Roxanne Skaggs burst into tears in San Joaquin County Superior Court when a judge granted a new trial motion to Randall Allenbaugh Monday morning.
Allenbaugh, 30, was found guilty on two counts of murder with special circumstances in April, and appeared in court Monday for sentencing. He faced life without parole for the Nov. 16, 2021 stabbing deaths of 16-year-old Chimera Skaggs and 17-year-old Skyler McConnell.
Allenbaugh was brought into courtroom 8D just after 10 a.m. on Monday, wearing a San Joaquin County Jail orange jumpsuit.
When he sat next to the public defender assigned to his case, Allenbaugh asked Judge Charlotte A. Orcutt for a Marsden motion and new trial.
Orcutt cleared the courtroom to discuss the motions with the attorneys present. When family and friends of the victims were allowed back into the courtroom, Orcutt announced she would grant both motions.
“I’m flabbergasted, quite frankly,” Roxanne Skaggs, the mother of Chimera. “With the evidence, he doesn’t have a leg to stand on. And certainly, there wasn’t much his attorney could work with as far as bringing up some type of competent defense.”
A Marsden motion is brought by a defendant in a California criminal case requesting to discharge the court-appointed attorney or public defender. The motion is filed with the court and the request is evaluated at a Marsden hearing, where the court makes a ruling. A defendant typically brings the motion because he wants to fire his public defender as his attorney for inadequate or ineffective assistance of counsel; legal malpractice, or due to a conflict between the attorney and defendant.
Mark Ott, the chief deputy district attorney with the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office, said Allebaugh’s request Monday is not unheard of.
“The process of firing an appointed counsel at sentencing where a defendant did not receive a favorable outcome/verdict is not an infrequent occurrence,” he said. “Defendants in these types of cases will often attempt to exhaust any and all possible post-verdict relief measures, even if meritless, as there is no downside from their perspective.”
Allenbaugh’s reason for requesting a new attorney was not disclosed Monday. A hearing to discuss a possible new trial was set for July 10.
“I wasn’t totally surprised, per se,” James Skaggs, Chimera’s father, said. “You figure, his life’s on the line, he’s going do anything he can. It’s a tactical move to save his skin.”
Shortly after Allenbaugh’s April conviction, the Skaggs told the News-Sentinel that their daughter met McConnell last summer, and ran away with him.
Roxanne Skaggs said Chimera had run away to Oregon the year prior with another boy. She and James Skaggs were able to bring her back home and she was attending St. Mary’s High School and participating on the track and field team. They even enrolled her at Robinson’s Tae Kwon Do in Lodi, as well as a therapist.
According to the San Joaquin County Office of Education, Skaggs made the honor roll at St. Mary’s High School in Stockton as a freshman in the spring of the 2019-2020 school year, as well as both semesters of 2020-2021 as a sophomore.
“She was doing really well for all intents and purposes,” Roxanne Skaggs said. “She thought she was an adult. She thought she knew better.”
Roxanne Skaggs said the teens met Allenbaugh in August of 2021. Her daughter had described him as a friend, and they all camped out at Salas Park.
Allenbaugh had assaulted the teens in October after a dispute over food, Roxanne Skaggs said. The teens reported the assault to police, she said.
After the assault, Chimera went to live with her grandmother in Pleasanton. However, Roxanne Skaggs said her mother discovered Chimera had left in the middle of the night just days later.
She learned Chimera and McConnell were soon living in a tent in a friend’s backyard. They ultimately ended up at Salas Park.
On Nov. 15 of 2021, Allenbaugh called the police, stating the teens had been harassing an older gentleman at the park.
Roxanne Skaggs said the teens had taken the older man’s sleeping bag and that McConnell had ‘mouthed off’ to him in the process. They eventually dropped the sleeping bag before heading back to their own tent near the railroad tracks between Salas and Century parks. During the trial, Allenbaugh admitted to killing the teens at 4 a.m. on Nov. 16, after telling them he was going to the store to get food. Allenbaugh claimed the teens threatened him and that McConnell ran toward him.
Allenbaugh then pushed McConnell down, pulled the tent over him and Chimera, and then started stabbing. He stabbed Chimera 12 times, and stabbed McConnell 16 times.
Allenbaugh remains in custody without bail at San Joaquin County Jail.
The Skaggs said their daughter was into skateboarding and likely met McConnell at the Salas Park skate park. They described her as a “really caring person to a fault,” who loved to skate, draw, play music and laugh.
They added she was a “bunch of brightness” who was always joking around and had friends at almost every school in Lodi. They said they were probably too soft on their daughter when it came to parenting and discipline. but each time she ran away, they spent days trying to track her down.
“The reason I didn’t censure her is because I felt that would actually want to make her do it more,” Roxanne Skaggs said. “I’ve been through that. I was a wild child and I had my incidents. But I tried to instill in her that running away is not the answer. It’s not going to solve problems.”
The mother said they gave Chimera permission to see McConnell, as long as she stayed in school and focused on her future. She added her daughter wanted to protect McConnell because he was living out at the park and had nowhere to go.
“She was going to school, being responsible,” James Skaggs said. “And his lifestyle probably looked fun. He was out and about doing whatever he wanted.”