Boy at Center of Courtroom Killing Now Man on the Run

SONORA, Calif. —  Her story has entered the lore of this Gold Rush town: More than a decade ago, Ellie Nesler took the law into her own hands, stepping purposefully into a courtroom to gun down the man facing trial for molesting her 11-year-old boy.

Now the son finds himself accused of a killing and is on the run.

Willie Nesler grew into a powerful, hulking young man, his formative years clouded by the nationwide notoriety of his mother’s case, his life rattled by run-ins with the law.

His troubles escalated last week. Law enforcement officers say Nesler, now 23, inflicted a ferocious beating on David Davis, who lived on the family’s junk-strewn acre north of Sonora.

The attack came July 25, just an hour after Nesler was released from jail for assaulting Davis a month earlier. Davis, 45, died the next day of massive head injuries.

And the son of Ellie Nesler is nowhere to be found. Willie Nesler dropped from sight after the assault, and the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Department has launched a manhunt throughout the Sierra foothills, putting every available deputy on the case. Nesler’s relatives, who received phone calls from the fugitive after the attack, have pleaded with him to surrender.

For residents of Sonora and surrounding foothill hamlets rich with celebrated tales of Mark Twain and Gold Rush pioneers, the episode revives memories not just of Ellie Nesler but of other notorious cases that have jolted an otherwise peaceable place.

In 1999, Cary Stayner, the killer of three Yosemite National Park tourists and a park naturalist, hid some of his victims’ bodies in the hills outside Sonora. A few years later, FBI divers pulled five bodies from a nearby reservoir. They were believed to be victims of the Russian mafia.

“I don’t know why we get all these cases,” said Sheriff’s Sgt. Roger Dittberner. “Maybe people figure it’s up in the mountains. They can do things in secret. They can hide. A lot of strange things happen up in the mountains.”

Sonora Mayor David Sheppard remembers watching from his architecture firm across from the courthouse as the press thronged during Ellie Nesler’s trial. He also recalls the bad taste it left for him and many other townsfolk.

“They tried to portray us as a bunch of gun-toting rednecks who believed in frontier justice,” Sheppard recalled. “A lot of us were disgusted with that.”

As a boy, William Nesler was molested at a Christian summer camp. The suspect, Daniel Driver, 35 at the time of his death, was already a twice-convicted child molester.

On April 2, 1993, as Driver faced trial on charges of molesting Nesler and a half-dozen other children, Ellie Nesler walked into the courtroom in nearby Jamestown and pumped five bullets into his head.

She later told police, “Maybe I’m not God, but I’ll tell you what: I’m the closest damn thing to it for all the other little boys.” Her case won national attention, with Nesler praised by some as an avenging parent, condemned by others for brushing aside the legal system to kill Driver.

Nesler was convicted of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to 10 years in prison. A TV movie was made about the case, and her family received more than $250,000 from its producers.

After three years behind bars, Nesler won an appeal based on juror misconduct and was released. But that did not end her problems with the criminal justice system. In July 2002, she was convicted of buying 10,000 pseudoephedrine tablets used to make methamphetamine and was sent to prison for six years.

Nesler declined to be interviewed. Family members said she was distraught over her son’s spiraling problems.

By most accounts, Willie Nesler was a quiet, troubled youth. His father was out of the picture, tending to a failed gold-mining venture in Africa. While his mother was behind bars, young Nesler was raised by an aunt who lived in a neighboring county.

He repeatedly landed in juvenile hall and in teenage work camps as a youth, and in jail as an adult. In the last five years, deputies have booked him into the county jail 18 times on robbery charges, drug charges, even complaints about a pet Rottweiler.

“He was always really quiet,” recalled Nick Njirich, who attended elementary school with Nesler. “He missed a lot of school, and when he was there, he always seemed to be in his own little world.”

When his mother was released from prison, the boy returned to live with her and his grandmother in a modular home on the 1-acre property the family owned on Shaws Flat Road, next to a dilapidated aggregate plant.

