BLACK: California Authorities Arrest Suspected Serial Murderer Who Was Allegedly ‘Out Hunting’ for ‘Another Killing’

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California Authorities Arrest Suspected Serial Murderer Who Was Allegedly ‘Out Hunting’ for ‘Another Killing’

Aaron KellerOct 15th, 2022, 8:22 pm


A mugshot shows Wesley Brownlee.

Wesley Brownlee. (Image via the Stockton, California Police Department.)

Northern California authorities say they arrested a suspected serial killer before dawn on Saturday as he was seeking another victim.


Wesley Brownlee, 43, of Stockton was nabbed around 2 a.m. on Saturday at the intersection of Winslow Way and Village Green Drive — in essence, a bend in two roads near Panella Park in the northern section of that city. Brownlee was wearing dark clothing, had a mask around his neck, and was “armed with a firearm,” according to a report by Sacramento NBC affiliate KCRA.


Police Chief Stanley McFadden said his officers caught Brownlee while the suspect was “out hunting.”


The chief said he believed his officers “stopped another killing.”


A photo shows a gun.

This gun was allegedly seized when Wesley Brownlee was arrested. (Image via the Stockton, California Police Department.)

City Manager Harry Black, Mayor Kevin Lincoln, and San Joaquin County District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar were present to announce the arrest.


The assemblage of officials indicated that tips from the community and a lot of police work led to the capture of the alleged culprit.


“Our surveillance team followed this person while he was driving,” the chief continued. “We watched his patterns and determined early this morning he was on a mission to kill. He was out hunting.”


“His patterns were consistent with some of the patterns that we have seen,” McFadden explained as he referenced both the suspect and the string of murders.


Brownlee was “around parks, around dark places, stopping, looking around, moving again,” the chief said. “And at that point, we thought, for the safety of the public, it was best to take this person in.”


Authorities had previously released grainy nighttime surveillance video that they believed showed the suspect.

As Law&Crime previously reported, police in Stockton began to link what at first appeared to be a series of unconnected killings — possibly dating to at least April 2021. Patterns emerged as the death toll added up with increasing frequency.

The Stockton murders all involved the unprovoked shootings of five men between July 8 and Sept. 27, 2022. All of the men were between the ages of 21 and 54. All of the ambush-type killings happened at night in what the authorities have described as poorly lit areas. All of the victims were alone when they were gunned down. One of the victims was parked in a car; the others were walking. All of the shootings happened within a four-mile radius.


Stockton is about an hour and forty minutes east of San Francisco.


According to the Associated Press, authorities came to believe that a sixth man who was killed in Oakland, some 70 miles away, may have died at the hands of the same suspect more than a year earlier in April 2021. A week after the Oakland slaying, a woman was wounded in Stockton, again by who police think might have been the same suspect.


Citing investigators, the AP said “ballistics tests and video evidence” were what “linked the crimes.”


Some of the victims were homeless, but “[n]one were beaten or robbed,” the wire service reported.


The “woman who survived said her attacker didn’t say anything,” the AP continued.


That means a potential motive has been difficult to determine or is perhaps unsettlingly nonexistent.


The Stockton murder victims have been identified as follows:


Paul Alexander Yaw, 35, was killed at approximately 12:31 a.m. on July 8 in the 5600 block of Kermit Lane.
Salvador William Debudey Jr., 43, was killed at approximately 9:49 p.m. on Aug. 11 in the 4900 block of West Lane.
Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez, 21, was killed in a car at approximately 6:41 a.m. on Aug. 30 in the 800 block of E. Hammer Lane.
Juan Cruz, 52, was killed at approximately 4:27 a.m. on Sept. 21 in the 4400 block of Manchester Avenue.
Lorenzo Lopez was killed at approximately 1:53 a.m. on Sept. 27 in the 900 block of Porter Avenue. Some reports list his age as 52; some list it as 54.

The authorities believe Oakland murder victim Juan Miguel Vasquez Serrano, 40, a car mechanic, may be linked to the same killer, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.


