STOCKTON, Calif. — A man suspected of committing serial murders in Northern California was charged with four additional murders this week, bringing the total to seven deaths since April 2021, authorities said.
Shootings terrorized the Central Valley city of Stockton earlier this year as police searched for a man dressed in black who appeared to be “on a mission” as he searched for victims for ambush-style shootings. He, too, was linked to the violence in Alameda County.
Three of the four murders listed in court documents Tuesday have already been disclosed by authorities, who previously said they had linked suspect Wesley Brownlee to the killings of six men and the wounding of a woman, but no charges had been filed.
The fourth case on Tuesday, an April 2021 murder bringing the total to seven murders, was previously unreported.
Brownlee was arrested in October when he «was looking» for another possible victim in Stockton, police said at the time. He is scheduled to appear in court on January 3. His public defender, Allison Nobert, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
brownlee was meInitially only accused of the death of three victims. in Stockton: Jonathan Rodríguez Hernández, 21, who died on August 30; Juan Cruz, 52, who died on September 21; and Lawrence Lopez Sr., 54, who died on September 27.
The amended complaint, filed Tuesdayfurther charges Brownlee with the murders of Paul Yaw, 35, who died July 8, and Salvador Debudey Jr., 43, who died August 11, in Stockton, as well as the fatal shooting in the county de Alameda de Juan Vásquez Serrano, 39, on April 10, 2021 and Mervin Harmon on April 16, 2021.
He is also charged with attempted murder in the April 16, 2021 shooting of 46-year-old Natasha LaTour.
Harmon had not previously been publicly linked to the series of Brownlee shootings. Additional details about Harmon’s death were not immediately available.
Brownlee, a convicted drug felon, was prohibited from owning a gun and allegedly used an unregistered «ghost gun» to carry out at least some of the murders, police said in October after his arrest.
In January 1999, Brownlee had been sentenced to two years in prison in Alameda County, which includes the city of Oakland, for possession and sale of a controlled substance, the California Department of Corrections said. He was paroled in August 1999 after serving seven months.
Brownlee was convicted again in Alameda County in December 2001 and sentenced to three years for the same offense. He was paroled in May 2003 and released three years later.