The Stockton Serial Murders pt 1.

In part one of our two part series on the Stockon Serial Murders we discuss the leadup to the announcement by Stockton PD of a possible serial killer in October 2022, the victims and the beginning of the investigation into the alleged perpetrator.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Darkcast Network The light shines Brightest onour indie podcasts. In October twenty and
twenty two, police Chief Stanley McFaddenin Stockton, California announced to the public
that he believed five murders, allof which happened on different dates and at
different times, were connected as theywere committed by the same person or persons.

(00:21):
Quickly, the media began to callthe probable perpetrator the Stockton serial killer.
Shortly after this announcement, two morecrimes would be connected to this unknown
suspect, an attempted murder in Stocktonand another murder in Oakland, California.
With the police, a task forceand the community dedicated to finding the perpetrator,
on October fifteenth, Chief McFadden announcedthat they had a suspect in custody.

(00:46):
In this episode of California True Crime, we cover the crimes in the
lead up to the arrest of thealleged Stockton serial killer. Welcome to this

(01:27):
episode of California True Crime with meto talk about this case our Sean and
Charles. How are you guys doinggood? Yes? Doing well? Tonight?
We were actually meant to be recordinganother case, one of Sean's cases.
But last month all of this stuffstarted happening in Stockton, and so
we kind of switched gears and havingworking on this episode ever since. This

(01:51):
was really big news in Stockton andaround the world, really got picked up
and covered everywhere. So we decidedto cover this one because at the time
there was already a lot of informationand a lot of misinformation as well as
this is a place that Charles andI lived in for a very long time.
We lived in Stockton for many,many years, and while a lot
of the world thinks of Stockton askind of one way, most of the

(02:14):
news you hear if you don't livein that area is about crime or murders.
It's still a place, you know, our friends and family live in.
It's a place we live in.It's much more than just a city
known for crime. So we wantedthe chance to talk about it as a
real place and hopefully also give listenerssome insight into the town and the areas
where these murders occurred. We gotinformation for this episode from all sorts of

(02:38):
local news sources, the Record whichis in Stockton, k CR, which
is a local station, and manymany more places, as well as we
also went to a local community meetingourselves at the time. So we'll have
a list of all of our sourceson the page for this episode, and
we'll note when we can where weget where we got some of that information.
Fund because so many journalists have incovering in this case, and they

(03:00):
obviously deserve credit for all of theinterviews and work they've been doing. So
since this was an episode that westarted back when this was just an unsolved
crime and it's more since then,and also because we've never covered a case
as it was happening, our episodeis kind of split up into three different
parts. This first part, we'regonna be talking about Stockton and the things

(03:22):
that were happening in the lead upto them announcing that there was a serial
killer and sort of some of thestuff the community was going through. And
then we're gonna be talking about thecrimes and the victims, and then finally
on the arrest that's been made andwhat's been going on since. Just to
give people an understanding of how thisepisode is laid out, So first things
first, on Saturday, October first, twenty and twenty two, it was

(03:46):
announced to the public that the StocktonPolice department had determined that five murders in
Stockton had been connected as crimes,possibly committed by the same person or persons.
This came after a lot of speculationfrom the public that perhaps a single
individual had been committing some of themurders in Stockton, California, And in
fact, one of the hot topicshas been the amount of murders this year

(04:09):
in that area. As October fifth, twenty twenty two, there had already
been forty three murders committed in Stockton, which was an increase from last year
when the total for that year wasthirty two. So people were and are
very concerned about that murder rate,but they were also kind of noticing that
some of the murders didn't seem tofall in what you might see from year

(04:30):
to year in Stockton. The weekprior to this announcement by the chief of
Police in Stockton, so that wouldbe on October first, the chief of
police, the same chief of Police, Stanley McFadden, had held a press
conference where he answered questions about violenceand crime in the city, but was
also asked about the possibility that amultiple murderer was murdering people. During that

(04:51):
press conference, he specifically said thatthey thought it was a possibility that some
of the murders were connected or committedby the same person or persons, but
that police didn't have concrete information thatthat was the case. He seemed to
choose his words and that press conferencevery carefully, but it was clearly something
that it seemed like they were lookinginto, they had considered or were considering,

(05:13):
but it wasn't also something they couldtell you for sure in that moment
was happening. And I think,as we've seen in many of our episodes,
police have multiple reasons why they mightwant to keep certain evidence to themselves
or maybe not scare the community withouthard evidence. And it really reminded me
of some of the episodes we've hadwere it seemed like that certainly could be
a possibility, but detectives kept theirminds open. During that press conference,