“I want to make this very, very clear to the people of Stockton, to the United States, and around the world: when the people of Stockton come together and we unite, we can get things done,” Mayor Lincoln said in a statement that heaped an ebullient dose of local boosterism onto the airwaves of KCRA. “Stockton will be a place where people can live, raise a family, and grow a business.”


According to records at the San Joaquin County Jail, the 6’2″, 165-pound defendant was booked at 3:48 p.m. on Saturday and is being held without bail.


Brownlee’s current charges include one count of murder, one count of carrying a concealed weapon in a vehicle, one count of carrying a loaded firearm in public under specific circumstances, one count of owning or possessing ammunition as a prohibited person, and one count of being a felon or addict in possession of a firearm, according to jail data. All of the five charges are listed as felonies.


DA Salazar’s office is reportedly still contemplating a full set of formal charges.


A court date for the defendant has been scheduled for 1:30 p.m. Tuesday at the San Joaquin County Superior Courthouse in Stockton, the jail records indicate.


The jail records do not name an attorney for Brownlee, and the AP said it was not immediately clear if he had one.


“The crime was solved because we’re Stockton,” DA Salazar said, again per KCRA’s coverage of Saturday’s press conference. “You don’t come to our house and bring this reign of terror.”
 


Details emerge about alleged serial killer’s criminal past​



Posted: Oct 17, 2022 / 08:19 PM EDT

Updated: Oct 17, 2022 / 08:40 PM EDT


STOCKTON, Calif. (AP) — A man suspected of killing six men and wounding a woman in a series of shootings in Northern California has a criminal history that includes traffic violations and convictions for drug crimes, authorities said Monday.
Stockton police arrested Wesley Brownlee, 43, on Saturday after surveilling him as he drove through the streets of the city, armed with a handgun and possibly “out hunting” for another victim, police said.

In January 1999, Brownlee had been sentenced to two years in prison in Alameda County, which encompasses the city of Oakland, for possessing and selling a controlled substance, the California corrections department said. He was released on parole in August 1999 after serving seven months.
Brownlee was again convicted in Alameda County in December 2001 and sentenced to three years for the same crime. He was released to parole in May 2003 and discharged from parole three years later.

Prosecutors in San Joaquin County, which includes Stockton, were working Monday with the city’s police department to review the evidence and expect to file charges Tuesday, said Elisa Bubak, a spokesperson for the prosecutor’s office.
It was not immediately known if Brownlee has an attorney who can comment on his behalf.

Court documents show he was first arrested at age 15 in Alameda County on suspicion of selling crack cocaine and was placed on house arrest, The East Bay Times reported.
In 1997, at age 18, Brownlee was arrested again and charged with possessing crack cocaine and was sentenced to a three-year probation term. His probation was revoked a year later after he sold cocaine to an undercover police officer, and in 1999 he was sentenced to two years in state prison and sent to San Quentin, the newspaper reported.

Brownlee grew up in Oakland just six blocks from where the Oakland victim was killed, the East Bay Times reported, citing court records. All of the Stockton killings happened near addresses listed for Brownlee and his relatives, KXTV-TV reported.
Investigators have said ballistics tests and video evidence linked the crimes. A police photo showed the black and gray weapon allegedly carried by the suspect. It appeared to be a semi-automatic handgun containing some nonmetallic materials.
Police said after Brownlee’s arrest that he was dressed in black, had a mask around his neck and a handgun, and was possibly searching for another victim when he was arrested driving around Stockton, where five men were ambushed and shot to death between July 8 and Sept. 27. Four of the victims were walking, and one was in a parked car.
Police believe the same shooter was responsible for the April 2021 killing in Oakland, some 70 miles (110 kilometers) away, and for wounding the woman in Stockton a week later.
At Saturday’s news conference, a moment of silence was held for the victims.

