Woman’s mysterious death remains unsolved. The California Department of Justice has no answers
Johnny Matthews said he had “false hope” in November that a major Sacramento Bee investigation into his sister’s death might kick loose a lead and fuel a breakthrough in the case.
At the very least, he thought the series might prompt an update from California Department of Justice investigators who, for over seven years, have both failed to solve the mystery around Sara Easton’s death and failed to keep her loved ones updated on their investigation.
Instead, Matthews has been left in the dark — without answers and with suspicions — much like he has been since a gun went off early one morning in 2015 and his older sister Sara died.
“I was hoping something would happen,” he said. “I was hoping that this would get a ball rolling, or get someone to lift up the rug this was brushed under.”
Matthews has had no contact from the agency in the six weeks since The Sacramento Bee published an in-depth investigation into the stalled case.
Sara Easton died from a gunshot wound to the head in August 2015; her husband, then-Marysville Police Chief Aaron Easton, said her death was a suicide. Sara’s three brothers do not believe she killed herself, and investigators have never explained whether the young mother’s death was suicide or homicide; her death certificate still says her manner of death is undetermined. Sara’s brothers — Johnny, Jesse and Aaron Matthews — spoke with Bee reporters to try to bring more attention to the case that has languished at the Department of Justice for over seven years.
The Department of Justice is leading this investigation, though the local police agency, the Yuba City Police Department, is also involved. In 2022, The Bee’s Public Records Act request to the Sutter County Sheriff’s Office — which handled the autopsy — pried loose some of the first documents that laid out details of the investigation’s earliest moments and the uncertainty that followed.
The records revealed:
▪ Sara, who was right-handed, was shot one time on the left side of her head.
▪ Sara was sober when she died, a detail that experts said would have made her death via a self-inflicted gunshot wound an anomalous suicide.
▪ Aaron Easton moved the gun and her body — actions that experts said would make it difficult to conclusively prove one way or the other what happened before the gun went off.
Bee journalists also uncovered apparent breakdowns in communication between the different police agencies that are investigating this potential homicide. The Bee interviewed friends of Sara’s who were, they said, never interviewed by police.
Most investigators have declined to discuss the case at all in the years since the mother of three sustained a gunshot wound to the head in her bedroom, mere hours after celebrating her 32nd birthday with her husband and children. The kids were asleep in their bedrooms right across the hall when the gun went off.
Last week, The Bee asked the Department of Justice about the continued lack of information released about the progress of the case. A spokesperson said in a statement, “The matter remains open and we don’t have any updates we can share at this point in time. As with any investigation being handled by our office, we remain committed to providing support to those who have suffered the loss of a loved one to the fullest extent possible.”
Previously, Aaron Matthews told The Bee that between his sister’s death on Aug. 16, 2015 and July 20, 2022, the Department of Justice had never contacted him at all. July 18, 2022 was the day The Bee first asked the agency for a comment on the newspaper’s reporting.
Aaron Easton, who called 911 and reported that his wife had shot herself in the head, did not respond to any of The Bee’s numerous prior attempts to hear his side of the story; he did not respond to a request for comment for this article, either.
Johnny Matthews was hoping people with information about his sister’s death or her relationship with her husband, Aaron Easton, might come forward. “I feel like there’s a lot of people that have information that aren’t saying things,” he said, “either to protect themselves or to protect Aaron.”
He and his brothers are desperate for some kind of closure from the authorities. But the continuing silence from investigators was, Matthews said, “just like everything else about the case. Everything’s open-ended. There’s not a closed door anywhere.”
Even a somewhat unsatisfying answer — such as telling him that they simply didn’t have enough evidence — would give him some measure of peace.
“I just can’t believe that after all this time,” he said, “they don’t know anything.”
This story was originally published January 3, 2023 at 6:30 AM with the headline "Woman’s mysterious death remains unsolved. The California Department of Justice has no answers."
