New York: A man police described as a “potential serial killer” who terrorised residents in California’s Central Valley in a string of fatal shootings was arrested in Stockton while he was “out hunting” for more victims, authorities said.
The man, Wesley Brownlee, 43, was arrested after an investigation that connected five fatal shootings across Stockton along with a killing about 110 kilometres away.
Police Chief Stanley McFadden speaks during a press conference in Stockton, California, on the arrest of suspect Wesley Brownlee (pictured).Credit:AP
At a news conference on Saturday (US time), police did not release any information about a motive. They said Brownlee has a criminal history but did not provide details.
The arrest was the product of good police work and an engaged public, said Stanley McFadden, chief of the Stockton Police Department.
Members of the public submitted a large number of tips about the shootings, which had rattled the city and nearby communities. Based on those tips, the police zeroed in on a suspect, McFadden said. A reward for information leading to an arrest had grown to $US125,000.
The police said that Brownlee was taken into custody around 2am local time without a struggle. When officers arrested him, he was wearing dark clothing, had a mask around his neck and was carrying a firearm, McFadden said.
“Our surveillance team followed this person while he was driving,” he said. “We watched his patterns and determined early this morning he was on a mission to kill. He was out hunting.”
He added later, “We are sure we stopped another killing.”
Tori Verber Salazar, the district attorney for San Joaquin County, said that her office was reviewing evidence to determine charges, which will be announced Tuesday. She said the capture of Brownlee was the product of a community effort.
“You don’t come to our house and bring this kind of reign of terror” without mobilising Stockton and the county, she said.
The arrest came nearly two weeks after the police said that five victims, all men between the ages of 21 and 54, had been fatally shot while alone in dimly lit areas at night or in the early morning between July 8 and September 27. Four of the men were Hispanic; one was white. None of the men were robbed.
The police later said that they had also linked those cases to two additional shootings: A 40-year-old Hispanic man who was killed in Oakland, California, about 110 kilometres west of Stockton, on April 10; and a 46-year-old black woman who was shot in Stockton on April 16 and survived.
McFadden said on October 4 that the authorities believed they were dealing with a “potential serial killer” after investigators connected the killings through ballistics and video footage, including a clip that showed a person with an uneven stride and an upright posture.
Investigators interviewed the woman who survived and learned that she had been in her tent when she heard someone walking around her campsite. When she stepped outside, she saw someone wearing dark clothes and a mask pointing a gun at her, McFadden said.
She rushed toward the gunman and was shot multiple times before the man lowered his gun, McFadden said.
Stockton, a city of about 322,000 people, is 130 kilometres west of the San Francisco Bay Area in the agricultural flatlands of California’s Central Valley. The killings had spread anxiety among some residents, with many questioning who could be behind such coldblooded acts.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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