Juan Vasquez Serrano, 39, was killed in Oakland on April 10, 2021, and Natasha LaTour, 46, was shot in Stockton on April 16 that year but survived. The five men killed in Stockton this year were Paul Yaw, 35, who died July 8; Salvador Debudey Jr., 43, who died Aug. 11; Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez, 21, who died Aug. 30; Juan Cruz, 52, who died Sept. 21; and Lawrence Lopez Sr., 54, who died Sept. 27.

After receiving hundreds of tips, investigators located and watched the place where Brownlee was living. They observed his patterns, determined he was out searching for another victim and arrested him, authorities said.
Police said some victims were homeless, but not all. None were beaten or robbed, and the woman who survived said her attacker didn’t say anything.
 
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Who is Wesley Brownlee? Alleged Stockton serial killer had troubled upbringing, was arrested for sexual assault as a teen​

Suspect's brother gunned down in Oakland in 1995​


[IMG alt="Stockton Police Chief Stanley McFadden speaks during a press conference at the Stockton Police Department headquarters in Stockton, Calif., on the arrest of suspect Wesley Brownlee in the Stockton serial killings on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022. Behind McFadden is a booking photo of Brownlee. (Clifford Oto/The Record via AP)
AP22288836543036.jpg
[/IMG]
Stockton Police Chief Stanley McFadden speaks during a press conference at the Stockton Police Department headquarters in Stockton, Calif., on the arrest of suspect Wesley Brownlee in the Stockton serial killings on Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022. Behind McFadden is a booking photo of Brownlee. (Clifford Oto/The Record via AP)
By Nate Gartrell | ngartrell@bayareanewsgroup.com and Harry Harris | hharris@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News Group
PUBLISHED: October 17, 2022 at 12:05 p.m. | UPDATED: October 17, 2022 at 6:07 p.m.
A 43-year-old man arrested Saturday in connection with six randomly targeted serial killings in Stockton and Oakland grew up in the Bay Area, where he lost his brother to gun violence and was arrested for selling crack cocaine just blocks away from where one of his victims was gunned down, court records show.
Wesley Brownlee, a Bay Area native and Stockton resident, was taken into custody early Saturday morning while driving around Stockton in what police called a “hunt” for an eighth victim. He has not yet been charged, but police have publicly linked him to seven shootings, including five homicides this year in Stockton, one in Oakland in 2021, and an April 2021 shooting in Stockton where the victim survived.
Court records from throughout Brownlee’s life paint a picture of a troubled teen who was accused of sexual assault as a high school freshman, and was arrested for selling crack cocaine three times over 20 years in the same Oakland neighborhood, where his brother and a close family friend were both killed in 1995. Police have not disclosed what they believe motivated Brownlee to allegedly start looking for people to shoot and kill in his early 40s.
Brownlee was born in San Francisco but grew up in an apartment on Seminary Avenue in East Oakland — just six blocks from where the April 2021 Oakland victim was gunned down — until the late 1990s, when his mother moved to Stockton. His parents lived together on and off for 16 years, but split up when Brownlee was in his early teens, according to court records.

In October 1995, when Brownlee was 16, his older brother Dale Brownlee, 17, was shot and killed on the 5700 block of East 16th Street in what police called a “drug-related” killing. An Oakland Tribune report from the time noted that Dale Brownlee’s close friend, Kojo Upshaw, 18, was stabbed to death at the same location six months earlier. It is unclear if any arrests were made in either case.
Court records say Wesley Brownlee became depressed and “very distressed” over his brother’s death and that his mother sought therapy for him. The records say he was diagnosed with a learning disability in elementary school and dropped out of high school as a junior. When interviewed by a juvenile probation officer in his mid-teens, he talked about wanting to attend college for computer science and earn a basketball scholarship with the hopes of one day playing in the NBA.
In May 1994, just two weeks before his 15th birthday, Brownlee was arrested along with two other boys on suspicion of sexually assaulting a 14-year-old girl, according to court records. In interviews with a juvenile probation officer, Brownlee denied involvement in the sexual assault and blamed it on his two friends. His mother stood by her son’s side, telling authorities that the victim initially didn’t implicate Brownlee until her second interview with police.
A probation report noted that Brownlee “apparently suffers both innate mental limitation and psychological stress over his brother’s 1995 shooting death.”
“He seems either unable or unwilling to assume meaningful responsibility for himself,” the report says. “He appears to have difficulty settling into any kind of positive activity.”

