McGautha and his co fendant Wilkinson had been charged for committing two armed robberies and a murder in California. In the California capital trial case there were two stages, the first was the guilty stage and the second was the punishment stage. Wilkinson had held down the customer and McGautha had shot. The jury found both guilty of the two armed robberies and the murder. McGautha and Wilkinson had both committed in the same robberies in a local convenience store. When they had walked into the convenience store they had showed the defendants that they were armed with pistols and then took 300 dollars. Several years later McGautha and Wilkinson had done the same thing to another convenience store a shot was fired and hit the owner.
