Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to PorchlightUSA. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
1995 Trotter, Tom July 3 or 4 1995; Oroville
Topic Started: Jul 15 2009, 11:56 PM (346 Views)
PorchlightUSA
Member Avatar
Administrator
[ *  *  * ]
Possible burial site could be key to unlocking 1995 murder mystery
By TERRY VAU DELL - Staff Writer
Posted: 07/15/2009 12:00:00 AM PDT


Click photo to enlargeFlint Plaster shows his attorney, Rochelle Forbis, the possible Palermo burial site of Tom...«1»PALERMO — It's just a pile of dirt covered by brambles and encircled by some small stones on a large ranch.
But a young Oroville man believes that it's the key to unlocking a 14-year-old murder mystery.

Flint Plaster says he's "100 percent sure" the body of Tom Trotter lies at the bottom of what was once a test well on his grandparent's 48-acre rural property in Palermo.

He was only 10 years old when he said he saw some rolled-up carpeting that had been dumped into one of several 40-foot-deep holes an uncle had drilled on the site in an attempt to find water for a well about two years before Trotter, 34, was believed to have been shot to death at his Oroville home and his body disposed of in the summer of 1995.

Dennis Oates is currently serving a life sentence in prison for his former neighbor's slaying, becoming one of only a handful of people in California to be convicted by a jury of murder without a corpse.

Sometime before Oates was arrested for Trotter's killing, someone filled in the well hole with dirt, covering it completely, Plaster contends.

"You could see tracks from a dozer coming on our back property ... Our family didn't own a backhoe and we didn't push that dirt in," he noted.

Oates' relatives lived on the property adjoining Plaster's grandparents in Palermo.

During Oates' 1996 Butte County Superior Court trial, a witness had testified seeing what appeared to be rolled-up carpeting in the back of Trotter's pickup outside the victim's


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Advertisement

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
blood-spattered and bullet-riddled Lone Tree Road residence south of Oroville.
Oates was quoted by the witness as saying he was packing up a few belongings as he waited for his former neighbor to return from the store so the two could go camping over the July 4th weekend.

Trotter was believed slain just a few days before he was scheduled to testify against Oates at a spousal abuse hearing in court on behalf of the convicted killer's estranged wife.

Though local authorities have followed many leads over the years and searched several areas associated with Oates, Trotter's body has never been found.

Plaster, now a 24-year-old supervisor at a plastics plant in Oroville, contends one or more relatives of the convicted killer were overheard by a member of his family saying the slain man's body was at the bottom the old test well.

About two years ago, Plaster's father approached Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey with the information in an attempt to get a lesser sentence in his son's pending domestic violence case.

Though a district attorney's investigator and a prosecutor went out to the site, located in a rocky and tree-studded pasture area off Oro Country Club Drive in a rural section of eastern Palermo, "we found nothing; it wasn't as if there was even a hole," recalled Ramsey.

"We weren't about to expend the taxpayers' money on a wild goose chase," the district attorney added.

Furthermore, the information "didn't jibe" with statements Oates was quoted as having made to a female witness shortly before being arrested in Alabama about having killed a man in California and thrown his body into a lake, Ramsey noted.

He told Plaster's father he would only consider a deal in the son's case, if they excavated the site on their own and found Trotter's remains, provided local authorities could observe the digging.

Rochelle Forbis, Plaster's court-appointed attorney, said she contacted an anthropologist at Chico State University as well as a private drilling firm, and was told the procedure could cost several thousand dollars.

Because using a drill to bore through the old hole could destroy any skeletal remains that may be down there, Forbis said she was told the crew would have to dig vertically and slowly work their way down the old well shaft by hand, which could take several days.

The professor she spoke with offered to have some of his students take part in the dig, according to the Oroville attorney.

Unable to afford the expensive excavation project, Plaster, who eventually pleaded guilty to a lesser misdemeanor charge, said he had largely forgotten the matter until he read a recent Enterprise-Record article in which Trotter's parents made a public appeal to the convicted slayer to disclose their murdered son's grave site.

"I got home and my significant other said, how would you feel if your dad was killed, and you knew where the remains are?" Plaster said.

"I didn't want to be a rat or nothing," added the young Oroville man, but decided to contact the newspaper through his lawyer in an effort to "provide closure" for the victim's family.

Nancy Trotter, the slain man's mother, said on Monday she intended to discuss the matter with other family members, but would probably wait to see what the district attorney says before deciding whether to bear the expense of the costly excavation.

"We have been hanging on for any kind of information," she noted.

Ramsey said Monday he will recommend against the murdered man's family spending the money without more specific information linking the convicted killer to the ranch site.

http://www.chicoer.com/publicsafety/ci_12839671
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
PorchlightUSA
Member Avatar
Administrator
[ *  *  * ]
http://z10.invisionfree.com/usedtobedoe/in...opic=47890&st=0
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
PorchlightUSA
Member Avatar
Administrator
[ *  *  * ]
http://www.chicoer.com/ci_12751853?source=most_emailed
Weekend marks 14 years since man disappeared
By TERRY VAU DELL-Staff Writer
Posted: 07/04/2009 12:00:00 AM PDT


OROVILLE — The arrival of the July Fourth holiday brings only more pain and searching for the family of a man who vanished 14 years ago this week, and is presumed slain.
Tom Trotter was 34 when he disappeared from his bullet-riddled home in Oroville sometime around July 3-4,1995.

