Stanislaus County law enforcement officers came together Wednesday morning, May 7 at Lakewood Funeral Home – like they do every May – for the Peace Officers Memorial ceremony but were still reeling from one of their own doing the unthinkable: being a casualty of a murder-suicide.
Modesto Police Department investigators and the District Attorney’s office are investigating the deaths of Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Sgt. Daniel Hutsell, 40, and wife Dinella Hutsell Madrigal, 37 as a murder-suicide. Their bodies were discovered by one of the couple’s two daughters in the family home at 1705 Fontana Ranch Road in Hughson.
A community vigil was held Tuesday evening, May 6 at the Lebright baseball fields.
“We don’t know what to think,” said Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Lt. Brock Condit when asked how department personnel were coping with the shocking event.
The Hutsells were also on the mind of Ceres Police Chaplain Joel Richards, who delivered the invocation at the Peace Officers Memorial.
“Unfortunately, today, we have been experiencing the repeated sense of loss and pain,” said Richards at the memorial on May 7. “The tragic event of Sunday has touched us all. It makes this day a little more difficult. I want to say to the members of the Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department, that you are in our prayers. This has got to be a very difficult time for your department, and we uphold you in prayer for all that you need to make it through this. I want to also ask that we continue to pray for the Hutsell family and the Madrigal family. And I want to ask you, and I’m sure you are, to especially pray for those two precious little girls.”
The ceremony was held in front of a large granite slab engraved with the names of 19 Stanislaus County law enforcement officers who were fatally shot or died in traffic accidents since 1935.
Keynote speaker Dr. Jocelyn Roland, an expert in police and public safety psychology, delivered the keynote address. A forensic and clinical psychologist who works with Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Department and Modesto Police teams, Roland addressed those in a career which daily sees the “ugly” side of life.
“It’s this repeated exposure, in my experience, that’s more likely to be the cause of difficulty than really a singular trauma,” said Roland. “Some events are excluded – events like a line of duty death goes beyond what even some of the toughest souls can manage. However, really, in my opinion, it’s the cumulative trauma and the cumulative stress that is the primary culprit when it comes to public safety personnel’s psychological struggles. We call this Post-Traumatic Stress Injury or PTSI. This is the injury that does not render one disabled, but instead it’s kind of what we see in the walking wounded. And let me be clear, sometimes the wounded are walking and they may have PTSD but they’re still trying to carry on. Even if functionality has been diminished, you all never give up the mission.”
She offered advice for the law enforcement officers present: “Let’s recognize that PTSI is going to happen, and maybe even Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. So be prepared. Take care of yourselves, and take care of each other. We know what happens when we don’t attend to ourselves and the outcomes can be catastrophic. Don’t wait for your tank to get so low that the red light comes on. If you’re running on fumes, it’s too late.”
She added: “Actively engage in the things in your life that fill your tank. Many of us put off things because of the sense of commitment to the mission, forgetting that without being present on so many levels, the mission cannot be accomplished. Self-care cannot wait.”
She closed with a quote from Rachel Remen: “The expectation that we can be immersed in suffering and loss daily and not be touched by it is as unrealistic as expecting to be able to walk through water without getting wet.”
“A lot of us are really, really wet right now, but the sun’s out,” said Roland. “We’ll dry off. Some will take a little bit longer than others, and that’s okay. There’s no clock on returning to normal and improvement, feeling better, getting past that injury.”
Wednesday’s ceremony was especially poignant as it came on the heels of the 20th anniversary of the murder of Ceres Police Sgt. Howard “Howie” Stevenson. He was ambushed and killed by an AWOL Marine outside of George’s Liquors on Jan. 9, 2005. Attending the ceremony were his widow, Kathy Stevenson, sister Carmen, daughter Mikaela and children and his mother Phyllis Stevenson, who drove down from Sacramento.
Retired Ceres Police Sgt. Sam Ryno, who was shot and seriously wounded seconds before the deadly shooting of Stevenson, also was in attendance.
Phyllis Stevenson shared that someone told her that it’s been 20 years and “it’s time to move on and that really hurt me.”
“Twenty years is nothing and what is good though is in 20 years you learn to go on but nothing changes,” said Stevenson. “But family makes it better.”
