April trial for Bay Area man accused of killing his missing wife

A Solano County Superior Court judge on Monday set an April date for the jury trial of a 63-year-old Fairfield man accused of killing his wife on or about Valentine’s Day 2023, then burning her body in Fresno County.

Gregory Grant Hobson appeared in Department 25 for the setting, and Judge Janice M. Williams ordered the defendant to face trial beginning at 9 a.m. April 28 in the Justice Center in Fairfield.

Williams also scheduled two pretrial matters: a trial confirmation at 8:30 a.m. March 13 and a trial management conference at 8:30 a.m. April 24.

Court records on Monday showed the attorneys estimated the trial would take five weeks.

During the brief morning proceeding, Chief Deputy Public Defender Oscar Bobrow represented Hobson, and Deputy District Attorney Eric Charm appeared for the District Attorney’s Office.

The trial date comes more than 11 months after Hobson’s preliminary hearing on charges related to the disappearance and death of Anu Anand Hobson, 53.

Evidence presented during the hearing, which ended in mid-January, revealed a bloody tote bag that forensic analysis indicated had the victim’s blood on it, the couple did not notify their children before they left the area, and the victim’s body was burned, were deemed sufficient cause to find that a crime was committed.

Afterward Bobrow asked Judge Barbara Zuniga for “reasonable bail,” but his request was denied. Hobson, who has no prior criminal record, remains without bail in the Stanton Correctional Facility in Fairfield.

Judge John B. Ellis, who presided over the first days of the preliminary hearing in December last year, called the defendant a danger to the community and a flight risk.

But Bobrow persisted in his appeal to Zuniga, citing the couple’s 28-year marriage, Hobson’s son testifying that his father did not exhibit violent tendencies, and Hobson returning to Fairfield after the alleged killing.

Zuniga, however, recalled the son testified that his father exhibited angry outbursts and cited “destruction of evidence” — the burning of his wife’s body.

“He does pose a threat” to the community, she added, ordering Hobson to return for a held-to-answer arraignment two weeks later.

To support her eventual decision, Zuniga also cited previous California cases and clarified the definition of “sufficient cause” compared to “probable cause” and the nature of circumstantial evidence to support a conviction.

She also made detailed references to prior hearing testimony, some of which she had read before she presided over the proceeding.

They included Hobson’s belief that his wife as trying to poison him with eyedrops in his water and his suspicions that his wife was cheating on him, and, said Zuniga, “If he found out who it was, he’d kill them.”

Additionally, she noted that Hobson’s phone usage was tracked to cellphone towers in the area where his wife’s charred remains were found; DNA analysis of blood found on recovered items; and a determination that the burned body was, indeed, his wife’s.

The fact that her body was burned and that she had disappeared “demonstrates consciousness of guilt,” said Zuniga, noting a tote bag belonging to Anu was “soaked with blood.”

She admitted investigators still do not know how Anu Hobson died.

Crime scene findings and DNA analysis dominated the second day of the preliminary hearing on Dec. 14.

During the morning session on that day in Department 23, a Fairfield Police Department crime scene investigator said the charred remains believed to be those of Anu Hobson and “pieces of a gas can” were found in early March in a “dirt area” east of Interstate 5 near Kamm Avenue in Fresno County.

A DNA analyst testified that the testing of some cotton swabs yielded DNA, a human being’s unique genetic “fingerprints,” belonging to Anu Hobson, swipes taken from inside a black tote bag found less than a mile from her remains, and swipes taken from a hydraulic lift in the Hobson family garage in Fairfield. The DNA expert also noted that a swipe taken from the lower back area revealed the charred remains were those of a female.

Crime scene investigator Amy Tudi-Akaka testified and repeated information presented during the hearing’s first day on Dec. 13, that she and other Fairfield investigators traveled to Fresno County on Feb. 22 after receiving word from law enforcement officials there who said they found evidence “that would be of interest to you” in solving the alleged crime.

Tudi-Akaka told Chief Deputy District Attorney Flynn, who led the prosecution at the time, that she photographed the tote bag and used swabs to collect DNA from inside the tote bag, which, she said, contained a “reddish-brown substance,” suggesting blood.

On that day investigators found remains believed to be Hobson’s about “3,000 feet” east of where the black tote bag was found and Tudi-Akaka drove part of the way there in a department sedan.

During one of the hearing days, Fairfield Police Detective Dennis Chapman said Dr. Arnold Josselson, a forensic pathologist in Fairfield, performed an autopsy on Hobson’s remains on March 13. An external exam did not yield the cause of Hobson’s death. However, Josselson told Chapman that his “internal examination” showed “two specific injuries,” including “hemorrhage to the front of the scalp” and damage to part of the right jaw.

During the afternoon session Wednesday, Chapman revealed he recorded interviews with the Hobson children on March 3, asking them if there was a history of violence between their parents. They said they had no recollection of violence between their mother and father. However, Sara Hobson told Chapman that he “was always irritable and punching walls.”

Upon cross-examination, Bobrow got Chapman to reveal that Sara told the detective that she never saw her father be violent toward anyone in the home.

Court records show the Hobsons were last seen Feb. 13 in their silver-colored 2021 Toyota Tacoma, spotted on roadway surveillance cameras a day later near Elk Grove Boulevard in Sacramento. The couple was reported missing on Feb. 15.

Though Anu was not found at the time, Fairfield investigators reported that “based on evidence collected thus far, police believe she has been killed.”

Gregory Hobson was arrested on Feb. 16 near the intersection of Walters Road and East Tabor Avenue in Fairfield and later pleaded not guilty to first-degree murder.