Recording details suspect's drive with detectives to Groveland

Jurors listened to audio recordings Wednesday of a murder trial defendant telling two Modesto police investigators how he punched his roommate, who would later die, and then buried her body in a shallow grave in Tuolumne County.

Russell Todd Jones, 51, is on trial, accused of killing Dena Raley-McCluskey, 36, in October 1999. Authorities discovered her remains Oct. 31, 2007, a day after Jones led them to the burial site at his parents' property in Groveland.

On the day her remains were discovered, investigators questioned Jones for several hours at the Modesto Police Department, while giving him a ride home and inside his Roselawn Avenue apartment in west Modesto.

Modesto police Sgt. Craig Plante and Detective Matt Medina were trying to get Jones to explain how Raley-McCluskey died.

He told the investigators that Raley-McCluskey was upset she spent her last $20 on a bar bill after the roommates went out drinking. He said Raley-McCluskey reached to scratch at his face when he reacted.

"In my kitchen ... that's where I hit her," Jones told the investigators about the incident in his home then, on Karen Way home in central Modesto. "And I popped her, one shot."

Jones said she was still breathing. He picked her up and took her to the bathroom. He was getting ready to clean her wounds, when she collapsed on the floor, he said.

He then told the investigators he was trying to do the right thing by revealing what happened eight years before, and that his life was now over.

"Accident or not, they're going to fry my ass," Jones said to the investigators.

Until then, Jones had repeatedly told investigators he found Raley-McCluskey dead in his home, panicked and didn't tell anyone because he was afraid police would not believe he had nothing to do with her death.

Now, thanks to his October 2007 admission, the investigators had a recorded confession.

Frank Carson, Jones' defense attorney, has said his client had been questioned by police for a long period and was suffering from psychological stress when he gave the investigators a phony story about punching Raley- McCluskey.

Information through conversation

This wasn't the first time Plante and Medina had secretly recorded their conversation with Jones. They taped the interviews with a small digital recorder they hid in a pocket.

Plante since has retired from the department, and Medina now works as an agent for the state Department of Justice.

The investigators had developed a good rapport with Jones, and the recordings show a "casual conversation" as the investigators asked Jones for details, Medina testified Wednesday.

Plante and Medina were trying to get Jones to give them the cause of death and whereabouts of Raley-McCluskey's body "by being nice to him and engaging him in conversation," Medina testified.

The recorded police interviews were played in court. Each juror was handed a transcript of the interviews to read as they listened.

The day before the confession, Jones and the investigators had stopped for burgers and fries at a Jack in the Box before they drove to the grave site in Groveland.

Jones had a mouthful of food as he described wrapping Raley- McCluskey in a quilt, putting her body in his pickup's toolbox compartment, driving to Groveland, digging the grave, covering her with a plastic tarp and dousing it with diesel fuel to keep animals away.

He then shoveled dirt into the grave and covered it with pine needles to disguise the burial site and not draw attention.

In the recordings, Jones explained to the investigators how he reacted when he found Raley-McCluskey dead in his home.

"I basically sat there in shock for a couple of hours," Jones told the investigators. "There was no way I was going to call the cops because they're not going to believe me."

Jones told Plante and Medina "her face was beat up." He said Raley-McCluskey's injuries were so severe that it looked like she had fallen about 15 feet.

The investigators asked him whether he was sure Raley- McCluskey was dead when he found her.

He told them Raley-McCluskey's body was cold to the touch, and she had nothing resembling a pulse after checking her wrists, neck and chest.

"No breathing; no nothing," Jones told the investigators. "I've seen a lot of dead animals, and there's no mistaking."

Bee staff writer Rosalio Ahumada can be reached at rahumada@modbee.com or (209) 578-2394.

This story was originally published June 22, 2011 at 10:39 PM with the headline "Recording details suspect's drive with detectives to Groveland."