At age 91, Marcelle Martin is perhaps the oldest person in California to be accused of elder abuse. Making her case more singular, Martin, a retired linguist born in France, is all but deaf, all but blind, weighs less than 100 pounds, and at 4’11” has a hard time peering over the podium in Judge Brian Hill’s courtroom.
Martha Bourbon, her 71-year-old accuser, however, has no such difficulties and last Thursday delivered some powerful, tearful testimony from that podium describing in detail how Martin had clubbed her repeatedly over the head with her cane on March 14, had threatened her life, and was grooming fellow residents at Carpinteria's Shephard Place Apartments — where until recently Bourbon and Martin had been downstairs neighbors — to do similarly. (Martin was evicted in July). Bourbon accused Martin of making racist comments against Mexicans and blacks, presumably because Martin thought Bourbon was Mexican and because her grandson was half-black. In previous statements, Bourbon had also accused Martin of scandalizing her grandson by sunbathing either completely naked, partially naked, or by walking around in underwear, draped only in sandwich boards.
Martin’s attorney, Jess McHarrie of the Public Defender’s Office, countered that she had four witnesses prepared to testify it was Bourbon who had stalked and harassed Martin, not the other way around. One of those witnesses, McHarrie threatened, would testify that Santa Barbara Sheriffs deputies had tossed Martin into the back of a cruiser like a “rag doll” on the night of her arrest. (Sheriff’s spokesperson Kelly Hoover denied any excessive force was involved, insisting deputies used the utmost care and courtesy in dealing with Martin.) McHarrie insisted her client had done no wrong and she would not accept any prosecution deals.