A Twentynine Palms man has been arrested and charged with murder after his common law wife was found dead inside their home.
On Friday, March 13, 2026, shortly after 8:03 a.m., deputies were summoned to the California Department of Forestry/San Bernardino County Fire Department Station 444 at 6560 Adobe Road by the report of an abandoned Toyota Tacoma blocking a gate.
The sheriff’s department, using information readily available to it from the California Department of Motor Vehicles and the California Law Enforcement Telecommunications System quickly established that the vehicle was associated with someone residing at a home in the 74900 block of Aladdin Drive.
It is not clear why the Tacoma had been left where it was.
Deputies responding to that location found two unaccompanied young children inside the main residence. Upon searching the premises, the deputies came upon the body of Jessica Nicole Phillips, 34.
The department has not released information as to how Phillips was killed or how long before she was discovered she had died.
Homicide investigators were dispatched to the scene immediately. In short order, Phillips was connected to Isaac Matthew Angel, 34, who is the father of the two children found at the home.
A search for Angel was initiated. At around 10:40 a.m., he was located on foot, wandering near the intersection of Sunrise Drive and Araby Avenue around 10:40 a.m. 
A full battery of deputies and investigators had a go at Angel, who was arrested but not booked into custody at the West Valley Detention Center in Rancho Cucamonga until 5:30 p.m.
He was booked on suspicion of violation of Penal Code Section 187(A) – Murder. He is being held without bail.
According to the San Bernardino County District Attorney’s Office, which charged him with murder on March 17, Angel did not act alone in the commission of the homicide in that he involved a minor, whose identity has not been disclosed, in either killing Phillips or assisting him in doing so. The district attorney’s office maintains Angel was in possession of an unspecified weapon at the time Phillips, who was employed as a bank teller, was killed.
In addition, according to the district attorney’s office, the crime or the events leading up to it “involved a large quantity of contraband.”
Those details appear to have been extracted from Angel during the course of his interrogation by investigators.
He was arraigned on the charge in front of Judge Sarah Oliver in Department M1 at the Morongo Valley Courthouse in Joshua Tree on March 18. He is being prosecuted by Deputy District Attorney Heather Razook and is reprsented by Deputy Public Defender Jason Whiteside.
He entered a not guilty plea. Judge Oliver ordered him to reappear in Department M1 at 8:30 a.m on March 24 for a pre-preliminary hearing and ordered him to appear in Department M2 at 8:30 am. On March 26 for a bail and recognizance release hearing together with the start of his preliminary hearing.