A California man charged with serial killings in Northern California has been charged with four more slayings, bringing the total number of suspected deaths to seven.
Wesley Brownlee, 43, of Stockton, California, was arrested in October and charged with killing three people, after police fingered him as the serial killer who has been ambushing victims since April 2021, the Associated Press reported. Brownlee was arrested while he “was out hunting” for another victim, police said in October.
Three of the four new victims had been disclosed by authorities already, who had previously said they suspected Brownlee of the killings. Authorities initially believed Brownlee had killed six men and wounded one woman in total. Now he has been charged with seven murders.
The original three victims were Jonathan Rodriguez Hernandez, 21; Juan Cruz, 52; and Lawrence Lopez Sr., 54. The three men were killed in August and September. Now, an amended complaint charges Brownlee with the deaths of Paul Yaw, 35; Salvador Debudey Jr., 43; Juan Vasquez Serrano, 39; and Mervin Harmon. Yaw and Debudey were killed in Stockton over the summer while Serrano and Harmon were killed in Alameda County in April 2021.
In addition to the killings, Brownlee has been charged with the attempted murder of Natasha LaTour, 46.
During a news conference in October, Stockton Police Chief Stanley McFadden said police used community tips and “good old-fashioned police work” to track down Brownlee.
“Based on tips coming to the department’s Stockton Crimestoppers, were we able to zero in on a possible suspect,” McFadden said, The Daily Wire previously reported. “Our surveillance team followed this person while he was driving … watched his pattern and determined early this morning.”
“He was on a mission to kill,” McFadden added.
The police chief said officers took a man wearing dark clothes into custody around 2 a.m. after following him as he drove through parks and dark places where he would stop and look around before moving to the next location.
“He was out hunting,” McFadden said at his press conference. “We are sure we stopped another killing.”
Brownlee had a criminal history of drug and traffic violations, including a DUI, in Arizona and California.
McFadden also told CNN that Brownlee’s seven victims were “alone, often caught off guard, or maybe relaxing in a vehicle or walking alone in almost pitch darkness” when they were attacked.
He added that “Just because an arrest was made does not mean the investigation stops,” saying “this is still a very active investigation.”