Gasps rose up, tears flowed, and two women in the public gallery embraced at 4:15 p.m. Thursday as the court clerk in Department 2 of Solano County Superior Court in Vallejo read the verdict: Guilty.
Marvin Ray Markle Jr. 59, was convicted of the Nov. 15, 1982, killing of DeAnna Lynn Johnson, 14, of Vacaville, a Will C. Wood Junior High student whose body was found the next day along railroad tracks near Elmira Road and just a short walk from her home on Royal Oaks Drive.
Markle, clad in a dark gray suit jacket over tan slacks, showed no outward emotion upon hearing the verdict rendered by five men and seven women in Judge Daniel Healy’s courtroom.
After two full days of deliberations, the 12 jurors found him guilty of first-degree murder and also found to be true that he used a deadly and dangerous weapon, a rock, to slay Johnson, crushing one side of her skull. Court testimony and Coroner evidence in the three-week trial also indicated that Markle strangled the girl sometime after a house party at another residence on Royal Oaks Drive that both Markle and Johnson attended.
Healy took several moments to thank the jury for their service, at one point saying, “This system wouldn’t work if you did not make an enormous sacrifice.”
Getting agreements from Chief Deputy District Attorney Paul Sequeira, who led the prosecution, and Markle’s attorney, Thomas A. Barrett, chief deputy of the Alternate Defender Office, the judge then set a presentencing report and sentencing hearing for 8:30 a.m. May 16 in the Justice Building in Vallejo.
Interviewed briefly outside the courtroom, Sequeira called the verdict “a testament to the Vacaville Police Department. Never to give up.”
He credited then-Vacaville Police Capt. Matt Lydon, who later became an investigator with the Solano County District Attorney’s Office, and other investigators for their “perseverance and a lot of hard work by a lot of people.”
Interviewed outside the courthouse, Carlyn Grocholski of Concord, Johnson’s cousin, said, “I’m grateful for the District Attorney and Matt Lydon.”
Mary Borchers, Johnson’s junior high classmate, said, “Justice has been served. He (Markle) will spend the rest of his life where he belongs.”
On a full day of lengthy closing arguments Tuesday, Sequeira’s rebuttal, following Barrett’s closing argument, ended with two succinct sentences.
Looking at jurors, he said, “She’s gone, and the case is 42 years old. Justice for DeAnna Lynn Johnson is in your hands.”
With that, he brought the trial to a close Tuesday afternoon and Healy, who read final instructions to the jurors.
Over the past several years, as the case wound its way through the county court, trial dates more than once were assigned, then vacated.
As previously reported, in February 2017, Markle pleaded not guilty to one count of murder in connection to Johnson’s death when he was arrested a month earlier at Kern Valley State Prison on suspicion of murder and use of a deadly weapon. At the time of his arrest, he was serving an 80-year sentence for the 2001 murder of a Biggs woman, a fact not likely to be introduced during the ongoing trial.
It was the death of Shirley Ann Pratt, 41, in Butte County, that led to Markle’s arrest in the Vacaville case. On the morning of Oct. 12, 2001, Pratt was found naked in the Oroville Wildlife area, dead from an apparent gunshot wound to the face. In July 2013, the Butte County Sheriff’s Department officers arrested Markle, who was later tried and convicted. He has remained in either state prison or jail custody ever since.
In the Vacaville case, according to court records, on the night of Nov. 15, 1982, Johnson attended a party at a home on Royal Oaks Drive, up the street from her family’s residence. She was later reported missing after her brother, another party attendee, returned home and discovered she was not there and was out past her 8 p.m. curfew.
The next day, her body was found by a Southern Pacific Railroad employee near the tracks along Elmira Road.
The Solano County District Attorney’s Office filed its complaint against Markle on July 31, 2017, and a preliminary hearing was held on Jan. 16 and 17, 2018.
At sentencing, Markle, who remains in Solano County Jail without bail on a state prison hold, faces 25 years to life in prison, with the possibility of more time for being a previously convicted felon.