Escondido man confesses to Hayfork, Trinity County double homicide

If you know Jason Paul Brady, he probably never is coming home to Escondido. The 40-year-old  Escondido wanderer confessed Tuesday to killing two people at a Hayfork residence Monday night, Trinity County Sheriff’s investigators said.

Deputies said they received reports of a “suspicious circumstance” around 11:30 p.m.  Arriving at the residence on Carter Gulch Road, they spotted a person in the home, who then ran out the back in an attempt to escape.

Jason Paul Brady

Deputies pursued on foot and caught Brady a short distance from the home, where they found the two dead bodies. They didn’t disclose where the bodies were located. Investigators have not released the victims’ identities.

Hayfork is out of the way, way way out of the way. With about 2,300 residents, it’s about 90 minutes west of Redding on Highway 3. The quiet community, nestled in forests north of the Mad River where everybody knows your name, was reeling from the event by all accounts.

“It’s a real shock to this town,” Rose Shelly, 40, said to the Redding Searchlight. She’s lived in Hayfork for 10 years and works as a clerk at Ernie’s True Value store on Brady Road. “Part of the time, I’m shocked,” Shelly said, “and part of the time, I want to cry.”

True Value manager Kenny Halderman, 44, said he hadn’t been out of the store for the day, but noticed a “pretty rough” feeling among his customers.

Halderman and Shelly knew one of the victims, who stopped by to shop at their store, but said they hadn’t noticed anything unusual.

Kenny Wiley Jr., 29, of Wiley’s Supermarket said it’s common to know people in the neighborhood, especially in a small town like Hayfork.

Brady was booked into Trinity County Jail without bail. Trinity County investigators said charges were pending.

Escondido man found dead in self-set mobile home fire

An unrelated residence at Town & Country Club Park where a man killed himself in a mobile home fire he set, authorities said.

Meanwhile, back in the Hidden Valley, an as-yet unidentified Escondido man died around 9 p.m. Friday when he set fire to his mother’s trailer at Town & Country Club Park in the 2300 block of East Valley Parkway near Bear Valley Parkway.

Escondido police Lt. Ed Varso said police received reports of a family disturbance inside the mobile home. The man’s family left the residence. Soon after, neighbors reported the man yelling, throwing and breaking items inside the residence.

Varso said officers confronted the man who appeared to be intoxicated. He threw items at officers and challenged them to a fight.

Officers backed off to defuse the situation, but the man went inside and began setting fire to paper with a stovetop, Varso said. Smelling natural gas, police called in firefighters who arrived to find the residence filled with smoke, but no flames.

As they brought the scene under control, firefighters went into a bedroom and found the man dead, Varso said. No cause of death has been determined and no weapons or drugs were found at the scene, Varso said.