In their quest to find his remains, his family has put up a $5,000 reward and twice sought the help of psychics, both of whom said they believed his body lies in or near water, according to Nancy Trotter, the missing man's mother.

Dennis Oates, a former Oroville neighbor who had gotten into a fight with the victim just days before Trotter was to testify in a domestic dispute case involving Oates' estranged wife, is one of only a handful of people convicted of murder in California without a corpse.

As a "wedding present" for the slain man's daughter a few years ago, Butte County District Attorney Mike Ramsey sent one of his investigators to a prison where Oates is serving a life sentence, to try to persuade him to disclose the long-sought burial site.

Though the investigator noted the information might be helpful when Oates comes up for parole consideration in 2022, the convicted killer, who had previously denied the murder, was quoted as saying, "It ain't going to do me no good to tell you where the body or body parts are."

Ramsey, who personally prosecuted Oates, said he regards the statement as the first admission by Oates to Trotter's slaying.

Local authorities, acting


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Advertisement

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
on a tip, sent divers to a lake near where Oates was living in the foothills east of Oroville at the time of the murder, but were unable to locate the victim's body.
In their desperation, the missing man's family attended a recent theater show in Grants Pass, Ore., featuring prominent TV psychic Sylvia Brown.

"I'm sorry to say that he's in the water," was her terse reply, said Nancy Trotter.

The oldest of four children, Tom Trotter was an easy-going and friendly guy who worked for a Chico oil company at the time he was presumed slain, say co-workers.

During Oates' jury trial, sheriff's detectives testified the two men had gotten into a fight, after Oates accused his former neighbor of being romantically involved with his estranged wife and taking her side in an upcoming domestic violence trial.

A landlord identified Oates as the man he saw packing up Trotter's pickup outside his home the day he disappeared. The witness quoted the murder suspect as saying the two planned to go camping over the July Fourth weekend.

Authorities found bullet holes and blood on the floor of the missing man's home. Trotter's abandoned pickup was later found in a hilly area east of Oroville, but his body was never found.

Before being captured in Alabama, a woman Oates met in that state quoted him as confessing to her he had killed a man in California and dumped his body into a lake.

Local authorities searched a wide area of Lake Oroville and also dug up land near Oates' Forbestown Road home, to no avail.

Oates was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder with a firearm and is now serving a term of 35 years to life.

Trotter's daughter, Brandy, who was about 11 at the time of her father's killing, received some solace from a wrongful-death settlement of about $90,000 involving the sale of property of her dad's killer.

She is planning to go to nurse's school in Oregon, while a brother is employed at a maximum security prison in California.

The slain man's father, Carl Trotter, is now in poor health, according to his wife.

"It would make him really happy if we could find Tom," said Nancy Trotter.

She is making a direct appeal to the convicted slayer to reveal her slain son's grave site.

"There's no reason for him not to tell," said the victim's mother. "It doesn't make any difference, except to us."

Anyone with information about Tom Trotter's remains are being urged to call the Butte County District Attorney's Office or the family at 1-541-218-4408.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
PorchlightUSA
Member Avatar
Administrator
[ *  *  * ]
Tom Trotter


Above: Trotter, circa 1995



Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance
Missing Since: July 3 - July 5, 1995 from Oroville, California
Classification: Endangered Missing
Age: 34 years old
Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian male.



Details of Disappearance
Trotter was last seen at his home on Lone Tree Road in Oroville, California sometime during the July 4 weekend in 1995. He has never been heard from again. Blood and bullet holes were found in his home after his disappearance, and his truck turned up in the hills east of Oroville. Trotter worked as a truck driver for the Chico Drain Oil Co. He left behind a young daughter who was visiting relatives when he disappeared.

Days after his disappearance, Trotter was scheduled to testify as a witness at the spousal abuse trial of his former neighbor, Dennis Oates. He and Oates had gotten into a fight a few days before Trotter's disappearance, and Oates accused him of being involved with his estranged wife. A witness saw Oates packing up Trotter's pickup truck outside his home the day Trotter disappeared. Oates allegedly said he and Trotter were going camping.

Trotter's body was never found in spite of extensive searches, but Oates was convicted of first-degree murder with a firearm in his case. He is serving 35 years to life in prison and will be eligible for parole in 2022. He has refused to reveal the location of Trotter's body. Trotter's daughter received approximately $90,000 in a wrongful death settlement against Oates. Foul play is suspected in Trotter's case due to the circumstances involved.



Investigating Agency
If you have any information concerning this case, please contact:
Butte County District Attorney's Office
541-218-4408


Source Information
The Chico Enterprise Record
The Oroville Mercury-Register
Unsolved in the News

http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/t/trotter_tom.html
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
PorchlightUSA
Member Avatar
Administrator
[ *  *  * ]
http://af-za.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall...gid=98935704723
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
« Previous Topic · California Missing Persons 1990 to 1999 · Next Topic »
Add Reply