Suspected Serial Killer in California

BY MAGGIE OLIVE KLEIN
KONKLIFE STAFF WRITER AND EDITOR 

Five recent shooting deaths in Stockton, and one in Oakland last year, are believed to be connected, according to kcra News. While the Stockton Police Department searches for the perpetrator(s), we are learning of the victims’ identities: 35-year-old Paul Alexander Yaw, 43-year-old Salvador William Debudey Jr., 22-year-old Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez, 52-year-old Juan Cruz, and 52-year-old Lorenzo Lopez. Authorities announced that the five men in the City of Stockton were ambushed and shot to death alone in the dark in recent months. Some victims were homeless, and some were not. All the Stockton cases took place within a radius of a few square miles between July 8th and September 27th. None of the victims were robbed or beaten, and none of the victims seemed to have known each other. As of right now, the motive for the slayings is unknown, but police believe this person or persons is on a mission dating back to last year. It is unclear if anyone is being targeted, but five victims were Hispanic men. 

Kcra News also reported the only known survivor of the shootings- a woman that biked to an encampment at Park and Union streets in Stockton, where she was shot on April 16th, 2021, at around 3:30 am. “The woman was by a tent when she saw a man, dressed in all dark clothing, wearing a dark face mask and a dark jacket. She said the man was anywhere between 5 foot 10 inches to 6 foot 2 inches.” The woman told police that there was no conversation between the two, and that she had tried to defend herself by advancing toward him but was hit multiple times by gunfire. 

There is a $125,000 reward for information leading to an arrest. There are already hundreds of tips coming to police daily. Police released a blurry image of a “person of interest” dressed in all black and wearing a black cap, who appeared in videos from several of the homicide crime scenes in Stockton, according to The Guardian. 

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