Man suspected of being the Stockton serial killer is charged with three murders
Stockton serial homicide suspect Wesley Brownlee was charged Tuesday with three counts of murder, three days after he was arrested while allegedly stalking a potential victim near a city park.
Brownlee, 43, was charged with the murders of Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez on Aug. 30, Juan Cruz on Sept. 21, and Lawrence Lopez Sr. on Sept. 27, according to San Joaquin County Superior Court records. He faces potential firearm sentencing enhancements and special circumstances of committing multiple murders.
He was also charged with possession of a firearm by a felon and possession of ammunition by a felon.
All of the shootings appeared to have been unprovoked and occurred in the late night or early morning hours, authorities said.
Brownlee has not been charged with the fatal shootings of Paul Alexander Yaw on July 8 or Salvador Debudey Jr. on Aug. 11, although the Stockton Police Department has alleged that those cases, and the fatal shooting of an Oakland man and the non-fatal shooting of a Stockton woman in 2021, were linked to the other deaths.
Wesley Brownlee was arrested Saturday on suspicion of homicide in connection with six fatal shootings in Oakland and Stockton, which began last year and continued through last month, Stockton Police Chief Stanley McFadden said.
“We will be making further charging decisions in relation to those cases in the next coming weeks,” San Joaquin County Dist. Atty. Tori Verber Salazar said at a news conference Tuesday.
Verber Salazar said she was “confident that additional charges will be added.”
Brownlee was arrested around 2 a.m. Saturday as he was driving around a public park. He had been under surveillance for more than a day, authorities said.
He was described as a truck driver who moved to the Stockton area this summer.
The arrest followed a weeks-long manhunt for the person believed to be responsible for a killing rampage that spanned more than a year and two Northern California cities.
In late September, police said that the killings of Yaw, Debudey, Rodriguez, Cruz and Lopez were all related.
Investigators later said that the 2021 murder of Juan Miguel Vasquez Serrano in Oakland and the non-fatal shooting of a woman in Stockton a few days later were also connected.
The cases were linked through ballistics evidence, police said.
Start your day right
Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
