Santa Rosa. Jan. 25, 1974 — A state prison inmate’s last minute decision to testify for the prosecution forced the two defendants in the James Willett murder trial to plead guilty yesterday.

Dist. Atty. John W. Hawkes said after vacillating William Merland Goucher Jr. agreed to turn states evidence against his former partners in crime, Michael Lee Monfort and James Terrill Craig.

The jury trial ended just before noon yesterday when Monfort pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and Craig to a charge of being a accessory after the fact.

Both had been charged with first-degree murder in the slaying of the 26-year-old victim, whose headless body was found in a shallow grave near Guerneville Nov. 8, 1972.

Authorities never found the victim’s head, and a pathologist theorized that since the grave was so shallow and the head was partially severed, it is likely that animals carried it away.

Goucher’s decision resulted in some 11th hour plea negotiations in which it was agreed Monfort would be allowed to plead guilty to the lesser charge of second-degree murder and Craig to being an accessory after the fact.

Hawkes explained since Goucher himself was an accessory to the slaying — he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder last year — corroboration was needed to support his testimony.

Goucher was arrested in Stockton and was giving statements to police about the Willett slaying on Nov. 8, 1972, the same day an elderly man stumbled on Willett’s grave.

On Nov. 12, 1972, Monfort and Craig were arrested in Stockton after police found the body of Willett’s 19-year-old wife, Lauren Olmstead Willett, buried beneath a house there.

The two were prosecuted for the wife’s slaying, while Goucher was transferred to Sonoma County to stand trial for the husband’s murder.

Goucher pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sent to Deuel Vocational Institute in Tracy after testifying against Monfort and Craig before the Grand Jury.

Monfort subsequently pleaded guilty to second-degree murder of Willett’s wife and Craig to being an accessory after the fact. They were both sent to state prison.

Monfort faces a state prison term of five years to life for Willett’s slaying and Craig a maximum of five years — the same sentence they are now serving in connections with the wife’s death.

In the early stages of the case, authorities reported the defendants killed Willett because he threatened to quit their alleged armed robbery ring and inform on its activities.

Goucher told the Grand Jury Monfort tricked Willett into digging his own grave on the pretext the hole was going to be used to bury loot.

Monfort, Goucher testified, shot Willett in the back of the head with a pistol, then he and Craig blasted him with shotguns.

The men then went to Stockton taking Willett’s wife, who reportedly went along voluntarily.

Authorities said Monfort allegedly killed Mrs. Willett to silence her about the husband’s death, but a witness contended she was accidentally killed by Monfort playing a version of Russian roulette.

Police said Monfort and Craig were living in Stockton with three women linked to followers of the Charles Manson Family, responsible for the Sharon Tate murders in southern California.

Two of those women, Nancy Pitman, Monfort’s girlfriend, and Priscilla Cooper, Craig’s girlfriend, were brought to Sonoma County from the state prison for women in Frontera and were prepared to testify for the defense.

At the time of his arrest, Monfort was an escape from a state prison camp and was reputed to be a member of the Aryan Brotherhood, a terrorist group of white inmates.