In recent years, Willie Nesler was the only family member living on the property, which became a notorious eyesore. Piles of junk and abandoned cars crowd the edges of the parcel, surrounding battered trailers.

Neighbors said that despite his troubles with the law and his muscled arms covered with tattoos, Willie Nesler was a nice guy ready to lend a hand.

Anita Gilles, who lives with her boyfriend and three children across the road from the Nesler place, said Willie would occasionally come over to trade a videotaped movie or ask to borrow the phone. Once he showed up with a new bike for her 11-year-old son.

“He was nice to my kids and nice to me,” Gilles said. But it was always small talk, and Gilles took pains never to mention his mother’s case. “I figured everyone else probably invaded that space,” she said. “This is all just so bad. His family has been plagued by drama.”

Njirich, whose uncle now owns the plant next to the Nesler property, said they tried to help out his old classmate. Nesler was chronically unemployed, so they offered him part-time work. But he could never quite stick to the task at hand and didn’t respect authority, Njirich said, so they let him go.

“We kind of felt bad for him, but it didn’t work out,” Njirich said. “He had a tough life; I’ll give him that.”

The Nesler property, meanwhile, became even more of a dumping ground for piles of debris: old cars, tires, junked barbecues and other items. Squatters started living on the property, apparently with Nesler’s blessing. The site became so unkempt that Tuolumne County code enforcement officials cited the parcel as an eyesore and ordered it cleaned up.

That brought David Davis to the property.

Nesler allowed Davis to live in a small cinderblock outbuilding in exchange for cleaning up the debris. But the relationship quickly soured. In mid-June, Davis called the sheriff and accused Nesler of trying to steal some of his tools.

In front of three deputies who had arrived, Nesler lunged at Davis, hitting and punching him. According to an incident report, the deputies restrained Nesler -- who stands 6 feet 2 and weighs 230 pounds -- and handcuffed him. Charged with felony assault after he allegedly tried to kick Davis in the head, Nesler pleaded guilty to misdemeanor battery, receiving a 60-day jail sentence.

At 4 a.m. July 25, after 32 days in jail, authorities released Nesler early for good behavior and work credit. But an hour later, deputies said, he had returned to his family’s property to confront Davis.

At 5:08 a.m. an anonymous man called 911, saying, “Willie Nesler just assaulted a man who is lying on the ground,” according to the investigator’s report. When deputies arrived they found Davis unconscious, blood pouring from his fractured skull.

Medics rushed him to a Modesto hospital. Investigators assigned an officer to his room around the clock, in case Davis woke up and could tell them what happened. But he died Monday afternoon from head injuries. The next day a warrant was issued for Nesler’s arrest.

His neighbors can’t believe it happened, and wonder aloud why Davis stuck around on the Nesler place, risking a confrontation.

“He’s in a fight with Willie and he stays on his property?” said Gilles. “Willie had a month in jail to think about it, and I’m sure when he got back and found that guy still there he just saw red.”

The manhunt has pulled in nearly every law enforcement officer in Tuolumne County. All of the sheriff’s 120 deputies, except those manning the jail and precincts, have joined in. Authorities have focused on Tuolumne County and neighboring Calaveras and Mariposa counties.

“It’s not a matter of if they find him, but when,” said Bob Price, the county’s chief public defender. “It’s not like L.A., where you can blend in with a million people. There’s only so many people in these parts.”

Family members have declined to be quoted by name, but one aunt said she had spoken to her nephew. She said he refuses to surrender, fearing that authorities intend to kill him.

Family members hope Nesler can be persuaded to surrender to a bounty hunter, Leonard Padilla, who befriended the family during Ellie Nesler’s trial.

The aunt said Willie Nesler has distrusted authority figures ever since the molestation, and over the years grew bitter about all the attention attracted by the case.

While it remains uncertain how much the trauma of those years played into last week’s tragedy, one thing is clear: Willie Nesler was never allowed to forget what he had endured, his aunt said. Taunts followed him through the years.

“Wherever he was, they’d harass him,” she said. “They’d tease him about the molestation, saying things like, ‘We know that you liked it.’ ”