A Huntington Beach real estate agent accused of using a cleaver or hatchet to kill two women after attending a New Year’s Eve party with them and others at a Westminster home was caught on security video hours later apparently dragging their bodies to the trunk of his car, a prosecutor told jurors on Tuesday, Nov. 2.
Further, the prosecutor said, he is suspected of then setting the residence on fire to destroy evidence of the slayings.
Trial began in a Santa Ana courtroom Tuesday morning, Nov. 2, for Christopher Ken Ireland, now 42, who is facing a pair of murder charges, along with a count of arson, for the Jan. 1, 2017, deaths of friends Yolanda Holtrey, 59, of Westminster and Michelle Luke, 49, of Huntington Beach.
Ireland, whose wife worked with Holtrey and Luke at a department store, attended what attorneys described as a small, alcohol-fueled part at Holtrey’s home near Bolsa Chica Road and Westminster Boulevard.
The next morning, crews responding to a fire at the home grew suspicious when they realized two separate blazes had erupted in two different parts of the home — in the kitchen and in a Christmas tree in the living room.
A search for the two missing women ended the next day, Jan. 2, with their bodies discovery in a wooded area in Newport Beach.
A potential motive for the apparent killings was not outlined during the trial’s outset.
Deputy District Attorney Mark Birney played for jurors a series of surveillance videos taken from outside the Westminster home. They show Ireland walking out of the home with his wife and 11-year-old son, before shortly returning and going into the residence by himself.
The video, this view pointing toward the door, capture Ireland apparently talking to someone before the door closes. At this point, the prosecutor said, he killed the women.
As he left to drive his family home, the security footage shows Ireland — his shirt ripped and having pulled a jacket over his head — stumbling over something just before walking through the door. The prosecutor said he stumbled over one of the bodies.
Hours later, a masked man wearing a ski mask, a black jacket, shorts and Crocs appears at the house, the video shows, with a neighbor’s surveillance video catching Ireland’s license-plate number, the prosecutor said.
The masked man appears to bring cleaning products into the home, and later pulls out what the prosecutor identified as the wrapped-up bodies of Holtrey and Luke, dragging them through a front yard filled with holiday decorations before placing the bodies in the trunk of a car.
DNA of both women, from blood, was found in his trunk, the prosecutor told jurors.
Birney said Ireland was aware of the security system, and accused him of taking a DVR recorder from Holtrey’s bedroom that stored the security footage. But, the prosecutor added, Ireland was apparently unaware of a second DVR recorder in another part of the house.
Ireland’s attorney, Jennifer Ryan, denied that Ireland committed murder, describing the night as a combination of “horrific mistakes” that “ended tragically.”
The defense attorney said Ireland made “one panicked mistake after another,” but she did not specify what those mistakes were.
Ryan said the party had gotten “a little over the top,” leading to an argument between Luke and Holtrey. But the defense attorney didn’t say what led to the women’s deaths or what role, if any, Ireland had in the apparent killings or aftermath.
Another attendee of the party, who left before the others, testified that everyone had been in a “happy mood.” But she also said that Holtrey argued with Luke after Luke danced “sexily” and flirtatiously, and lifted her shirt at one point, while Ireland was in the room.
If convicted, Ireland faces life in prison.
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