By Minyvonne Burke and Andrew Blankstein -
NBC News
Police have arrested a suspect in the string of slayings that occurred in Stockton, California, authorities announced Saturday.
Following leads, police observed and arrested Wesley Brownlee, 43, who was taken into custody around 2 a.m. Saturday in connection with six homicides and a shooting with injuries, Stockton Police Department Chief Stanley McFadden said. at a press conference.
“Our surveillance team followed this person as he was driving,” he said.
“
He had a mission to kill.
He was hunting”.
The family of one of the victims of the California serial killer is afraid
Oct. 11, 202201:35
The chief said the suspect was wearing dark clothing, had a mask around his neck and was armed.
“We are confident that we stopped another murder,
” McFadden said.
Investigators allege the suspect used his vehicle in the attacks, but was later on foot before opening fire.
In previous press conferences and statements, Stockton police said the attacker
was sneaking up on the victims without them hearing him.
[Increases reward to $125,000 for apprehending serial killer who has killed six in California]
"His pattern and stalking was at one point going on foot," McFadden said Saturday.
Six people were killed and one survived in the series of shootings that began in April 2021. The most recent was on September 27.
Investigators
used ballistic evidence to connect the shootings.
A person of interest in a series of homicides in Stockton, California and Chicago.
Stockton Police Department via Twitter
Most of the victims were Latino
, although authorities have said they found no evidence that the killings were due to race.
Three victims were homeless.
McFadden said at a press conference on Oct. 4 that there was no evidence to support a racist hate motive.
"We don't have any witnesses who said that this person said anything like that, or that he even spoke," he said.
On Saturday, the boss did not speak about a possible motivation.
Rather, he credited
Stockton residents with calling authorities
and helping his task force find the suspect's Stockton residence and then follow him as he drove.
[Two New Cases Linked to Stockton, California Serial Homicides]
"We kept our eyes on his residence until he became mobile," McFadden said.
“We identified that he posed a threat.”
The police chief said the suspect has a criminal record, details of which McFadden did not disclose, and that he
lives near one of the homicides.
The arrest was made on the northern edge of town, near a community center that houses a police substation, and
not far from a high school
named after the late Central Valley union leader Cesar Chavez.
"Why did they destroy my life?"
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A Stockton police SWAT team later searched the suspect's residence, described as an apartment, McFadden said.
The findings were not disclosed.
Police later posted a photograph of a 9mm pistol on the agency's Facebook page.
It's the gun McFadden said his officers found in the suspect's vehicle.
District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar said formal charges will be announced Tuesday.
"Don't come to our house to enforce this reign of terror," she said.
McFadden stressed that the investigation into the killings was ongoing and that
police still need information from the public.
[Details of the serial murders causing shock in California. Three victims are Latino]
The victims have been identified as Paul Alexander Yaw, 35;
Salvador Debudey, Jr., 43;
Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez, 21;
Juan Cruz, 52;
Lawrence Lopez Sr., 54;
Juan Vasquez Serrano, 39;
and an unidentified 46-year-old black woman who survived.
Serrano is believed to have been the first victim.
She was fatally shot just before 4:20 a.m. on April 10, 2021, in Oakland, police said.
Another shooting occurred days later on April 16 and involved the unidentified woman.
She told authorities that she was in her store and came out around 3:20 am, she advanced on a man who was creating a ruckus and was immediately shot.
The two new victims linked to the possible California serial killer died in 2021
Oct. 4, 202200:23
The woman described the killer as being 5 feet 10 inches tall and wearing dark clothing and a dark mask, police said.
Yaw was killed July 8 at a park in Stockton, said his mother, Greta Bogrow.
Bogrow, who lives in Texas.
She said that she has distanced herself from Yaw, who had been homeless for about five years.
The next shooting took place on August 11.
According to police, Debudey was shot around 9:49 p.m. in a parking lot.
Officers attempted lifesaving measures, but he died at the scene, police said.
About three weeks later, on August 30, Rodríguez was shot in his vehicle outside his apartment complex, the station reported.
The last two shootings occurred within days of each other on Sept. 21 when Cruz was killed, and Sept. 27 when Lopez was shot to death just before 2 a.m. in the 900 block of Porter Avenue.
The killings have spooked the city of more than 322,000 people in the Central Valley, about 80 miles east of San Francisco.