This is an article about some people I knew while growing up in Mills Park-Croetto.

Robert “Bobby” Reese used to come down to my house and jump ramps with me on our bikes. My Dad and I would build the ramps out of wood. My Dad also used to fix Bobby’s bike, patch his tires, etc.

I remember going down to his apartment. His parents were renting an apartment in what is now known as Cordova Estates Apartments, which are located on Croetto Way, around 1978-1981. All the people listed in the story below were older than me, some by 10 yrs like Kenny Probst, but the thing is I knew them, knew people who knew them as a kid, and they died, and they frequented the Croetto/Mills Park area. Different players, same game, same outcome, death.

DEATH PENALTY ORDERED IN TRIPLE SLAYING
WOMAN, TWO MEN KILLED IN FAIR OAKS HOME USED AS DRUG-DISTRIBUTION DEPOT

FEBRUARY 5, 1991
Section: METRO
Page: B4

By   Wayne Wilson Bee Staff Writer

–Convicted multiple-murderer James David Majors was sentenced to death Monday for the Jan. 26, 1989, gangland-style slayings of two men and a woman at a Fair Oaks residence. Sacramento Superior Court Judge Darrel W. Lewis formalized the jury’s finding of Dec. 12, dispassionately enumerating the aggravating circumstances qualifying Majors for a date in the gas chamber.

Families and friends of the victims, joined by at least three members of the jury that convicted him, expressed feelings of joy and relief.

If the death penalty is carried out, we will feel that justice has been served, said Alice Probst, mother of Thomas Kenneth Probst, 30.

Probst, along with Jeannine Annette Twiggy Copeland, 30, and Patrick James Mungavin, 24, were shot to death in the home Probst used as a drug-distribution depot.

Mungavin’s sister, Linda Taylor, said her brother’s daughter born eight months after his death has been robbed of having a father for the rest of her life.

She compared the loss to that of Danny Hobbs, 8, who awoke to find his mother Copeland lying in a pool of her own blood in the living room of the Probst home.

Majors, 43, professed his innocence during a pre-sentence statement and accused the prosecutor, press, judge and jury of distorting a system that has nothing to do with justice.

Majors, found guilty in November, claimed he has uncovered evidence that others were responsible for the killings of Probst, Copeland and Mungavin.

Outside the courtroom, Prosecutor John O’Mara dismissed Majors’ claims as the ramblings of a desperate man. He said the other suspects mentioned by Majors were investigated and cleared.

Ten days ago, Judge Lewis rejected Majors’ motion for a new trial based on allegations of jury misconduct, prompting Majors to lash out at everyone connected with the trial, including his own attorneys, Michael Brady and Richard Hamlin.

Responding to O’Mara’s point that he has not exhibited remorse for the killings, Majors said: He’s right. I don’t have any remorse. I didn’t kill those people. I didn’t have anything to do with it.

At his last appearance, Majors complained that all the evidence pointed to another man, Robert Reese, who subsequently was found shot to death in the Arizona desert.

Majors has admitted coming from Phoenix to Sacramento with Reese the night of the murders, however. Arizona authorities have identified Majors as the primary suspect in the killing of Reese and six other homicide victims there.

Majors denied those slayings, too.

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