Family members of many of the slain or fallen officers were in attendance, including Ed Thornton, who was five years old when he saw his father, Stanislaus County Sheriff Deputy Harold Lee Thornton, walk out the door for the swing shift on the afternoon of Aug. 23, 1967 and who never returned. Deputy Thornton was shot to death that evening while responding to a call reporting a random stabbing at a south Modesto trailer park on Olivero Street. When he got there, the stabbing suspect and former mental patient John Britton Miller opened fire on the 33-year-old deputy, fatally wounding him with rounds from a .38 caliber revolver.
“He was basically ambushed,” said Thornton. “He was called out on a domestic call and it was sort of a ruse to get an officer out there and that’s how he was shot.”
Stanislaus County District Attorney Jeff Laugero read aloud the names of three peace officers who died on the job last year in California. They were: Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Deputy Alfredo “Freddy” Flores, who died on April 20, 2024; Vacaville Police Officer Matthew Bowen, July 11, 2024; and San Diego Police Officer Austin Machitar, Aug. 26, 2024.
The ceremony featured a Sheriff’s helicopter fly-over, singing of the National Anthem by Ruth Castro, a 21-gun salute performed by the California Highway Patrol Honor Guard, taps by Wayne Hill and the playing of the hymn, a tune on the bagpipes by Randy Francis of Turlock. Motorcycle units and patrol cars from the various police agencies rolled by the memorial service, led by a riderless horse that was led along by a Stanislaus County Sheriff’s deputy.
According to the Officer Down Memorial Page website (www.odmp.org) a total of 25 officers have died in the United States so far this year, 11 by gunfire.
Local Losses
Stanislaus County’s peace officers killed in the line of duty:
• Turlock motorcycle officer Lavon B. New, 28, who crashed at Golden State Boulevard and Geer Road during a pursuit and died four months later on Aug. 14, 1935.
• Turlock Police officers Joe Kerley, 61, Glenn Winans, 39, and George Bredenberg, 37, all killed when their patrol car rammed into a train straddled across fog shrouded Lander Avenue on Nov. 1, 1949. Bredenberg died three days later.
• Riverbank Police Officer Harold Harless, 42, was struck by a fleeing suspect and killed as he was setting up a roadblock on Patterson Road at Palmer Avenue on Oct. 17, 1965.
• Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Deputy Harold Thornton, 33, was killed on Aug. 23, 1967 when he was shot answering a report of a stabbing on Olivero Street in south Modesto.
• Sheriff’s Deputy Billy Joe Dickens, 36, was fatally shot in the back during a Jan. 27, 1970 bank robbery in Hughson where he was taking on two robbery suspects at the same time.
• CHP Officer W.R. “Bob” Court, 33, died in a Feb. 13, 1970 crash during a pursuit of a traffic violator.
• Officer Raymond Willert, 26, a five-year veteran of Turlock Police, was fatally shot while responding to a Feb. 9, 1973 Turlock bank robbery.
• Modesto Police Officer Leo Volk, a 24-year-old Ceres native, died in a May 21, 1973 crash at Conejo Avenue and Yosemite Boulevard in Modesto during a police pursuit.
• Ceres Police Sgt. Howard Stevenson, 39, was ambushed and shot to death by an AWOL Marine on Jan. 9, 2005 outside of George’s Liquors on Caswell Avenue.
• CHP Officer Earl Scott, a 36-year-old Hughson resident, was murdered in a Feb. 17, 2006 traffic stop on northbound Highway 99 just south of the Hammett Road exit near Salida.
• Modesto Police officer Steve May died on July 23, 2009 after a seven-year injury-induced coma stemming from injuries when a felon crashed into his car on July 29, 2002 at South Santa Cruz and Mono Drive.
• Stanislaus County Sheriff Deputy Robert Lee Paris Jr., 53, died in a hail of gunfire during an April 12, 2012 eviction attempt on Prescott Road in Modesto.
• Sheriff’s Deputy Dennis Wallace, 53, of Hughson, was murdered during a Nov. 13, 2016 traffic stop at Fox Grove.
• Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Deputy Jason A. Garner, 41, died in a solo car crash on May 13, 2017 on Crows Landing Road near South Seventh Street in south Modesto. Also killed was Community Service Officer Raschel Johnson.
• Stanislaus County Sheriff’s Deputy Tony Hinostroza III, 45, died in a Nov. 25, 2018 high-speed car crash into a metal pole at Claribel Road and Terminal Avenue near Riverbank as he was responding to an emergency.
• Newman Police Officer Ronil Singh, 33, was fatally shot in a Dec. 26, 2018 car stop at Merced Street and Eucalyptus Avenue in Newman by a Mexican national who had illegally entered the country.
