Zag Zoom: Josiah Lawson Grand Jury

Meet & Brief for Zag Subscribers

As we reported in May, the autopsy report on the tragic 2017 murder of David Josiah Lawson remains sealed by local law enforcement. But our dogged pursuit of public records has yielded new, important results. Whether by clerical error or a good old-fashioned miracle (we aren’t at liberty to say), we have obtained copies of testimony given during the 2019 grand jury investigation of Lawson's homicide.

According to our friends at the First Amendment Coalition, a journalist has the First Amendment right to publish information of public concern “even if the information is ordinarily confidential and was inadvertently disclosed, or the source of that information acted illegally in disclosing it, as long as the journalist did not act unlawfully in obtaining it.”

In other words, if TV news stations can interview a mystery grand juror in shadows with electronic voice modification, we can publish testimony actually given under oath.

The autopsy report remains elusive, but we now have the grand jury testimony of Dr. Mark Super, the forensic pathologist who conducted the autopsy on April 19, 2017. He described in great detail the six stab wounds he observed and the conclusions he could – or could not – reach. We also have testimony from an Arcata man who claimed Lawson assaulted him in January of 2017 and a woman from Marysville, Calif. who claimed Casey Gleaton bragged about how Kyle Zoellner and Lila Ortega were “pretty much getting away with murder.”

Zaggitor-in-Chief Steven Saint will host a “Zag Zoom” online meet-and-brief this Friday (July 26) at 6 p.m. We’ll go over the documents, fill in some blanks and tackle subscriber questions. In the interest of civil discussion and neutral, fact-based journalism, please keep this link to yourself. We will not be publicizing this on social media or to the general public - Zaggers only! Grab dinner, BYOB and log on at the following link…