Six months later, he was arrested on suspicion of selling drugs. Juvenile court placed him on house arrest with a curfew and other conditions, but noted that his mother suffered from a painful, chronic medical condition and sometimes didn’t notice when Brownlee snuck out of the house.
In 1997, at age 18, Brownlee was arrested and charged with possessing 67 bindles of crack cocaine. He received a three-year probation term but in 1998 his probation was revoked for an arrest of selling cocaine to an undercover cop, and he was sentenced to two years in state prison. Court records say he served it in San Quentin.
Brownlee was arrested in Alameda County in 2014 for allegedly selling narcotics on the 5800 block of East 16th Street, just one block from where his brother was killed nearly 20 years earlier, and within a mile of where Juan Vasquez Serrano was shot and killed in 2021. He pleaded no contest and received jail time and three years probation, court records show.
This booking photo provided by the Stockton Police Department shows Wesley Brownlee, from Stockton, Calif., who was arrested Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022, in connection to a series of shootings. Brownlee, suspected of killing six men and wounding a woman in Northern California was arrested before dawn Saturday as he was apparently searching for another victim, police said. (Stockton Police Department via AP)
This booking photo provided by the Stockton Police Department shows Wesley Brownlee, from Stockton, Calif., who was arrested Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022, in connection to a series of shootings. Brownlee, suspected of killing six men and wounding a woman in Northern California was arrested before dawn Saturday as he was apparently searching for another victim, police said. (Stockton Police Department via AP)
Stockton and Oakland authorities have identified the 2021-2022 homicide victims as: Serrano, 40, killed April 10, 2021 in Oakland; Paul Yaw, 35, killed July 8, 2022 in Stockton; Salvador Debudey Jr., 43, killed Aug. 11, 2022 in Stockton; Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez, 21, killed Aug. 30, 2022 in Stockton; Juan Cruz, 52, killed Sept. 21, 2022 in Stockton; and Lawrence Lopez Sr., 54, killed Sept. 27, 2022 in Stockton.
Brownlee is also accused of shooting and wounding a 46-year-old woman on April 16, 2021 in Stockton. She survived.
On 2 a.m. Saturday, Brownlee was arrested while driving through Stockton with a mask and gun in his possession, authorities said at a weekend news conference.
“Our surveillance team followed this person while he was driving. We watched his patterns and determined early this morning he was on a mission to kill,” Stockton police Chief Stanley McFadden said. “He was out hunting.”
 
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Accused Stockton serial killer Wesley Brownlee appears in court, victims remembered by families​


Story by Madisen Keavy • Tuesday

STOCKTON -- The accused Stockton Serial Killer appeared in a San Joaquin County courtroom Tuesday in a hearing that lasted all of 15 minutes, never turning to acknowledge the family members of victims, prosecutors say, Wesley Brownlee shot and killed.

The hearing was for a motion to quash the subpoena as well as further arraignment for the amended complaint two, which charges Brownlee with three murders and one attempted murder.

Prosecutors requested a subpoena related to Brownlee's educational history, dating back to his time in elementary school. They also requested employment documents, according to Judge Xapuri B. Villapudua, that includes GPS and time logs on work documents.
Judge Villapudua said, on educational documents from when Brownlee was 13, that those are of "date ranges, material to this case" from 1992-1999. She allowed these to be subpoenaed with a note from Brownlee's attorney that these documents may inhibit Brownlee's protective right to privacy as well as possible HIPPA violations.
Judge Villapudua noted this is the "discovery" process and these documents may not even be introduced by prosecutors into the record, noting that Brownlee's employment records were not in violation of his privacy rights as he was an adult at the time, versus some of his educational records when he was a minor.
Brownlee is due back in court on March 6 at 9 a.m. in San Joaquin County.


