Around 8:00pm on Saturday, neighbors knew something was wrong.
“Thing I started to hear was the sirens of the emergency vehicles going up the road,” said neighbor, Jim Bauder.
Officials at the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office said two men were shot to death after a party turned deadly.
Investigators say the two victims are 52-year-old, Darrell Henderling and the second victim, 29-year-old Ronald Minard of Yreka, California.
Police told us Henderling lived where the shooting took place — in the 16000 block of Indian Creek Road in Fort Jones, California.
The Sheriff walked us through the deadly series of events.
“Last night it was a very chaotic scene, because we had about fifteen people at the scene, some of them had been consuming alcohol,” said Sheriff Jon Lopey with the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office.
Lopey said the party, attended by the victims and suspect, 56-year-old Earl Stanfield, soon got out of hand when police said Stanfield got into a fight with one of the victims.
“He allegedly was injured in this fight, he left the party or the gathering about 45 minutes prior to the shooting,” said Sheriff Lopey.
Authorities said Earl Stanfield came back in his pickup truck, got into a confrontation with the victims and allegedly shot them with a handgun from his car.
“Well, the victims were found just on the drivers side of the pickup that the suspect, Mr. Stanfield, was driving,” Lopey said.
“They were both pronounced dead at the scene,” he added.
Investigators said the victims’ family members immediately tied up Stanfield, and waited for police to arrive.
Multiple neighbors told us the residents at the crime scene were known to get rowdy.
“I heard that there had been some issues with parties there before,” said neighbor, Bauder.
Meantime, Earl Stanfield is behind bars at the Siskiyou County Jail, charged with two counts of murder.
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