SANTA ROSA, Jan. 24 – Dist. Atty. John W. Hawkes began outlining his case to the jury in the James Willett murder trial today.

The prosecutor’s opening statement and testimony from the first witness got underway this morning after attorneys agreed on a jury of seven women and five men, plus two women alternates, yesterday afternoon.

Defendants Michael Lee Monfort and James Terrill Craig are charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of Willett, 26-year-old son of a Kentucky distiller.

Hawkes said he intends to prove the slaying occurred on or about Oct. 20, 1972.

Willett’s headless remains were found by an elderly man out for a walk Nov. 8, 1972, in a shallow grave near Guerneville.

Authorities never found the victim’s head and a pathologist theorized since the grave was so shallow animals carried it away.

Monfort and Craig were arrested in Stockton Nov. 12, the same day police there found the body of Willett ‘s 19-year-old wife, Lauren, buried beneath a house.

She had been shot in the head.

A few days earlier, authorities questioned another man. William Merland Goucher Jr., who allegedly implicated Monfort and Craig, as well as himself, in the Guerneville slaying.

Goucher pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, then turned state’s evidence against the two defendants to the Grand Jury.

Goucher, who has since been sentenced to state prison, reportedly has refuted his Grand
Jury testimony implicating Monfort and Craig.

Defense lawyers George Vaughn and Public Defender Marteen Miller have indicated they expect legal complications should Hawkes choose to call Goucher as a prosecution witness.

Goucher, the two defendants, Willett, and several women reportedly were living at Parker’s Resort in Guerneville at the time of Willett’s death.

Vaughn was instrumental in having transferred here from the state prison for women in Frontera Nancy Pittman and Priscilla Cooper, who have been linked to followers of the Charles Manson family.

The two women and a third, Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme, a member of the original Manson Family, were arrested with Monfort and Craig during investigation of Mrs. Willett’s slaying in Stockton.

Monfort and Craig have been sent to state prison in connection with the Stockton slaying — Monfort for second-degree murder and Craig for being an accessory after the fact.

Authorities have stated Goucher and the two defendants allegedly killed Willett because he threatened to inform on their alleged robbery activities.

At the time of the slayings, Monfort was wanted as an escaper from a state prison camp.

By BONY SALUDES