(05:36):
he also noted that several of thecrimes people were linking in their minds that
they had kind of a pattern.They had happened at night when people were
alone, and the late hours orthe very early morning hours. He urged
everyone to be vigilant and safe andnot to be out alone if possible.
According to the Stockton record. Thepolice had been considering the possibility that there

(05:58):
was a pattern to some of themurders in Stockton since August twenty twenty two,
but again, they weren't entirely sure. They said that they didn't have
a lot of evidence connecting those cases, and they think they just really didn't
want to. You know, you'rerelying on tips. You don't want to
give wrong information and stifle any ofthe cases that you're working on. So
I think they're being very careful aboutwhat they said. We now know that

(06:20):
the Stockton Police Department had put togetherin that time period a group to look
at certain murders, and on Septembertwenty eighth, they really suppressed really saying
as much. Using statistics, theyisolated crimes that didn't fall into what would
be usual or expected as possibly connected, but they needed evidence. In Stockton
during the year, you might see, unfortunately, a lot of gang murders

(06:43):
or crime organization type murders, andthey're looking at these statistics and seeing something
really really different. The main thingsthat connected the crimes is something that I've
already said, but that they happenedat night or early in the morning.
They all seemed to occur when avictim was alone. There were no witnesses
that had come forward. None ofthe murders included any other crimes like robbery.

(07:04):
All of the victims were murdered witha gun, and most of the
crimes did not happen in places withsurveillance cameras or other surrounding cameras, So
for the most part, they didn'tcatch the perpetrator at that time on someone's
tape or video, and it sortof appeared as if someone knew what they
were doing. You could read intothat that they hadn't been caught on a

(07:24):
camera as possibly being prepared. Andlike I said, it wasn't just police.
People in Stockton were starting to feelas if things were different with some
of the crimes. The Stockton Recordtalked to people around that time, especially
those that work with the unhoused community, and they noted that people were more
afraid. They had felt like theviolence they were seeing happen in Stockton was

(07:46):
different, that maybe it was targetingthem. This is important because it will
turn out that several of the victimswere unhoused, so there was a fear
amongst people living in the streets.Even though someone hadn't yet publicly connected those
crimes. As Stockton is, youknow, it's a city. I don't
really think if it is a bigcity, but it really is. And
just like a lot of big cities, it's also a very political place.

(08:07):
It has a lot of things happening, and you know, fairly a lot
of gossip spreading, and people arescared, so they're looking for answers.
I think that's, you know,just how it is nowadays. I remember
where I used to live, therewas two women found like a week apart
on the same stretch of road andthey were just kind of off on the

(08:30):
road, and everyone just started speculatingbecause it didn't seem to happen a lot.
And you know, after a whilethey found out it was one of
them wasn't even a murderer, andit was not connected at all. But
as you start, you know,talking and putting it together, and you
as you're like always thinking about it, you know, you kind of try
to make your own stories, soyou just never know, and when other

(08:52):
people are talking about it too,it can really start to build in snowball
on what people are thinking about.Well, when we're talking about the time
and we've we've talked a lot aboutin previous episodes, but it's social media.
It's before we wouldn't necessarily hear aboutthese things until it was reported in
a newspaper, you'd see it onthe nightly news. And now with Twitter

(09:16):
and Facebook and Instagram and any anythingthat gets reported then gets amplified in our
own social media feeds and echo chambers. That it's it's faster to spread that
way, and more room for conjecturebecause everybody's adding their own two sense to
it. And I think in acity like Stockton, where you have so
many people, not just police,but organizations, local people working to stop

(09:41):
prime from happening, working to makeneighborhoods safer, working to better the city,
there's always a lot of conversation aroundthe violence that's happening because so many
people are working to do something aboutit. And when you're looking at us,
you know this year it's not outof the norm necessarily when you look
at long more more years what you'regoing to talk about in a second,

(10:01):
but you know when you're seeing kindof something a little statistic continue to rise
this year, this is already somethingthat is on people's minds in that area
something they're talking about all of thetime, and you've alluded to it a
couple of times, but I thinkit's a good point to say it now
that Stockton does when we've said it, Stockton gets has kind of a bad
reputation, but as two people whoreally do claim it as kind of a

