A MAN CONVICTED of a murder in Antioch from decades ago was denied in his efforts last week to get a long-missing recording that allegedly captured another inmate trying — and failing — to get him to confess.
Judge David Goldstein denied the discovery motion filed by defense attorney Barry Morris on the grounds that Deputy District Attorney Mary Knox made reasonable efforts to locate the decades-old recording to no avail and that she cannot be compelled to produce evidence she does not possess.
Morris, representing Eric Anderson — who alongside Randy Salazar was charged with first-degree murder for the 2004 killing of Antioch resident Matthew Stephens — says the recording was never produced as evidence beforehand because it would have undermined the prosecution’s case.
Anderson was convicted in 2008 and sentenced to life in prison without parole, and Morris filed an order to show cause Oct. 24, 2024, requesting resentencing in the case.
During the hearing Friday last week, Morris reminded the judge that police reports confirmed that an unnamed informant was only able to capture Anderson maintaining his innocence.
“When they didn’t get what they wanted, poof! It disappears,” Morris said during the hearing.
Knox further shared with the judge that she has been working with a retired detective who was active on the case, and he could not recall the identity of the informant. She did not provide the detective’s name and shared that he now lives out of state. Goldstein said the detective could appear in court via Zoom, if subpoenaed.
Morris called it ridiculous that no one remembered who the informant was or knows where the tape went. He said it was unlikely for another inmate to accept a role as an informant without some kind of dangled carrot — and that “carrot” would have been documented, along with the identity of the informant.
“There’s something rotten going on in this case, and this is a perfect example of it,” Morris said to a reporter immediately after the hearing. “When you send somebody in to talk to somebody in custody and you’ve got a tape, that tape doesn’t self-destruct. The normal procedure is you log it into evidence. And then there’s a log as to who takes it out of the evidence room and who brings it back. It all disappeared?”
Stephens, a 2003 Deer Valley High School graduate, was killed in the early morning hours of Sept. 21, 2004, while getting ready to leave his home in Antioch for work in San Francisco. He was found near his car lying face down in the middle of the street on East Lake Court with a gunshot wound to the head, according to copies of police reports sent by Anderson to a reporter.
Described in court documents as high-ranking and independent Norteno gang members looking for someone to rob that morning, Salazar and Anderson were said to have put a gun in Stephens’ side, but he fought back, and an altercation took place before he was shot in the face. Salazar and Anderson were charged and convicted of first-degree murder with special enhancements for gang involvement and sentenced to life without parole.
‘I was just a dumb kid’
Anderson is currently at California Medical Facility in Vacaville.
In a conversation with a reporter by phone from the prison, Anderson described the version of himself from 2004 — a teenager who hung out with an older cousin on Peppertree Way, an area notorious for gang activity in Antioch. He began wearing the colors to fit in but says he never became an official member.
“I was just a dumb kid — just a dumb kid,” said Anderson, now 40.
He believes that his affiliation with known criminals led the Antioch Police Department to peg an easy target in an effort to quickly close the case. He referenced the department’s corruption that was uncovered by a 2023 FBI investigation that found civil rights violations, fraud and conspiracy, and he wondered how many cases of abuse weren’t brought to light.
“What about all of us that are in prison that had our cases heard before this and are doing life sentences?” Anderson said.
In addition to the missing tape, Anderson said there were other unusual aspects with the case, including a .40-caliber bullet casing said to be found at the crime scene that didn’t match the .22-caliber bullet that killed Stephens, along with a bloody blanket that wasn’t examined until 2007 after a hung jury was declared in his first trial.
An initial police report by Officer James Stenger stated that the .40-caliber casing might have fallen from his duty belt. He and other officers had entered the range and shot weapons during training on Sept. 20, 2004.
A forensics report dated Aug. 3, 2007, details examination of a blood-covered blanket with a bullet hole. The report reads, “DDA Knox thought it was possible that this blanket had been put over Stephens’ head during the physical altercation and his glasses became entangled in it. She thought the gunshot was fired through the blanket which might account for the lack of any stippling around the wound to Stephens’ head.”
According to the report, the coroner found no signs of gunshot stippling, which is a pattern of small abrasions caused by unburned gunpowder. Forensic standards indicate that a lack of stippling could mean the shooter was either more than 3 feet away or that a barrier, like a blanket, absorbed the particles. A previous appellate court opinion cited the blanket as belonging to Stephens, who kept it in his car to nap while on break at work.
Anderson further alleges that Knox should know who the informant is.
“That was Mary Knox’s main witness in my preliminary, my first trial and my second trial to say I confessed to him on the streets,” he continued. “They’re trying to hide his identity and the recording, because that recording impeached his testimony.”
Since the case is currently open, a spokesperson from the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office said Knox cannot comment.