Mervin Harmon remembered by family

A father of three, an uncle, a brother, and a "friend to everyone" according to his nephew, Dre, who spoke to CBS13. Dre said their family is still in a state of shock after realizing the person accused of shooting and killing Harmon in Oakland in April 2021 was the accused Stockton serial killer.
Harmon was identified by authorities in December as the latest victim of the accused Stockton serial killer. On a timeline of the killings, Harmon was the second victim.
"We're never gonna get to see him smile again," said Dre.
He described his uncle as loving, a family man, who loved spending time with family members. Harmon spoke his mind, Dre said, and was unequivocally himself.
I'm not gonna be at peace until I get answers, I was the last one communicating with my uncle before he passed away," said Dre, who says he knows justice will take time.
Prosecutors say Harmon's family's shock was amplified by knowing Harmon was not the only person Brownlee killed. In fact, Harmon was killed just hours apart from the attempted murder of Natasha Letour in Stockton. She remains the only known survivor, according to authorities.
 
https://nypost.com/2022/12/28/suspected-serial-killer-wesley-brownlee-charged-with-killing-seven/

Suspected Stockton serial killer Wesley Brownlee now charged with seven slayings​



By
Katherine Donlevy


December 28, 2022

A suspected California serial killer who was already facing three murder raps has been charged in four more slayings, authorities said.


Wesley Brownlee allegedly started his ambush-style killing spree in April 2021 before picking up where he left off a year later, according to County of San Joaquin charging documents filed Tuesday.


Brownlee is accused of shooting Juan Vasquez Serrano to death on April 10, 2021 and killing Mervin Harmon six days later. The men were murdered in Alameda County, just a few miles west of Stockton.


On the same day of Harmon’s murder, Brownlee allegedly tried to kill Natasha Jeanne Latour. She survived.


The accused serial killer may not have pulled the trigger for another year, the documents state, until he allegedly killed Salvador Debudey Jr. on April 11 in Stockton. Brownlee allegedly then killed Paul Yaw in July, the filing shows.


Brownlee was arrested in October after police found him driving through Stockton streets dressed in black with a mask around his neck and a gun by his side “on a mission to kill.”

Wesley Brownlee stands with public defender Allison Nobert during his arraignment in San Joaquin County Superior Court on Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2022.Wesley Brownlee has killed at least seven people, prosecutors allege.AP
Officials suspected Brownlee of killing at least six of the victims and of Latour’s attempted murder, but initially only charged him with three slayings. Prosecutors now believe he killed Jonathan Rodriguez Hernandez, Juan Carlos Carranza-Cruz and Lawrence Lopez between Aug. 30 and Sept. 27 this year.

Though police have not disclosed Brownlee’s relationship to his victims, CBS reported that the alleged killer lived in the same apartment complex as Rodriguez Hernandez. Police found the 21-year-old’s body in the building’s parking lot.

A neighbor said Brownlee “seemed like he had a little attitude problem at times.”

This photo provided by the Stockton Police Department shows a gun found in the possession of Wesley Brownlee.

Brownlee is also accused of attempting to murder a California woman.AP

Wesley Brownlee mugshot.

Brownlee was found driving through Stockton streets dressed in black with a mask around his neck and a gun by his side, police said.Getty Images
The motive for the killings remains unknown. None of the victims were robbed, police said.

What do you think? Post a comment.

Brownlee has a criminal history that includes traffic violations and convictions for drug crimes that date back to an arrest when he was 15 years old.

He has also been hit with a litany of other charges, including felon possession of a firearm and possession of ammunition. Brownlee is set to appear in court on Jan. 3.
 


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Police believe that Salvador Debudey Jr, Lorenzo Lopez, and Paul Yaw were all killed by the same person.

Family Handouts​



“Five people died because they didn’t listen to me,” said Natasha LaTour, who believes she was shot by a suspected serial killer in California but was treated like “trash” by cops.

Updated Oct. 06, 2022 4:30PM EDT / Published Oct. 06, 2022 3:47PM EDT

Stockton_rob7ec

Natasha LaTour
 
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