. "I'm overwhelmed with joy. I've been crying, sobbing." 
 
 True crime writer Michelle McNamara's book "I'll Be Gone in the Dark" reached No. 1 on The New York Times' bestseller list last month and drew renewed attention to the case, although officials said Wednesday that the book did not lead to the arrest. 
 
 A documentary on the search for the killer aired at the Delta King Theatre in Old Sacramento earlier this month. 
 
 SHARE COPY LINK Jane Carson-Sandler was brutally raped by a serial killer 41 years ago in her Citrus Heights, Calif., home. Her rapist is known as the East Area Rapist, Original Night Stalker and Golden State Killer. He's still never been caught. 
 
 Sam Stanton: (916) 321-1091, @StantonSam
– Police in Stanislaus County, Calif., say a 20-year veteran of the force was "executed" early Sunday after investigating a stolen van and a suspicious person outside Modesto. Sheriff's Deputy Dennis Wallace was shot twice in the head. Police say a suspect was arrested more than 150 miles away later in the day after allegedly carrying out a carjacking, an armed robbery at a convenience store, and an attempted purse-snatching, the Los Angeles Times reports. David Machado, a 37-year-old described by police as a "known criminal," was connected to the Wallace killing after police in Tulane County recognized his tattoos. Wallace, who was married with children, "was executed," Sheriff Adam Christianson told reporters. "We believe that Dep. Wallace was killed outside of the car and we know for a fact that the gun used in this crime was in direct contact with his head when the trigger was pulled twice." He said Wallace, 53, had been involved in programs including youth soccer and early intervention, NBC News reports. "We need to keep the Wallace family in our thoughts and prayers. We need to keep law enforcement in our thoughts and prayers," he said. The Bradenton Herald reports after a knee injury in 2007, Wallace was off for two years without pay and fought a long legal battle to get his job back.