Two little boys in California were dead for at least three months before their adoptive parents reported them missing in December 2020, authorities announced.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference on Wednesday, Kern County District Attorney Cynthia Zimmer said the remains of 4-year-old Orrin West and 3-year-old Orson West, whose birth names were Classic and Cinsere Pettus, have not been located.
“However, I would like to emphasize that the fact that law enforcement has not found their bodies does not preclude a murder prosecution,” Zimmer said, declining to say if investigators know how Orrin and Orson died.
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Trezell Phillip West, 35, and Jacqueline Gabrielle West, 32—who took in the children as foster parents in 2018 following a report of abuse by an extended family member and adopted them the following year—were arrested last night by officers with the Bakersfield Police Department. The pair are charged with two felony counts of second-degree murder, two felony counts of willful cruelty to a child, and one misdemeanor count of making a false report of an emergency, according to court records reviewed by The Daily Beast.
They are being held without bail at the Kern County Sheriff’s Central Booking Facility, pending an arraignment hearing on Thursday. Both have steadfastly maintained their innocence, insisting in a January 2021 blog post, “Our priority is to find out where the boys are and their safe return. The truth has to and will come to light.”
On Dec. 21, 2020, the Wests told California City police that Orrin and Orson had disappeared while playing in the family’s backyard, Zimmer recounted. Local cops mounted a search in the surrounding area, but came up empty. After making little headway, the FBI lent its assistance, as did the California Highway Patrol and the Kern County Sheriff’s Department. But in March 2021, according to Zimmer, “crucial information came to light that necessitated the involvement of the Bakersfield Police Department and the Kern County District Attorney’s office.” She did not specify what that information was.
“Law enforcement worked diligently, hundreds of hours, in the next 12 months looking for the boys,” Zimmer said on Wednesday. “This morning, I’m saddened to announce that the investigation has revealed that Orrin and Orson West are deceased. The investigation has also revealed that they died three months before their adoptive parents reported them missing.”
Cops executed dozens of search warrants, more than 100 interviews, and combed through at least 27 different areas in the state, a Bakersfield PD spokesman said in December. The community became intensely involved in trying to find Orrin and Orson, inspiring numerous online sleuths and armchair investigators to join in, one of whom was a retired NYPD detective.
At Wednesday’s press conference, Eric Smith, supervisor of the Kern County DA’s Homicide Unit, said more than 50 witnesses were called to testify before the grand jury that ultimately handed down the indictments against Trezell and Jacqueline West.
“Much of those witnesses’ testimony was extremely emotional as it related to this case,” said Smith. “But that’s to be expected from a case that involves the murder of two innocent children.”
The arrests do not signify “a resolution in this case,” added Bakersfield Police Chief Greg Terry. “And there will not be a resolution completely in this case until these boys are brought home.”
There have been “hundreds” of successful “no-body” homicide prosecutions across the U.S., Zimmer said at Wednesday’s press conference, explaining that more than one no-body homicide in Kern County has resulted in a conviction.
Across the U.S., there have been some 550 no-body cases brought to trial, according to former federal prosecutor Thomas DiBiase, an expert in no-body homicides. Having the body, or bodies, of the victims is “the most significant piece of evidence in a murder case,” DiBiase told The Daily Beast in a previous interview. Still, he said, “Once they are at trial, they tend to be convictions, because prosecutors will only take the strongest no-body case to trial.”
This past December, Orrin and Orson’s biological father, Charles Pettus, filed a lawsuit against Kern County, the county’s child protective services agency, and the State of California, alleging negligence in taking the boys from their parents and placing them under the Wests’ care.
“In 2018, Mr. Pettus and biological mother, parents of Cinsere and Classic Pettus, had their children taken, from their custody, by the Defendants due to an investigation regarding abuse with another family member,” the suit said. “The Pettus children were not being watched by a relative family member at the time of the alleged abuse incident, and was not under the supervision of any of the aforementioned Plaintiffs at the time of the alleged abuse. At the time of the Defendants’ investigation there were no prior allegations of abuse. The biological mother did not have a criminal record, nor a complicated, sullied background. However, the children were removed from their biological family’s care due to the alleged abuse incident.”
The “strain of the abuse investigation and the loss of their children” led to the Pettus’ separation, according to the filing, and after being placed with a foster family, the couple’s two boys were sent by authorities to live with the Wests, who have two biological children of their own and two other adoptive children. Those children are now in foster care, said Zimmer.
“Mr. Pettus lost contact with the biological mother after the children were removed and she has not seen the children since the end of 2018,” the lawsuit states.
Ten months after his biological children vanished, Pettus continued to hold out hope that the boys would be found alive.
“I don’t want my kids to be deceased, I want them to come back home because my kids is all I got,” Pettus, who had previously lost a third child in an accident, told local NBC affiliate KGET last fall. “After my parents go, it’s just me and my kids… They took my family, they took my kids away from me, my kids are my life. No matter how long it takes, how hard it’s going to be, I won’t give, I will never give up.”
Trezelle and Jacqueline West do not yet have lawyers listed in court records, but they will be given the opportunity to retain counsel, or have attorneys appointed by the court, once they are arraigned, according to Zimmer.
“This case has tugged at the heartstrings of people in my office and in law enforcement and in this community,” Zimmer said. “It is a horrific tragedy that these precious little boys had to lose their lives.”
If convicted on the murder counts, the two each face sentences of 30 years to life.
