Relatives of murder defendant helped bury Paso Robles man’s body, they testify
A San Luis Obispo Superior Court judge heard grim testimony from two men who helped dispose of the body of 27-year-old Trevon Perry, whose remains were discovered buried in the backyard of a Riverside home this summer after the Paso Robles resident had been missing for three months.
The two relatives of Nicholas Ron — who is accused of shooting Perry point-blank from behind — have accepted deals with the San Luis Obispo County District Attorney’s Office to testify against Ron in exchange for receiving probation in lieu of lengthy prison sentences.
For their safety, The Tribune is withholding the names of some witnesses in the case.
Ron was in court Thursday and Friday for a preliminary hearing in which Superior Court Judge Jesse Marino heard testimony from the two confidential witnesses as well as investigators in the case.
At the conclusion Friday, Marino ruled that prosecutors presented enough evidence to support taking the case to trial. Ron has pleaded not guilty to a single count of murder, a charge that carries a sentencing enhancement for the use of a firearm.
If convicted, Ron, 23, faces 25 years to life in prison.
Though his mother had a similar preliminary hearing Jan. 14 for her alleged role of accessory and witness tampering, Ron’s proceedings this week included, for the first time, witness details about his whereabouts the night Perry is believed to have been murdered and how he recruited family members to help him dispose of Perry’s body.
The reason for the killing, however, remains unclear after Ron’s defense attorney said in court that evidence contradicts a possible motive floated by one of the confidential witnesses.
Perry was reported missing in mid-March after he was last seen leaving a friend’s house. His remains were found buried outside a house in Riverside on June 18.
The Tribune previously reported that a few months before his disappearance, Perry testified for the prosecution in the ongoing murder case against Kejuan Bynum, who is accused of fatally stabbing Perry’s best friend, Christopher Wilson, in June 2019.
Ron, who is believed to have been an acquaintance of Perry’s, was arrested on June 29 at his place of employment in Paso Robles following a months-long, multi-agency investigation and the service of dozens of search warrants across the state.
County and Paso Robles police investigators have also arrested several people who allegedly acted as accessories in Perry’s killing. None of those defendants testified at Ron’s hearing this week.
Confidential witness No. 1
On Thursday and Friday, Perry’s family members sat together in the courtroom, donning sweatshirts bearing photos of Perry reading “I want justice for my brother” and “We want justice for our son.”
Some members of Ron’s family also sat behind him in support.
Marino heard testimony from one of Ron’s relatives, who said he is a “dropout” from a street gang who has a history of violent crime. He has signed an agreement with the DA’s Office to testify truthfully in any case related to Perry’s murder in exchange for receiving six years of formal probation for his role.
If the man doesn’t fully cooperate, he will face up to six years in prison, he said.
He testified that it only took a single text message from Ron on March 16, 2020, asking for help to “get rid of something” to get him involved in the effort.
He described how he helped Ron try to dispose of Perry’s body in Paso Robles, but the effort “didn’t work,” and the man drove with the second confidential witness to Riverside, where several of Ron’s family members live, with Ron following behind in a separate car.
The man testified about how investigators contacted him and confronted him with the details.
“If I didn’t tell them what they wanted to know, they were going to arrest everybody,” the witness said of his family members at the Riverside house. “They knew everything by the time they came for the search.”
Asked during cross examination by defense attorney Matthew Kraut why he didn’t call police, the witness said Ron is his family and he had to help him.
He said he thought he was helping dispose of a weapon until the second confidential witness remarked to him during the drive to Riverside, “I think there’s a body in the trunk.”
He admitted he “mostly likely” would have never come forward had he not been implicated in the case.
“Because that’s not what gangsters do, right?” Kraut asked.
“I’m not a gangster anymore,” the man said.
The man also testified that he thought Ron killed Perry because Perry somehow got Ron kicked out of an apartment.
But Kraut implied through his cross examination that Ron has only ever lived in one apartment in Paso Robles, and resided there until his arrest.
Confidential witness No. 2
The second confidential witness, who is also related to Ron and claims to be a former gang member, also accepted an agreement with prosecutors to avoid prison time.
