By
The Associated Press
The Northern California serial-murder suspect has been charged with four other crimes this week, bringing his death toll to seven since April 2021, authorities said.
Earlier this year, murders terrorized the Central Valley city of Stockton as police searched for a man dressed in black who appeared to be “on a mission” hunting down victims to shoot in ambushes.
He, too, was linked to the violence in Alameda County.
Three of the four slayings listed in Tuesday's court documents have already been disclosed by authorities — who previously said they had linked the suspect, Wesley Brownlee, to the killings of six men and the wounding of a woman — but had not filed charges.
The fourth case announced this week, a crime committed in April 2021, bringing the total number of murders to seven, had not been revealed before.
The family of one of the victims of the California serial killer is afraid
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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 respond to a request for comment.
At first,
Brownlee was charged only with the deaths of three victims in Stockton
: Jonathan Rodríguez Hernández, 21, who died on August 30;
Juan Cruz, 52, who died on September 21;
and Lawrence López Sr., 54, murdered on September 27.
[Stockton serial murder suspect used a ghost gun for his crimes, authorities say]
The amended indictment, filed Tuesday, charges him with the July 8 deaths of Paul Yaw, 35;
and Salvador Debudey Jr., 43, on Aug. 11 in Stockton;
as well as the shooting murders of Juan Vásquez Serrano, 39, and Mervin Harmon, which occurred on April 10 and 16, 2021, respectively, in Alameda County.
He will also be charged with attempted murder after shooting Natasha LaTour, 46, on April 16, 2021.
"Why did they destroy my life?"
She speaks to the mother of a California serial killer victim
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Harmon had not been publicly linked to Brownlee and no further details about his death have been released.
The suspect, previously convicted of drug offences, allegedly
used an unregistered “ghost gun” to commit some of the murders
, police said after his arrest in October.
In January 1999, Brownlee was 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 released on parole in August 1999, after serving seven months in prison.
He was indicted again in Alameda County in December 2001 and he was sentenced to three years for the same offense.
He was paroled in May 2003 and released three years later.