“CSLEA understands the intense amount of work that goes into investigating a crime scene and processing evidence.  It is not an easy job to collect evidence at a gruesome murder site.  Criminalists at the California Department of Justice do a tremendous job assisting law enforcement officers, both at crime scenes and in the various labs throughout California.” – CSLEA President Alan Barcelona

UKIAH – On May 8, 2023, a Mendocino County Superior Court jury found Christopher Wayne Gamble, 48, of Willits, guilty of two counts of murder.

Gamble was convicted for the second degree of Ulises Andrade Ayala and the first-degree murder of Anwar Ayala Rodriguez, 17, at a marijuana grow on Sherwood Road.

Gamble was also found guilty of animal abuse, a felony charge relating to a number of roosters found by law enforcement in a burn pile, along with the headless bodies of the two murder victims.

The severed heads of the two human victims were never located by law enforcement.

Gamble is expected to be sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

The law enforcement agencies that developed the evidence supporting the jury verdicts and findings were the:

• Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office,
• Mendocino Major Crimes Task Force,
• Department of Justice crime laboratory,
• District Attorney’s Bureau of Investigation.

The above agencies were also assisted by the Department of Anthropology at Chico State and the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority.