Attorneys point out varying accounts from witness in Kauffman murder trial

Defense attorneys this week raised questions about statements from a man who says he saw two brothers involved in a struggle with Korey Kauffman moments before the Turlock man was shot.

The attorneys representing brothers Baljit Athwal and Daljit Atwal on Tuesday afternoon told the jury that Robert Lee Woody gave varying accounts about Kauffman's demise, even admitting to his girlfriend in a recorded conversation that he killed Kauffman himself and fed the remains to pigs.

Woody has since told authorities that Baljit Athwal and Daljit Atwal were involved in Kauffman's death. Woody was the only person charged with murder in Kauffman's death for about a year until several other alleged conspirators were arrested.

Now a key prosecution witness, Woody has received a plea deal in exchange for his testimony that will result in a sentence of seven years and eight months behind bars.

The brothers and prominent Modesto attorney Frank Carson are on trial in Kauffman's death.

Prosecutors accuse Carson of being the ringleader of a criminal conspiracy to thwart thieves from repeatedly stealing antiques and scrap metal from his property on Ninth Street in Turlock.

The prosecution has alleged Carson recruited a group of people to send a violent message to burglars, which resulted in Kauffman’s death after he was caught trying to steal irrigation pipes from Carson.

Initially, Woody denied he had any involvement in Kauffman's 2012 disappearance. The 26-year-old man's body was found more than a year later in Mariposa County.

In a record-setting 18-month preliminary hearing that preceded the trial, Robert Lee Woody testified that Baljit Athwal and Daljit Atwal were fighting with Kauffman on Carson’s property moments before Daljit Atwal shot Kauffman to death.

In his opening statement this week, Hans Hjertonsson spoke to the jury about a March 2014 interrogation of Woody. Hjertonsson, who represents Daljit Atwal, said Woody denied any involvement in Kauffman's disappearance for the first four hours of the interrogation.

Then, he took a bathroom break that lasted 18 minutes. In that time, investigators say Woody made another statement about Kauffman, but that wasn't recorded.

"What happened during these 18 minutes?" Hjertonsson told the 12 jurors and five alternates.

After the bathroom break, Woody told investigators he saw Kauffman on the last night he was seen alive. Atwal's attorney said Woody later recanted that statement, telling his family and his defense team that authorities made him say those things.

Even during the March 14 interrogation, Woody told the investigators, "Every time I try to tell you the truth, I'm the f------ liar," according to Hjertonsson. The attorney said Woody continued to deny involvement in Kauffman's death until August 2015, when Carson and several others were arrested in the alleged murder conspiracy.

Woody has claimed that Kauffman’s body was buried just outside the brothers’ Turlock liquor store for 27 days before Kauffman’s body was unearthed and dumped in a remote area of the Stanislaus National Forest. Prosecutors have argued that the remains were left exposed to the natural elements and animals scavenging for food.

Hjertonsson told the jury that Woody's account of how Kauffman's body was removed has changed over time. He said that Woody first claimed he didn't know how the body was taken to Mariposa County, before saying it was dumped there on the night of Kauffman's death.

Throughout a series of police interviews, the attorney said that Woody conforms to the investigators' theory about Kauffman's body removal.

"He's being told facts, and he responds in an affirmative," Hjertonsson said.

Jai Gohel, Baljit Athwal’s attorney, told the jury that Woody found himself in a difficult position in that March 2014 interrogation. His girlfriend, under police instruction, had secretly recorded Woody claiming he killed Kauffman. Now, he was a suspect in custody, and investigators told him he could face life in prison or the death penalty.

"After he gets out of the bathroom break, he's in a crucible; in a jam," Gohel said.

The prosecution says there is sufficient corroboration supporting Woody's statements. Gohel told the jury that there are no phone records indicating Baljit called Woody or his brother to leave the store and meet him on Carson's property for the confrontation with Kauffman, as Woody has testified.

Gohel also said that Woody first claimed they left the store about 12:30 a.m. but later said it was about 1:30 a.m. or 2 a.m., which fit the timeline of another witness who was at the store that night.

Woody also told authorities that they didn't use flashlights or lights on Carson's property. But Woody and Daljit Atwal were able to find his brother struggling with Kauffman in the dark on a large properpty filled with antiques, old cars and scrap metal, Gohel said.

The brothers own the Pop-N-Cork liquor store on East Avenue in Turlock, where Woody worked. Woody says they brought Kauffman's body to an empty lot next to the store, where he cut off Kauffman's fingers and toes before wrapping the body in a tarp and burying it in a shallow grave.

Gohel told the jury there's a street light installed near that empty lot in 2010, and there are nearby homes with their own lights.

"You'll see evidence that it's easy to see into this lot," Gohel said in court.

But police never questioned neighbors with clear views of the lot where Woody claims the gruesome burial of Kauffman's body occurred, Gohel said. He told the jury the defense will call two neighbors to the witness stand who don't remember seeing a burial that night.

The defense attorney also said cadaver dogs were used to search other areas in this murder investigation, but not the burial site where Woody says a body was decomposing for nearly a month. Gohel also asked the jury to question why authorities didn't collect soil samples from the claimed burial site to analyze for DNA traces.

Testimony was expected to begin later this week in what is presumed to be a lengthy trial in Stanislaus Superior Court.

This story was originally published April 25, 2018 at 4:02 PM with the headline "Attorneys point out varying accounts from witness in Kauffman murder trial."