Mother keeps pressing Humboldt DA to take Lawson case to trial

Nearly nine years after David Josiah Lawson was killed at an off-campus house party in Arcata, his mother, Sorrel Lawson-Remer, is still pushing Humboldt County prosecutors to move the case to trial. The continuing delay has turned one of Humboldt County’s most closely watched homicide investigations into a measure of whether local institutions can deliver closure in a case that has shaped public trust since 2017.

Lawson was 19 years old and a Humboldt State University student when he was fatally stabbed on April 15, 2017, on Spear Avenue. Reports say he was sprayed with bear mace before being stabbed six times after an altercation tied to a false accusation that he had stolen a cell phone. The phone was later found. Since then, the case has remained an open homicide investigation, with no resolution that has satisfied Lawson’s family or the community that has gathered every April to mark his death.

The prolonged stall has drawn scrutiny well beyond the criminal case itself. A National Police Foundation review of Arcata police’s response, released in February 2020, was meant to identify lessons learned and improve policing. The Humboldt County Civil Grand Jury later said the lack of resolution in the homicide generated widespread concerns about racism and deep distrust toward the Arcata Police Department, the City of Arcata, Humboldt State University and the Humboldt County District Attorney’s Office. The case has become as much about institutional accountability as about one young man’s killing.

The legal fallout has continued in federal court. On June 25, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld rulings favoring the City of Arcata and APD detective Eric Losey in Kyle Zoellner’s civil case, saying probable cause existed for Zoellner’s arrest. A prior federal jury award of more than $750,000 had already been overturned by a federal judge. The appellate ruling narrowed one legal branch of the Lawson saga, but it did not bring the homicide case any closer to trial.

For Arcata and the wider county, the anniversary vigils now underscore a harder fact: a homicide that began at a house party on Spear Avenue has outlasted multiple reviews, lawsuits and years of public pressure. As Lawson-Remer continues pressing the District Attorney’s Office, the unanswered question is no longer only who is responsible, but why Humboldt County still has not delivered a courtroom reckoning in one of its most consequential killings.