Prosecutor: 4 more slayings tied to California serial killer

STOCKTON, Calif. – A person suspected in Northern California serial killings has been charged in 4 extra slayings this week, bringing the overall to seven deaths since April 2021, authorities stated.

The shootings terrorized the Central Valley metropolis of Stockton earlier this yr as police looked for a person clad in black who gave the impression to be “on a mission” as he hunted victims for ambush-style shootings. He was additionally tied violence in Alameda County.

Three of the 4 slayings listed in court docket paperwork Tuesday have already been disclosed by authorities — who earlier stated that they had linked suspect Wesley Brownlee to the killings of six males and the wounding of a lady — however expenses had not been filed.

Tuesday’s fourth case, an April 2021 slaying that brings the overall to seven killings, was beforehand unreported.

Brownlee was arrested in October when he “was out searching” for an additional attainable sufferer in Stockton, police stated on the time. He’s set to seem in court docket Jan. 3. His public defender, Allison Nobert, didn’t instantly return a request for remark.

Brownlee was i nitially solely charged within the deaths of three victims in Stockton: Jonathan Rodriguez Hernandez, 21, who died Aug. 30; Juan Cruz, 52, who died Sept. 21; and Lawrence Lopez Sr., 54, who died Sept. 27.

The amended grievance, filed Tuesday, moreover expenses Brownlee with the killings of Paul Yaw, 35, who died July 8, and Salvador Debudey Jr., 43, who died Aug. 11, in Stockton, in addition to the Alameda County deadly shootings of Juan Vasquez Serrano, 39, on April 10, 2021, and Mervin Harmon on April 16, 2021.

He’s additionally charged with tried homicide within the April 16, 2021, taking pictures of Natasha LaTour, 46.

Harmon had not beforehand been publicly linked to Brownlee’s spate of shootings. Further particulars about Harmon’s loss of life weren’t instantly accessible.

A convicted drug offender, Brownlee was barred from proudly owning a gun and he allegedly used an unregistered “ghost gun” to hold out a minimum of a few of the slayings, police stated in October after his arrest.

In January 1999, Brownlee had been sentenced to 2 years in jail in Alameda County, which encompasses town of Oakland, for possessing and promoting a managed substance, the California corrections division stated. He was launched on parole in August 1999 after serving seven months.

Brownlee was once more convicted in Alameda County in December 2001 and sentenced to a few years for a similar crime. He was paroled in Might 2003 and discharged three years later.