Five days. That's how long Robert Walter Scully Jr. was a free man before everything went sideways in a Santa Rosa parking lot.
Most people looking into this name today probably stumble onto it because of the 2014 movie Supremacy. It's a gritty film starring Danny Glover, and while it's "inspired" by real events, the actual history of Robert Walter Scully Jr. is way more complicated—and significantly darker—than a Hollywood script.
Honestly, it's a story that basically defines the "Three Strikes" era of California justice. You've got a career criminal, a veteran deputy, and a hostage situation that kept an entire county on edge for seven hours.
The Night at the Santa Rosa Saddlery
It was March 29, 1995. About 11:30 p.m.
Sonoma County Deputy Sheriff Frank Trejo was doing what veteran cops do: checking on something that didn't look right. He spotted a green pickup truck sitting in the darkened parking lot of the Santa Rosa Saddlery on Highway 12.
👉 See also: Snow Forecast for Lehigh Valley: Why This Winter Is Throwing Everyone a Curveball
Inside that truck were Robert Walter Scully Jr. and his companion, Brenda Moore.
Scully wasn't supposed to be there. He had just been paroled from Pelican Bay State Prison—a place reserved for the "worst of the worst"—less than a week prior. He was a 36-year-old with a rap sheet stretching back to a 1978 rape conviction and a string of armed robberies.
What happened next was fast. And it was final.
According to court records, Scully and Moore disarmed Trejo. They took his gun belt and his radio. Then, Scully leveled a 12-gauge sawed-off shotgun at the 58-year-old deputy.
One shot. Close range.
Trejo, a father of four who had been in law enforcement since 1969, died right there in the gravel.
💡 You might also like: Ban Sharia Law in America: What Most People Get Wrong
The Hostage Crisis on Lloyd Avenue
You’d think a guy who just killed a cop would disappear. Instead, Scully and Moore ended up eluding a massive dragnet of 100 officers and bloodhounds, eventually barging into a home on Lloyd Avenue.
They took the Frank Cooper-King family hostage.
Six people, including two children, were trapped in their own house for seven hours. It was a powder keg. Scully was armed with the shotgun and a pistol. He even went as far as unloading the pistol and tucking the bullets into socks in his waistband—a weird, tactical move he’d likely picked up during his decades in the California prison system.
The standoff ended peacefully, surprisingly enough. Around 2:30 p.m. the next day, Scully and Moore surrendered. The family was unharmed, but the damage to the community was already done.
The "Accident" Defense
When the trial finally rolled around in 1997, Scully didn't deny he was there. He didn't even deny pulling the trigger.
His defense? It was an accident.
He claimed the sawed-off shotgun went off as he was backing away from Deputy Trejo. He said he never intended to murder him. The prosecution, led by Larry Scoufos, wasn't buying it. They argued Scully executed Trejo specifically to avoid going back to prison. As a paroled felon in possession of a sawed-off shotgun, he knew he was looking at a life sentence under the Three Strikes law if he got caught.
The jury didn't buy the accident story either.
They convicted Robert Walter Scully Jr. of first-degree murder with special circumstances—including killing a peace officer to avoid arrest.
🔗 Read more: Judge Brian M. Cogan: Why This Federal Judge Keeps Handling the World's Toughest Cases
Why This Case Still Matters in 2026
You might wonder why we're still talking about a case from the mid-90s.
First off, the legal battle lasted for decades. It wasn't until May 2021 that the California Supreme Court finally affirmed his death sentence. His lawyers had fought for years, arguing that pretrial publicity in Sonoma County made a fair trial impossible. The court basically said, "Wait, it's been long enough; the media heat has cooled off."
Then there's the Pelican Bay connection. Scully was a product of the "Level IV" maximum-security culture. His transition from the SHU (Security Housing Unit) to the streets of Santa Rosa in just six days remains a haunting example of the "revolving door" problems that plagued the 90s prison system.
Robert Walter Scully Jr: The Legacy of a Verdict
Scully was sentenced to death plus 274 years to life for the related felonies. Brenda Moore, his accomplice, was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
For the Trejo family, the "happiest day" they once hoped for—the day of execution—has been stalled by California’s moratorium on the death penalty.
If you're looking for the "human" side of this, it's not in the movie Supremacy. It's in the records of a veteran deputy who was just weeks away from retirement when he pulled into a parking lot to check on a suspicious truck.
Actionable Takeaways for Researchers
- Verify Movie Facts: If you’re watching Supremacy, remember it's a dramatization. The real hostage situation didn't involve the same racial dynamics or specific character arcs seen on screen.
- Legal Precedents: Look up People v. Scully (2021) if you're interested in how California courts handle "change of venue" requests in high-profile cases. It’s a landmark for how long "pretrial publicity" is considered relevant.
- Three Strikes History: This case is a primary source for understanding why California voters were so adamant about strict sentencing in the 1990s.
The story of Robert Walter Scully Jr. isn't a mystery; it's a documented tragedy of a system that failed to keep a violent offender off the streets and a family that paid the ultimate price.