Alleged Stockton serial killer Brownlee suspected in second East Bay death
STOCKTON – New murder charges announced against alleged Stockton serial shooter Wesley Brownlee revealed that he allegedly killed two people in Alameda County, according to charging documents.
The San Joaquin County District Attorney's Office announced four new murder charges for Brownlee on Tuesday, bringing the total to seven people he is accused of killing.
Brownlee is being charged for the murder of a newly named victim out of Alameda County, Mervin Harmon, who was shot on April 16, 2021. The District Attorney's Office has also filed a murder charge for the death of Juan Alexander Vasquez in Alameda County.
Both Harmon and Vasquez were fatally shot in Oakland, according to authorities.
Three of the new charges involve shooting cases in which Brownlee was suspected by Stockton police but the District Attorney's Office had yet to charge.
Additionally, prosecutors are now charging Brownlee for the alleged Stockton murders of Paul Yaw and Salvador Debudey Jr. and the attempted murder of Natasha LaTour.
Brownlee was arrested in October on suspicion of the shooting deaths of six people, all of which have now been charged. He had previously been charged for the deaths in Stockton of Jonathan Rodriguez, 21, Juan Carlos Carranza-Cruz, 52, and Lawrence Lopez, 54.
Though the District Attorney's Office has not commented on how the newest charges were linked to the case, law enforcement has connected the other shootings together through ballistic evidence.
Previously, District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar has said that her office was waiting for additional evidence to be processed before more charges could be filed.
LaTour, who survived her shooting on April 16, 2021, has been critical of the Stockton Police Department for what she says was a lack of urgency in her case, alleging that more action by investigators could have prevented more murders. Both she and Harmon were shot on the same day, roughly 15 months before the first killing in 2022, when Paul Yaw was shot in San Joaquin County.
Stockton police privately apologized to LaTour over a year after her shooting.
LaTour was also critical of the District Attorney's Office at Brownlee's first arraignment in October, saying that she was angry and annoyed that her case had not yet been charged.
Vasquez, whose death was previously suspected to have been linked to the shootings and is now confirmed to be the shooter's first known victim, was killed in Alameda County nearly one week prior, on April 10, 2021.
The San Joaquin County District Attorney's Office on Wednesday said that no further information will be released about the case until after Brownlee is arraigned on the new charges on Jan. 3.