Trezell Phillip West, on the left, and Jacqueline Gabrielle West, on the right in court as they hear their fate in May 2023; Orson West, on the left, and Orrin West, on the right, appear inset (Screengrab via KGET; National Center for Missing and Exploited Children)
A California husband and wife murdered one of their two dead adoptive children in the late summer or early fall of 2020; and then spent over a year lying and crying crocodile tears about what they did, jurors in the City of Bakersfield decided in a verdict late last week.
Trezell Phillip West, 36, and Jacqueline Gabrielle West, 33, were convicted on five of seven counts they faced over the disappearances and presumed murders of brothers Orrin West, 4, and Orson West, 3.
The boys were reported missing by their parents in late December 2020. Kern County prosecutors alleged they were killed, and their bodies secreted away, three months before those missing children reports were filed.
The defendants were initially charged with two counts each of murder in the second degree, one for each child, two counts each of willful cruelty to a child, and one count each of false report of an emergency. After an indictment, they were tried on two counts of second-degree murder, one count of conspiracy to commit murder, one count of involuntary manslaughter, two counts of willful cruelty to a child, and one count of false report of an emergency to law enforcement.
Their trial began in late March and lasted several weeks. Over 300 potential jurors were called before 12 jurors and a few alternates were selected, according to Mojave Desert News. Dozens of witnesses testified and over 100 exhibits were presented to jurors in the case, according to local NBC and CW Plus affiliate KGET.
The defendants were found guilty of second-degree murder, and involuntary manslaughter, as to Orrin West, both counts of willful cruelty to a child, and false report of emergency. Jurors could not reach a verdict on the second-degree murder charge and conspiracy to commit murder charges related to Orson West, according to Bakersfield-based CBS/Fox affiliate KBAK.
The jury deadlocked 10-2 in favor of guilt on the murder charge and 8-4 in favor of guilt on the conspiracy charge.
In other words, the couple was convicted of murdering Orrin West but not Orson West. They were convicted of being cruel to the younger boy and for falsely reporting that he was missing.
Sentencing in the case is currently slated for July 13. Prosecutor Eric Smith will announce at that date whether or not the state intends to retry the couple on the two deadlocked charges.
A gag order has been issued in the case which has kept very little information about the investigation from coming out.
“I can’t say anything like that,” Kern County District Attorney Cynthia Zimmer said at one point when asked a question about the circumstances of the boy’s deaths during a press conference last year. “We are prohibited from discussing the facts of the case.”
During the trial, prosecutors revealed that law enforcement initially came to suspect the defendants after Officer Brian Hansen conducted interviews with the four other West children, according to local ABC affiliate KERO. Defense attorneys countered that such interviews were improper and unreliable because the children – all of whom were under the age of 11 at the time – were goaded on by loaded questions and they gave confused and contradictory answers.
In one likely powerful piece of testimony, the Wests’ eldest child, who was 10 at the time the two boys disappeared, testified that he found Orrin West dead and was then told by his parents to keep quiet or he and his siblings would be taken away, KGET reported. As for the body, the boy told jurors he did not know what had happened to it.
The defendants face life sentences.
The boys’ bodies are still missing.
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