After nearly two days of searching, police captured a felon
wanted for a host of violent crimes by monitoring his cell phone
and interviewing his acquaintances, deputies said.
Also check out a story on the crime that led to Barnes’ 11-year incarceration.
After nearly two days of searching, police captured a felon wanted for a host of violent crimes by monitoring his cell phone and interviewing his acquaintances, deputies said.
About 11 p.m. Thursday, members of the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office SWAT team and Watsonville police officers cornered Joel Barnes, 39, of Gilroy, inside a residence on Webb Road in Watsonville, Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Sgt. Rick Sung said. Barnes – who provoked deputies into shooting at him while he escaped their capture by driving his truck at them – ran from the Watsonville house and into nearby woods.
The SWAT team and canine officers found Barnes hiding inside some bushes and tried to arrest him, but he fought against them, using his hands and feet to strike them, Sung said. However, the officers subdued him and took him into custody. He was booked for attempted murder of a peace officer, at least one count of evading a peace officer, and being a felon in possession of illegal weapons. Barnes was previously wanted for burglary of a pistol, ditching a stolen motorcycle, assault with a deadly weapon and felony domestic violence.
Just after midnight Wednesday, Santa Clara County Sheriff’s deputies received a tip that Barnes was at a rural residence in San Martin, Sung said. Deputies went to the home at 12605 Harding Ave. and spotted Barnes. Ignoring orders to surrender, Barnes ran to his green 1973 Ford pickup and fled the scene. Deputies fired shots at Barnes while he fled, but it was unclear if deputies hit Barnes or if Barnes fired back at the deputies.
“It sounded like a firecracker to me, so we just went to sleep,” said Tomiko Thada, who lives and owns a nursery across the street.
Barnes led deputies on a 10- to 15-minute high-speed chase up Redwood Retreat Road and Mount Madonna Road to Mount Madonna County Park, Sung and a witness said. Deputies lost Barnes, who was still in his truck, in the park, Sung said. A resident in the area said that he heard a truck roaring up the road, with sirens following a bit behind.
Working with Watsonville officers, deputies talked to Barnes’ “associates” and staked out one of the associates’ house, Sung said. That associate then tipped off deputies that Barnes was at the Webb Road house. Meanwhile, deputies were also monitoring Barnes’ cell phone usage, though it was unclear how exactly that data was used.
Deputies had not located the occupant of the Webb Road house and Sung was unsure if deputies found any weapons belonging to Barnes inside the residence, he said.
Barnes served 11 years for stabbing his common-law wife once in the heart with a knife following a fight, according to Dispatch archives and the California Department of Corrections. He alternatively claimed to police that the woman he killed – Tracy Lynn Little, 27 – had fallen on the knife or gotten in the way of it as he tried to leave the Montebello Drive residence where they were fighting. He eventually pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter and his sentence started April 19, 1996. He was paroled Sept. 26, 2004, and his formal release occurred Dec. 23, 2007, according to the Corrections Department.
Barnes was originally listed as one of the Gilroy Dispatch’s Most Wanted last month after deputies searched a home on the 5000 block of Hecker Pass Highway Aug. 15 looking for Barnes. Instead, deputies arrested two men in their 30s and a teenage girl who were staying in the house on various weapons and drug charges. Between them, the men and the girl had machine guns, methamphetamine for sale, marijuana and stolen property, deputies said. Sung did not know if this incident was the origin of Barnes’ illegal weapons charge.
Then, on Aug. 17, a resident living on the 10000 block of Sycamore Avenue in Morgan Hill reported that Barnes had stolen a handgun worth $200.
Two days later at 4:39 a.m., Barnes abandoned a motorcycle stolen out of Gilroy in a yard on the 13000 block of Sycamore, deputies said.
Barnes was also arrested Feb. 10, 2008, by Gilroy police for making a felony threat and battery, according to Dispatch archives.
Neighborhood surprised, shaken by incident
In San Martin Wednesday morning, deputies blocked off Harding Avenue south of Cox Road and scoured the residence where deputies encountered Barnes, using surveying tools to recreate the scene. There were no signs – such as blood – that Barnes had been shot, Sung said. The property where the shooting happened has three residences with three separate mailboxes, and its yards were littered with chairs, a fountain, a child’s pedal car, a tractor, pots, towels, volcanic rocks and cactuses, among other items. What appeared to be two delivery trucks and a white car sat in the back of the lot.
Across the street, sheriff’s deputies surrounded the parking lot of Mt. Green Nursery with crime scene tape and forced the business to close. Still, business was not seriously affected because Thada mostly sells wholesale, she said.
Her family, who has lived there since 1985, had not had any problems with the neighboring residence, Thada said. However, she reported a suspicious pickup – a “very old, American-made,” tan truck with a “lot of beer cans” in its bed – in the parking lot of her business late at night several times, she said.
Nearby neighbors did not pay much attention to the late-night scene. Troy Holderfield didn’t even hear the shots, and his family only found out about the incident when deputies called his house about 1 a.m. to ask if everyone was safe.
However, neighbors had noticed an increase in police activity, with multiple cars passing through the area day and night.
“There was a whole slew of stuff going on,” said Steve Gales, a 20-year San Martin Avenue resident out fixing his mailbox with a sledge hammer Wednesday morning.
Some neighbors said they noticed police had begun carrying heavy firearms.
That same day, special tactical teams gathered near the historic home of cattle baron Henry Miller atop Mount Madonna. The deputies sat around a trailer on chairs, about 500 feet from where park rangers went about their daily business, directing an ongoing construction project and watering a lawn outside the pen of the park’s rare white fallow deer. Meanwhile, a helicopter circled overhead and deputies set up a perimeter around the park in hopes of spotting Barnes or his truck.
Michael Moore contributed reporting to this article.
