Glenn County Observer
A great deal more has been learned regarding the death of Jordan Windus, whose lifeless body was discovered in a trailer parked in the lot behind a Willows business on Friday, July 1.
You may remember that at about 8:24 a.m. on that date, Anthony Bassetti of Willows Automotive, 200 Garden Street, called 911 to report a death at that location. The decedent was inside an ECO model travel trailer parked in the business’s rear lot.
According to a public document obtained by The Glenn County Observer, Glenn County Sheriff’s Deputies Mitchell Tuma and Trevor Goodwin, along with medical personnel, soon arrived on the scene, where the deputies found an uncooperative man who appeared to be having a medical emergency. The man, later identified as Brian Wuelfing, could not answer any questions and was unable to move without assistance.
He was transported to Glenn Medical Center by ambulance.
Another man, later identified as Jordan Windus, about 27, of Corning, was found just inside the door of the trailer. Deputy Goodwin quickly realized Windus was dead because, when the deputy attempted to roll him over, he immediately noticed his entire body displayed rigor mortis.
The deputies also saw there was a large amount of what appeared to be blood around the decedent.
Anthony Bassetti was interviewed and told deputies he allowed Wuelfing to live in the trailer on the property. Bassetti said that Wuelfing was an employee of the business, and Wuelfing himself stated on one of his Facebook pages that he was a smog technician at Willows Automotive.
Bassetti also knew Windus was an acquaintance of Wuelfing and would commonly visit Wuelfing at the trailer. Bassetti went to the trailer at about 8:20 a.m. to see why he had not shown up to work yet and that was when Bassetti found Windus’s body and called 911.
Glenn County Sheriff’s Sergeant Travis Johnsen arrived on the scene after Deputies Tuma and Goodwin. They told Sgt. Johnsen that when they arrived at the scene the door to the trailer was already open and they immediately saw the decedent right at the threshold to the trailer.
The deputies heard Wuelfing and helped him out of the trailer. The deputies told Sgt. Johnsen that Wuelfing did not make any coherent statements and did not seem to know what was going on.
According to Sgt. Johnsen, Deputy Goodwin thought Wuelfing was having a medical emergency and had possibly overdosed on drugs.
Sgt. Johnsen entered the trailer to look at the body. Windus was wearing a shirt and pants, so Sgt. Johnsen could only see his lower arms and the front of his head.
It was clear that Windus had been bleeding from his mouth and there was blood on his face. He also had what appeared to be an injury to the top of his head.
Without further manipulating the body or disturbing the evidence, Sgt. Johnsen could not tell where all the blood in the trailer had come from. It was unclear if Windus had major trauma to other parts of his body.
Based upon the presence of full body rigor mortis, Windus had likely been dead between eight and 12 hours.
Just inside the trailer’s threshold, Sgt. Johnsen saw a white baggie containing a white powder and loose white powder next to a credit card on a counter. Sgt. Johnsen recognized the white powder to possibly be a drug and he knew that drug users commonly use a credit card to scrape powdered drugs into a line to snort them.
Sgt. Johnsen also saw an unspent .22 caliber bullet laying on the floor near the body of Windus.
Sgt. Johnsen wrote that he has been to many incidents involving people who have died after overdosing on drugs, but he has never seen a person who has died from a drug overdose who sustained major trauma and blood loss as a result of overdosing alone. “Based on the blood loss and what appeared to be trauma to [Windus’s] head,” Sgt. Johnsen believed “criminal activity could have caused or contributed to [Windus’s] death.”
As of 11 a.m. on July 1, Wuelfing was still at Glenn Medical Center, displaying symptoms of being under the influence of a drug and unable to give an explanation as to what happened to Windus or why he had been dead for so long without Wuelfing calling for help. However, Wuelfing did tell Glenn County Sheriff’s Sergeant Jon Owens that the white powder in the trailer was fentanyl.
“Fentanyl is a powerful synthetic opiate,” Sgt. Johnsen wrote. “Just 2 mg [milligrams] of pure fentanyl is enough to kill a person.”
Sgt. Johnsen also said that the “high” of an opiate lasts between six and eight hours. This means that it is likely that at some point in time, Wuelfing would have been sober enough to realized Windus had died or was having a medical emergency.
“It is unknown why Wuelfing did not call for help,” Sgt. Johnsen wrote.
The sheriff’s office requests, “Anyone with information should call 530-934-6441.
The Glenn County Observer 
Hello Mr. Judkins,
My name is Robert Windus. I am Jordan’s paternal Grandfather. Thank you for the information provided in articles you have published in the “Observer”, like you I have the distinct feeling that the Glenn County Sheriffs’ department is withholding critical information. I am not blaming the Sheriffs’ Department for this yet, because I am on the outside looking in. I am concerned that it has been approximately 3 months since Jordan’s toxicology report was submitted and to date apparently the report has not been completed. I called the Sheriffs department for an update and was informed that “Jill” could not tell me whether or not the toxicology report had been completed because she (Jill) would be busy with “Zoom” conference calls for the rest of the week. Seems unusual that she could not take the time to provide a simple yes or no, regarding the status of the report.
Sincerely, Robert Windus
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