Features

SACRAMENTO — There’s no indication the daughter of blues guitarist Elvin Bishop and two other persons were drugged or tortured before they were killed and their bodies dismembered, the coroner said Monday. 

“It appears they were stabbed to death, then dismembered,” said coroner’s spokeswoman Betsy Braziel. 

Three people are accused of conspiring to kill Selina Bishop, 22, and Ivan and Annette Stineman of Concord in a crime spree authorities allege grew out of a plot to extort $100,000 from the Stinemans. 

Their bodies were found last August in duffel bags in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. 

Glenn Helzer, 30, his brother Justin Helzer, 28, and their housemate Dawn Godman, 26, all of Concord, have pleaded innocent to murder charges and are due in court Jan. 22 for a preliminary hearing. 

The Stinemans were last seen alive July 30. Bishop was last seen alive Aug. 2. 

The Helzers and Godman are also suspects in the slayings of Bishop’s mother, Jennifer Villarin, 45, and her friend James Gamble, 54. 

The remains of Bishop and the Stinemans were recovered in nine duffel bags that surfaced the second week of August in the Mokelumne River in southern Sacramento County.  

The bullet-riddled bodies of Selina’s mother and Gamble were found Aug. 3 in Selina’s Marin County apartment. 

A trace amount of methamphetamine was found on the body of 78-year-old Annette Stineman. The coroner’s office theorizes it could have been accidentally transferred there by one of the killers. 

Ivan Stineman, 85, also suffered a heart problem during the assault, the autopsy showed.