From Contra Costa Times, Bee Staff
A former Citrus Heights resident defending himself against charges that he killed his sister and brother-in-law in their El Cerrito home argued Wednesday that the couple's 20-year-old son was better off without his parents.
"The parents were raising their kids wrong and I think since the parents were eliminated, Eric has cleaned up his life," defendant Edward Wycoff told Judge John Kennedy as he argued against the prosecutor's objection to questions about his nephew's personal life unrelated to the 2006 killings.
Wycoff, 40, could face the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder in the Jan. 31, 2006, deaths of his sister Julie Rogers, 47, and brother-in-law Paul Rogers, 48. Wycoff, a former truck driver, has confessed to the killings and asserts they were justified. In his opening statement Tuesday, Wycoff said he believes the couple were out to destroy him because they didn't invite him to spend the holidays with their family after his father died in 2005.
Wycoff, a former Citrus Heights resident, was arrested Feb. 2, 2006, at a Roseville hospital after staff called police about a man seeking treatment "with suspicious wounds," The Bee reported.
Prosecutor Mark Peterson, pointing to greed as a primary motivation, said Wycoff planned the killings as far back as August 2005 because his sister, as executor of their father's estate, wanted to sell the Citrus Heights home where Wycoff was living.
"Didn't you think it was strange that after my dad died that everyone was invited over for Christmas but me?" Wycoff asked Eric Rogers, the couple's middle child and one of two who were home when their parents were fatally stabbed and beaten.
"I wasn't aware of that," said Eric Rogers, who was 17 at the time of the killings. "I wasn't there for Christmas either."
Eric Rogers said he awoke to sounds of a fight in the hallway of his family's home on Rifle Range Road and saw his parents under attack by someone he thought was a burglar. He ran into his 12-year-old sister Laurel's room and called 911.
Once the house grew quiet, they went to their parent's bedroom when they saw their father face down in an "enormous pool of blood," a large knife in his back.
His sister was holding a towel around the knife to stop the bleeding when she told him the attacker was their Uncle Ted. Paul Rogers told his son he loved him before police swept in.
"I stroked his hair and I said, 'I love you, too, Papa,'" Eric Rogers said.
Hours later, at the El Cerrito police station, the children were told both parents had died.
"How's your life been since all this has happened?" Wycoff asked.
"Incredibly difficult," Eric Rogers said.
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