Under direct examination by Deputy District Attorney Michael Frye, the second witness testified that he was suffering withdrawal from heroin use when he received a message from Ron seeking help.
“He said, we have to get rid of something,’” the man recalled, adding that it wasn’t until they reached Ron’s grandmother’s house in Riverside that “Nic said that there was somebody in the trunk.”
“Did he say he was dead?” Frye asked.
“He didn’t have to say,” the witness said.
He said that Ron never explained to him why he killed Perry, and when asked why he didn’t ask for more details, the man said, “I thought it would be better that way. ... It would be easier not to think about.”
He testified that prior to burying Perry, he and Ron went to a local hardware store where they bought four to five bottles of sulfuric acid, which the witness said he “read somewhere” dissolves human remains.
Despite the man telling Ron to pay for the items with cash “so there would be no trace,” an investigator later testified that records show he used his bank debit card and the two men are seen on store surveillance footage.
One of the men said Ron specifically instructed them to pour acid on Perry’s face so he couldn’t be recognized. The group tried to place Perry’s body in a barrel with the acid, but the entire acid plan was soon abandoned for various reasons, he said.
Ultimately, the three buried Perry’s body about three feet deep in a chicken coop in the back yard of the Riverside house.
Though Ron was anxious to leave the work to the two family members, they forced him to remain to help.
He testified that the first confidential witness told Ron, “You want to go around shooting people, you gotta remember this s--t.”
Under cross examination, the second witness said that he shot up heroin when he returned home later that night, and that he agreed to a deal with the DA’s Office because “Nic was going around telling everybody” about the murder.
He said the only reason he’s testifying is because of the prosecution’s agreement, which will allow him to avoid six years in prison and serve probation.
Ron left a digital trail, investigator says
On Friday, Paso Robles Det. Bryce Lickness testified that he was not aware of any other apartment Ron lived at to support the motive described by the confidential witness.
Lickness testified that he interviewed a girlfriend of another one of Ron’s family members, who said that in the early morning hours of March 15, 2020, Ron and the family member returned to their Paso Robles apartment after drinking and overheard an argument.
During the incident, which occurred shortly after it is believed Perry was killed, the woman told the detective she heard the family member tell Ron, “You ruined my f-----g life. I have a family and I have a job.”
Casey Neall, assistant chief investigator for the DA’s Office, testified Friday that as the investigation turned toward Ron in late March, Ron told Neall in an interview that he, the family member, and Perry had hung out drinking beers into the early hours of March 15, 2020, but the group eventually parted ways.
Ron provided Neall his cell phone, which was examined by a forensic investigator. Google data in the phone revealed Ron’s phone’s activity and physical locations throughout the days following Perry’s disappearance.
The phone’s records show movement from Paso Robles to Victorville to Riverside, and various stops for gas and supplies along the way captured on surveillance footage at several convenience stores and gas stations, Neall said. One video shows duct tape holding together the front passenger window of the sedan Ron was driving.
At one store, surveillance footage shows Ron buying duct tape and baby wipes, Neall said, and at another he bought a gas can and gloves. That footage was not shown in court.
Neall said similar searches of the two confidential witnesses’ phones showed they also traveled the route with Ron.
The sedan — which was not registered to Ron — was later found burned down to metal in a wash not visible from the nearest roadway in rural Riverside County.
Cause of death revealed
Neall testified that the house in Riverside was searched three times, before Perry’s body was discovered June 18 wrapped in plastic and in “an advanced state of decomposition.”
A coroner’s examination revealed the cause of death to be injuries suffered from a single gunshot wound behind his left ear. The gunshot — fired from point-blank range — traveled through Perry’s neck and exited his throat, damaging his vertebra and windpipe.
The wound “would have caused him to suffocate on his own blood, or bleed out,” Neall said the Riverside County medical examiner found.
Ron is due back in court March 9 and will remain in custody at the San Luis Obispo County Jail in lieu of $1.25 million bail.
This story was originally published January 31, 2021 at 5:00 AM.
