Trial ordered in Linda slaying

Scott Dana Malmstrom died from 17 stab wounds in his Linda apartment, according to testimony Friday at a preliminary hearing for the man who allegedly stabbed him.

Yuba County Judge Kathleen O'Connor found sufficient evidence to hold Todd Allen Cole Jr., 25, to answer on a first-degree murder charge and scheduled a Dec. 28 arraignment.

The badly decomposed body of the 47-year-old Malmstrom, a registered sex offender called friendly and perhaps overly trusting by neighbors, was found July 25 at the Beale Star Apartments at 1485 North Beale Road.

Malmstrom, who liked to flash a roll of cash, was found lying across an overturned couch, his left pants pocket turned inside out. Next to the front door was a knife blade with dried blood on it; the handle was never found, Detective Sgt. Michael Williamson testified.

"It was apparent there was a struggle within the room," he said.

Neighbors called police after a foul odor came from the apartment. According to testimony, the body may have been there as long as five days in 90-degree-plus heat. The air conditioner was not running.

On the blood-covered kitchen floor were found footprints — Malmstrom's and Cole's, state Department of Justice latent print analyst Melanie Smith said.

Deputy District Attorney John Vacek said that indicates Malmstrom and Cole struggled.

Cole's attorney, Chief Deputy Public Defender Brian Davis, said it only proves Cole was in the apartment, not that he was the killer.

But, in an interview after the murder, Cole denied having been in the apartment when blood was on the floor, Williamson said.

Bloody finger and palm prints on vertical window blinds next to the front door were traced to Cole, a parolee whose prints are in a Department of Justice database. More of Cole's prints were found on an aluminum beer can found in a kitchen trash can, Smith testified.

After Cole was arrested and booked into Yuba County Jail, he admitted stabbing Malmstrom, according to fellow inmate Brian W. Brand, an admitted heroin addict and member of the Peckerwoods white power gang.

When he asked Cole what he was in for, the answer was "a hot one" — a murder, Brand said.

"He said he and his brother did it — stabbed some child molester," Brand said.

Brand admitted offering the information to Williamson and Vacek in the hope of being released and placed in an outside drug rehabilitation pr gram. Vacek said he couldn't make a deal but would talk to Brand's parole officer, according to Brand.

Brand was put in the rehab program but was back in jail within a month after failing a drug test.

Brand picked Cole's picture out of a photo lineup. He denied having seen Cole's picture in an Appeal-Democrat article about the murder, Williamson testified.

Cole's attorney, Davis, called Brand "not credible at all. He would do anything to avoid going back to prison."

Vacek responded that Cole apparently was bragging about the murder, knowing what a white supremacist like Brand thinks of child molesters.

"Molesters are trash," Brand testified.

Shortly before Malmstrom's body was found, Cole and his girlfriend moved from East Linda to an apartment in East Marysville. A resident of the apartment said he saw Cole looking upset and asked what was wrong, Williamson testified.

Cole's response to the man was, "I've done something wrong," Williamson said.

According to Malmstrom's autopsy results, the 17 wounds included cuts on both his palms that a pathologist described as defensive wounds, Vacek said.

Contact Appeal-Democrat reporter Rob Young at 749-4710 or at ryoung@appealdemocrat.com.