On June 27, 1985 a Trinity County jury convicted appellant, Gene Wilford Hathorn, Jr., of the capital murder of his father, Gene Hathorn, Sr. on Oct. 9, 1984. The younger Hathorn and James Lee Beatherd, a former co-worker both fired weapons that night that left Linda Hathorn and Marcus Lee Hathorn dead inside a rural mobile home alongside Gene Sr.

Both men were sentenced to death in connection with the murders. Beatherd was executed by lethal injected Dec. 9, 1999.

Hathorn’s death sentence was commuted to a life sentence, with two other life sentences added. Hathorn is scheduled for a parole review in 2029.