P. v. Houk CA2/3
When his girlfriend refused to give him oral sex, Stephen Merle Houk beat her, loaded a gun and pointed it at her and their young son, threatened to kill them, and then kicked her out of their motorhome to panhandle at a Starbucks, telling her to get $250 for her grave. She asked a customer for help, and he called the police. When Houk saw the police arrive, he drove off with their three-year-old son and one-year-old daughter. He led multiple police cars on a 100-mile chase to Bakersfield, where he drove into an orchard and abandoned the motorhome with the children inside. A jury convicted Houk of injuring a girlfriend, assault with a firearm, making criminal threats, kidnapping, child detention with right to custody, child abuse, felony fleeing from a pursuing police officer’s vehicle while driving recklessly, and possession of a firearm by a felon with one prior, and found true various allegations. After a bifurcated trial, the trial court found Houk’s prior conviction true, and
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