Remember the mysterious March 24 murder of Philip Victor Williamson, the 29-year-old Chico resident who was shot in an alley and allegedly robbed of up to $500,000 cash and several pounds of marijuana? For months, the police couldn't make a crack in the case, speculating only that the crime had something to do with the fact that Williamson was a courier for medical marijuana collectives and was thought to be carrying a lot of cash and cargo. Their only lead was a receipt in the victim's pocket which they tied to security footage at an LA-area store showing a man in black clothing and driving a Toyota 4Runner.
]
On July 29, police arrested Rosemary Sayegh, 32, in Granada Hills, and a day
later, busted her husband, Marcel Mackabee, 29, up in Williamson's hometown
of Chico. Both were charged with first degree murder, presumably an
armed-robbery-gone-bad type case, and the cops are saying that the reciept found in Williamson's possession is Mackabee, and that he is the mystery man seen on the store's security camera.
Although Mackabee remains behind bars
in Los Angeles, prosecutors yesterday suddenly dropped the charge
against Sayegh, according to story yesterday in the Long Beach Press Telegram. Shiara Davila, a Los Angeles County District Attorney spokeswoman, didn't have much to say about why her office dismissed the charge against Sayegh. “The case . . . was dismissed without prejudice,” she told the Press Telegram. “[I]t can be refiled at any time. But that decision won't be made for a while.”
Award-winning investigative journalist Nick Schou is Editor of OC Weekly. He is the author of Kill the Messenger: How the CIA’s Crack Cocaine Controversy Destroyed Journalist Gary Webb (Nation Books 2006), which provided the basis for the 2014 Focus Features release starring Jeremy Renner and the L.A. Times-bestseller Orange Sunshine: The Brotherhood of Eternal Love’s Quest to bring Peace, Love and Acid to the World, (Thomas Dunne 2009). He is also the author of The Weed Runners (2013) and Spooked: How the CIA Manipulates the Media and Hoodwinks Hollywood (2016).