Santa Rosa man sentenced to life in prison for 2021 murder and attempted murder

Defendant Clifford Edward Adams, 56 years old of Santa Rosa, was sentenced today by the Honorable Troye Shaffer to 14 years plus 100 years to life in prison. Today’s sentencing follows a jury trial in December 2022 at which Adams was found guilty of murder, attempted murder, assault with a deadly weapon, and reckless driving causing injury. After the jury found Adams guilty, Judge Shaffer found at a separate court trial that Adams has three prior “strike” convictions: two prior convictions for robbery and one prior conviction for assault with a firearm.

District Attorney Rodriguez stated, “Adams’s act of retaliation caused a completely innocent victim to be killed. Today’s sentence appropriately accounts for the gravity of Adams’s actions and his decades-long life of crime. Although nothing can bring Ms. Jones back, hopefully today’s lengthy prison sentence will bring her loved ones some semblance of justice.”

The charges against Adams were the result of an incident on March 23, 2021, on Roberts Avenue, a small side street off the eastern end of Sebastopol Road in Santa Rosa. That day, Adams and another man were in a physical fight. After the fight, both Adams and the other man left, but both returned to Roberts Avenue soon thereafter. Back on Roberts Avenue, Adams drove up the street, turned his car around, and was stopped with his car facing in the direction where the man from the earlier fight was seated. Adams then accelerated and drove directly at the man from the earlier fight. Adams hit the other man, causing a fracture and major laceration to the man’s leg. Adams also drove into Kellie Jones who was sitting nearby on a mattress. Adams’s car came to rest on top of Ms. Jones, trapping her and causing her to die from traumatic asphyxiation.  

In December 2022, at the end of a jury trial, Adams was found guilty of the attempted murder of the man he was trying to kill with his car, and guilty of the first degree murder of Kellie Jones. Adams’s liability for the murder of Ms. Jones stems from a rule in California that if a person intends to kill one person, but unintentionally kills a different person, that person’s death will be treated as if the intended target had been killed. This concept is referred to as “transferred intent.”

Although Adams faced life sentences for the crimes of murder and attempted murder independent of his criminal history, Adams was also sentenced under the Three Strikes laws due to two prior convictions for robbery and one prior conviction for assault with a firearm. The sentencing hearing was attended by the man Adams tried to kill on March 23, 2021, as well by Kellie Jones’s father and her daughter.

The case was prosecuted by Chief Deputy District Attorney Andrew Lukas and Deputy District Attorney Emily Malfatti, assisted by District Attorney Investigators Robyn Fuentes and Alexis Bartley. The Santa Rosa Police Department headed the investigation.