By Carl Butz

The wheels of justice move slowly. Almost a year and a half has elapsed since Dr. Ari Gershman was shot and killed while driving with his son near Poker Flat in the northwestern sector of Sierra County on July 3, 2020. John T. Conway was arrested as a suspect for the crime on the following day, after he drove rapidly through a law enforcement roadblock on Saddleback Road towards Highway 49. 

During the ensuing time, Conway, after recovering from a gunshot wound received during his apprehension, has remained incarcerated at the Wayne Brown Correctional Facility in Nevada City. Local and state investigators have amassed information resulting in a set of nine charges being levied against Conway in October 2020. In July of 2021, the court, in the person of Sierra County Superior Court Judge Yvette Durant, following a series of exams by psychiatrists, ruled against the defendant’s claim that since he cannot recall anything about the days before his arrest, he should be exempt from criminal prosecution. The state, however, stated while they would prosecute, they would not be seeking the death penalty. 

Thus, on this past Thursday, December 2, Conway appeared at the Downieville Courthouse, handcuffed, shackled, and wearing a bright orange jumpsuit, to attend the next prelude to his trial, a preliminary hearing of the charges against him. 

On May 5th, at about 8:00 AM, a man arrived on foot at the Sierra County Sheriff’s Office (SCSO) to report his vehicle had caught fire approximately one mile up the steep, narrow, and twisty Galloway Road, south of Downieville. 

The Downieville Fire Protection District (DFPD) responded quickly to the news and, when they arrived on the scene in their green and yellow, four-wheel drive fire wagon, their crew discovered the fire being driven up the hill by a light wind through the heavily forested area. 

Given the circumstances, the DFPD immediately asked for mutual aid from firefighters in Alleghany and Pike City, as well as the US Forest Service. 

By 11:00 AM, local volunteers plus a Forest Service Hotshot crew from the USFS’s station in Camptonville were able to slow the fire’s spread and the incident command was assumed by the Forest Service, allowing the volunteer firefighters to be released.