He answers by the name of Wesley Brownlee, a resident of Stockton (California). Except for several encounters with the uniformed men, at least four, for traffic reasons, little is known so far about this 43-year-old African American who has been detained since Saturday night as a suspected serial killer, after months of trying to discover his identity. .
Brownlee, who is scheduled to go to court today, is charged with six murders and one attempt. His behavior, however, is at the opposite pole of the serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, on everyone's lips wherever Netflix arrives for the recent series dedicated to this murderer of homosexuals.
Dahmer established a relationship with his victims, about twenty, whom he later tore apart. According to investigators, Brownlee never interacted with his "chosen ones," whom she randomly selected. He didn't say a word.
With the exception of the woman who survived, and whose statement was essential, his victims were Hispanic (except one). They were lonely people, that's why it is speculated if he went for the homeless, although his modus operandi was to act in poorly lit places, without traffic, so he could be anyone.
Hence the difficulty in discovering him. There were no direct witnesses. Although several cameras had captured the image of him at the crime scene, he was unrecognizable. This prompted local authorities to implore residents in their range to be vigilant.
The communities in which these deaths took place, practically all of them in the vicinity of the home of the arrested person, were terrified by this chain of murders. The police went door to door and visited the camps of the homeless warning them to take precautions, such as always going out accompanied at night and staying inside their houses or shelters. "Everyone is afraid," said Stanley McFadden, chief of the Stockton police (320,000 inhabitants), days before the arrest. “Do we need to pause our lives? No, but I think we need to be more alert, we need to have situational awareness,” he said.
"We are confident that we have prevented another murder," McFadden said in announcing the arrest. The detainee was dressed in black, a mask (at that time below the mouth) and was armed with a pistol, requirements that fit with the other cases. Ballistic analyzes indicated that this weapon was consistent with the one used in the other attacks.
McFadden explained that they received tips from residents of the area, "old-fashioned police work." Thus they determined "a person of interest", on whom they established a surveillance. Early Saturday morning, investigators followed him as he left his house in his car.
His behavior was similar to what they determined to be his pattern. She drove around parks, stopping and looking around and going. He was trying to spot his new prey, the police chief stressed.
The first fatality linked to him, in Oakland, the only one from outside Stockton, was Juan Vásquez Serrano, shot multiple times at four o'clock on April 10, 2021. Then came the case of the surviving woman, the April 16 last year. Around three in the morning she heard the footsteps of someone near a homeless encampment. She saw a man with a gun in his hand, who opened fire several times, injuring her. He could see that the assailant was dressed in all black, wearing a hooded sweatshirt and a mask covering his face.
The other five deceased were Paul Yaw, 35, who died on July 8 this year; Salvador Debudey Jr., 43 (Aug. 11); Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez, 21 (Aug. 30); John Cross, 52 (Sept. 21); and Lawrence Lopez Sr., 54 (Sept. 27).
Neither was robbed or beaten by their executioner, nor did they know each other. The attacks are considered "random ambushes," McFadden said. And despite the fact that five of the seven victims are of Latino origin, the police chief affirmed that they do not have the impression that they are acts of hate.
They were simply human targets.
