Bay Area Man Recently Charged with Oakland Murder Was Part of the Stick-Up Crew That Targeted a Laytonville Cannabis Operation in 2020

LaTrail White

27-year-old Bay Area man LaTrail White is suspected of murdering a man on an Oakland street on July 24, 2021. He currently sits in a Solano County jail awaiting his preliminary hearing. However, in September of 2020, he played a role in a violent cannabis robbery in Laytonville that shook the Black Oak Ranch community. Less than two years later, he could be going away for good.

It was September 19, 2020. Four Bay Area men and a father and son would pile into a van armed with assault rifles and drive until they hit the Black Oak Ranch, a well-known rural community north of Laytonville. 

That afternoon, this stick-up crew would proceed to hold three men, one woman, and a juvenile girl at gunpoint demanding marijuana and cash. Three would flee in a van, three would take off on foot. 

The subsequent twenty-four hours were marked by an extensive law enforcement manhunt and would finally come to an end when the last out-of-towner got a taste of mountain justice after locals found him, hog-tied him, and turned him into law enforcement. 

Fairfield resident LaTrail White was one of those men. He got caught that first day fleeing the Black Oak Ranch property in a van. Two other members of the crew were in the van with him along with “multiple assault rifles”, according to a press release issued by the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office.

White would be charged with a slew of crimes as a result including armed robbery in concert, assault with a deadly weapon, criminal threats, discharge of a firearm at an inhabited dwelling, and being armed with a firearm during the commission of a felony.

After the wheels of justice turned, every single charge against White would be dismissed and he would plead no contest to being an accessory after the fact, defined as “knowingly harboring, concealing, or aiding a felon, in order to protect the person from arrest, trial, conviction, or sentencing.”

13 days ago, White was in the news once again, this time as the suspected murderer of a 48-year-old Oakland man, Travis Ward, according to the East Bay Times.

On July 24, 2021, law enforcement responded to Oakland’s Garfield Park around 9:30 a.m. to reports of a shooting victim. 

Upon arrival, Ward’s body was found lying on 23rd Avenue, north of Foothill Boulevard. Ward succumbed to his gunshot wounds there on the Oakland asphalt. 

White was reportedly suspected of being the shooter early on in the investigation. A key piece of evidence that pointed towards White as the suspected murderer was his car being in the vicinity of the fatal shooting at the time it occured. Eventually, he was arrested on August 11, 2021 where officers found an assault rifle and suspected stolen property in his vehicle, but he would be released later “pending further investigation.”

White is currently in the Santa Rita Jail facing multiple charges that include murder, weapons-related charges and associated criminal enhancements.

Even before his arrest in Mendocino, White had been in trouble with the law. In October 2016, White and two others were arrested in Fairfield after officers conducted a suspicious vehicle check and smelled marijuana while speaking to the three male occupants. Inside the vehicle, law enforcement reportedly saw several mason jars of marijuana.

Evidence seized during White’s October 2016 arrest.[Image from the Fairfield Police Department]

White would be booked that evening on suspicion of criminal conspiracy, marijuana sales, and possession of marijuana for sale.

In relation to the Mendocino arrest though, LaTrail White and one other member of the stick-up crew, a local man, Louis Bagliere would prove to be the only two members of thecrew that did not face jail time for their crime. 

Here is a rundown of the stick-up crew’s members and the punishments they faced for their crime that mid-September day:

• David Lee Edmonds would plead guilty to robbery in the first degree, assault with a firearm, and a sentencing enhancement of using a firearm during the commission of a crime. He was sentenced to 304 days of imprisonment in the Mendocino County Jail and formal-supervised probation for 36 months.
• Anthony Dion Watson would go on to plead guilty to assault with a deadly weapon. Watson started his Mendocino County Jail sentence on August 4, 2021, of 188 days, with credit for time served. He only served ninety-four of those days. He was sentenced to formal-supervised probation for 24 months
• Christopher Glen Stewart pled guilty to 1st-degree robbery and assault with a firearm. July 20, 2021, serving all those days and then a formal supervised probation of 36 months.
• Deangelo Marquiz Villalona pled no contest to assault with a firearm which resulted in a 304-day county jail prison sentence, which he began serving on July 20, 2021. He was also sentenced to formal supervised probation of 36 months
• Tyler Allan Bagliere, the son of Louis Bagliere, Jr who would not end up serving time, pled guilty to two counts of assault with a firearm which led to a sentence of 304 days in the Mendocino County Jail and 36 months of formal supervised probation

At this juncture, LaTrail White sits in the Santa Rita Jail, awaiting his plea hearing on March 3, 2022.

Earlier:

• Armed Standoff With Ambulance Requested
• Armed and Dangerous Suspect Sought In Connection With Robbery on Cannabis Grow
• Men, Woman, and a Juvenile Girl Held by Armed Robbers for Several Hours, Says Mendocino Sheriff’s Office
• Final Suspect Involved with Laytonville Cannabis Robbery Apprehended
• Controversy Over Citizens Hogtying Black Suspect in Laytonville Armed Robbery Case