Police officials in California announced Saturday that they had arrested a suspect in a string of killings of mostly Hispanic men \u2014 capturing him in what they say was the \u201chunt\u201d for another victim.<\/p>\n
Wesley Brownlee, 43, was taken into custody in connection with a six-month killing rampage and was expected to be arraigned Tuesday afternoon.<\/p>\n
It was not immediately clear whether Brownlee was going to be charged with all five slayings committed this year and two attacks in 2021 that police say were connected. A woman who was shot in Stockton in 2021 but survived provided a description of the gunman to the police.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
The fatal shooting of a man in Oakland in April 2021 was linked by investigators to a string of homicides that took place between July 8 and Sept. 27 in Stockton. Police say the seven shootings were linked by ballistics and video evidence, prompting a search for a prolific suspect.<\/p>\n
Serial killer in California may have slain 5 people in 6 months, police say<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Brownlee was being followed by police while driving, and investigators noticed behavior that led them to believe that the suspect was searching for another target, according to Stockton Police Chief Stanley McFadden. He was taken into custody during a 2 a.m. traffic stop while armed with a gun, wearing dark clothing \u201cand a mask around his neck,\u201d McFadden said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe watched his patterns and determined early this morning he was on a mission to kill,\u201d McFadden said during a news conference. \u201cHe was out hunting.\u201d<\/p>\n
McFadden said his investigators are confident they prevented another death. He said they do not have a motive.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are sure we stopped another killing,\u201d McFadden told reporters.<\/p>\n
During the search for the suspect, residents of the city of more than 300,000 were warned to travel with others and avoid dark areas.<\/p>\n
Earlier this month, a hazy image of a person of interest was released to the public. The video screenshot did not depict the person\u2019s face. But officials said tips from the community helped lead them to the suspect.<\/p>\n
Officials said Saturday that they were looking for a suspect who liked to cruise and lurk around parks in the dark \u2014 approaching victims on foot once he homed in on a target.<\/p>\n
The victims were not robbed, and officials said they do not think the killings were connected to drugs or gang activity.<\/p>\n
Residents have said the violence was shocking because it seemed random and was unlike most local crimes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Police officials in California announced Saturday that they had arrested a suspect in a string of killings of mostly Hispanic men \u2014 capturing him in what they say was the \u201chunt\u201d for another victim. Wesley Brownlee, 43, was taken into custody in connection with a six-month killing rampage and was expected to be arraigned Tuesday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"source_name":"","source_url":"","via_name":"","via_url":"","override_template":"0","override":[{"template":"1","single_blog_custom":"","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_share_counter":"1","show_view_counter":"1","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_category":"1","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_prev_next_post":"1","show_popup_post":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_author_box":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"0"}],"override_image_size":"0","image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post":"0","trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post":"0","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","sponsored_post_name":"","sponsored_post_url":"","sponsored_post_logo_enable":"0","sponsored_post_logo":"","sponsored_post_desc":"","disable_ad":"0"},"jnews_primary_category":{"id":""},"jnews_override_counter":{"override_view_counter":"0","view_counter_number":"0","override_share_counter":"0","share_counter_number":"0","override_like_counter":"0","like_counter_number":"0","override_dislike_counter":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,29,45,42,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-world","category-top-stories","category-national","category-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pardesnewsusa.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27535","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pardesnewsusa.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pardesnewsusa.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pardesnewsusa.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pardesnewsusa.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27535"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pardesnewsusa.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27535\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27537,"href":"https:\/\/pardesnewsusa.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27535\/revisions\/27537"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pardesnewsusa.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pardesnewsusa.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pardesnewsusa.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pardesnewsusa.com\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}