photo credit: Ezra Wallach/Sebastopol Times
Carroll Road, south of Valley Ford in West Sonoma County, where Saturday's shock murder took place.

Questions are swirling over the circumstances and motivation for a murder in rural West Sonoma County.

The homicide Saturday occurred in Valley Ford, about a 25 minute drive south of Sebastopol, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff Office’s Rob Dillion.

"At about three o'clock, dispatch received a call that a subject was outside the house of a rural home on Carroll Road," Dillion said.

"Ultimately, dispatch sent deputies; while they were en route, they continued to get information," Dillion said. "Unfortunately, the suspect broke in and ended up murdering one of the victims in the home. He was contacted and taken into custody as soon as deputies arrived."

A sole suspect is in custody, a 44 year old Fairfield man.

He’s currently booked into the Sonoma County jail on felony murder and burglary charges, and is being held without bail.

Also covering the murder and surrounding events is Ezra Wallach, with the online news outlet Sebastopol Times.

"What we do know is that the victim, he was a lawyer, his name was Michael Molland," Wallach said.

State records show Molland was admitted to the California Bar in 1983, and an online search lists elder and personal injury law as major areas of focus for Molland.

Wallach said he suspects a connection between the suspect and Molland, though none has been determined as of yet.

"It seems pretty clear cut," Wallach said. "I mean, we call people murder suspects and sometimes that can range from, you know, they're being brought in for questioning basically to the fact that, I mean, it's pretty solid that this was the guy who committed the act, especially because he was caught on scene," Wallach said. "I don't think there's really an expectation that the sheriff's department is gonna look into any other suspects."

Adding further shock to the murder, the revelation the alleged suspect had recently encountered sheriff’s deputies; that very day in fact, according to Dillon, on River Road in Forestville.

"Deputies were actually dispatched...for the report of a disturbance," Dillion said. "Ultimately, they ended up contacting [the] suspect....and through their investigation determined that there was no law violation. He was not under any drug or alcohol influence, and there was no need for any kind of evaluation hold, mental health evaluation hold."

"So ultimately we had no legal authority to detain him any further," Dillion emphasized.

That encounter between the suspect and deputies, Wallach is reporting, happened at Forestville’s Farmhouse Inn, roughly 20 miles from where the murder took place.

"I got tipped off on it that the murderer had been at Farmhouse Inn earlier that day, like three hours prior, and that when he was at the Farmhouse Inn from Friday through Saturday, that he was exhibiting very strange behavior," Wallach said.

Wallach said the alleged suspect's presence at the Farmhouse Inn, on its own, raised eyebrows.

"The first behavior that was strange, that isn't necessarily inherently strange, is just the fact that the Farmhouse Inn is a very, very high-end hotel and that the clientele there is usually like elegant wine country travelers; and so just the fact that he was there in dirty boots and a construction vest, that already I think sort of tipped people at the hotel off," Wallach said. "But at the same time, he booked a room at the hotel, so they weren't gonna treat him any differently."

Wallach alleged the concern went beyond his mere presence.

"Over the course of his stay there, which was Thursday night and Friday night, he was exhibiting very strange behavior," Wallach said. "He was dancing, he was being loud, the hotel got numerous noise complaints."

"I was told that when they came upon his room after he left the hotel, all of the alcohol bottles were open, half of them were drank," Wallach said. "The incident that inspired the hotel to call law enforcement in the first place was that he had sexually harassed one of the employees."

Despite the warning signs, Wallach said the alleged suspect was left to his own devices in the hours before the homicide.

"The sheriff's department, they did examine him and you know, they've said that he wasn't under the influence of any drugs," Wallach said. "They couldn't book him on anything."

The suspect is set to be arraigned in Sonoma County Superior Court on Monday, November 25th.