Final suspect in murder of NorCal pot grower arrested in New Jersey

One by one detectives from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Department have been rounding up all six suspects wanted for the brutal November 11, 2016 murder of Jeffrey Quinn Settler, 35, a commercial marijuana grower.

On February 24, 33-year-old Jesse Cole Wells was arrested in South Lake Tahoe at a home on Conestoga Avenue. He has since been transferred to the Mendocino County Jail where he is being held on charges on murder, first-degree robbery and attempted murder.

There was just one suspect remaining after Wells' arrest, 34-year-old Gary Louis Blank III of Garberville, Calif.

In late February and early March, detectives from the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office were in communication with numerous state, local and federal law enforcement agencies in multiple states in efforts to try and locate and arrest Blank, aka Cricket. This included agencies in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey as information had been provided by anonymous sources that Blank had been provided a ride from Southern California towards the northeast.

On March 10, 2017, the detectives were notified by detectives from the New Jersey State Police that they had good information about Blank's whereabouts and later that day he was arrested in the Borough of Red Bank, New Jersey.

Detectives have determined Settler had hired all six men as marijuana trimmers who, one night, returned to his property in Laytonville, Calif., with the intent to commit robbery of processed marijuana. According to Detective Sergeant Andrew Porter of the Mendocino County Sheriff's Office, the investigation revealed the subjects knew the marijuana was stored in the same structure where Settler slept and the subjects violently assaulted him during the robbery, causing his death. The subjects were believed to have fled the property in at least two vehicles and were believed to have stolen over 100 pounds of processed marijuana. The suspects were believed to have fled to Southern California or out of state.

The other arrested suspects and the towns where they were found:

Frederick Gaestel in a vacant home in Williamsburg, Virginia
Michael Andrew Kane was living in Mexico and turned himself in to authorities at the border
Gary Fitzgerald turned himself into the Mendocino County Sheriff
Zachary Wuester in Willits, Calif.