(10:26):
second hometown. What people often don'tsee if you're not from there or have
lived there, or really are payingattention to kind of to buying the scenes,
is that they're like you just said, there is a lot of organizations,
both from inside the government but alsocivic organizations, volunteer organizations, faith
based religious organizations, community outreach,all of these different kinds of things that

(10:50):
are all working and trying to combatthat the violence as well as build community.
So it's it's I think it's doublytragic when this happens in a in
a place like this that's already strugglingwith a lot of things. And like
you said, it's it's not someof us don't consider it a big city,
but you know, it's it's overthree hundred and twenty thousand, I

(11:13):
think three hundred and twenty two thousandpeople. It's one of the larger cities
are in this section of central California, and it is geographically a place too.
It's you know, kind of situatedclose to Sacramento, but not too
close. It's you know, it'skind of in between two larger cities,
with Medesto on one side and Sacramentoon the other. So it does it's

(11:35):
an interesting place, you know,socio economically as well as politically. On
September twenty eighth, so this isthe same day, the police said they
were investigating connections between several cases.A statement began circulating through social media.
The post on social media and Ithink there were Instagram and Facebook said that
the statement was from Stockton City councilorKimberly Wormsley, and it quoted her saying,

(12:00):
quote, be careful tomorrow, We'rehaving a press conference. There's a
serial killer in Stockton. They aretargeting women and men who are by themselves.
So far, seven shootings serial killerwhereas all black and a mask,
etc. Connected to Bay Area andin around Stockton. Killings have occurred between
eleven pm and seven am. Investigationis ongoing. Please be safe and spread

(12:24):
the word to family and friends.Immediately as that started to spread around Kimberly
Wormsley said she didn't say this andit wasn't from her, and the post
actually mispelled her name. It wasflagged by Instagram as false news and misinformation,
and polit effect also did a deepdive and looked into this and said
that, you know, there wasno evidence that she was behind this statement

(12:46):
or had ever said in anything.Did they figure out who it was at
all? It didn't say who,They didn't pin it on anybody in particular,
and it being social media, itspread pretty quickly. Right on October
first, twenty twenty two, localsource of information and sometimes a controversial one
called The two O nine Times putout a video on Facebook. Their owner

(13:09):
warned people that they had a sourcethat they didn't name, but someone in
the police station, telling them thatthey had evidence that the murders were connected.
And this was kind of first thingI saw about the Stockton serial killer.
And Sean's going to tell us alittle bit about that video. Yeah.
For me, I was having acouple friends text me asking, oh,

(13:31):
do you know about this? AndI'm they kept sending me the two
O nine Times, so I'm like, well, I don't see it anywhere
else yet, so I'm gonna wait. You know, that's just how I
am. I try to find I'lldefinitely look at local or not like main
news sources, but at the sametime, just like anything else, you
kind of want your sources backed up. And then this video came out that

(13:54):
they showed and they you know,they gave a lot of information, and
then they said they couldn't give wherethey got information. And then they said
one thing that was interesting was talkingabout that one of the murders happened by
a school, So I don't thatseemed like a little bit of fear to
put that out there in there,but to not say where the information came

(14:15):
from. But they put that out, and I still thought, okay,
and you know, just like whatthe police, I think the police had
their statement before saying be safe outthere, and he was making sure.
The owner of the two or ninetimes was saying, I want all my
friends and listeners to be safe outthere, and you know, that's a
good statement. But yeah, Istill was waiting for at least another press

(14:37):
conference or something of another news sourceto put it out. But yeah,
the video, it was like almostfour minutes and he just spoke about what
was going on and there was aconnection. And early on a lot of
people were talking about three separate incidentsin Stockton, and I saw them kind
of allude to these in that videothat Sean's talking about. These were incidents

(15:00):
where people were shot in their cars. There wasn't much information on those cases
in the Stockton Record. They haddone an article talking about them, not
connecting them, but just saying,you know, these three things happened in
Stockton. I think there were onewith two people in a car, and
the other two incidents had a singleindividuals, but they were all shot in
a car. There wasn't anybody,according to the newspaper, connected to those

(15:22):
things, and it just seemed kindof odd. So there was this idea
that there might be multiple incidents ofmurder in Stockton connected, but they were
kind of all over the place ofa people were speculating. If that makes
sense. I understand what you're saying, because I've been down every Zodiac rabbit
hole site where they have. Youknow, there's so many people that they

(15:43):
think is Zodiac from just linking littlesometimes just insane random things. So it's
it's interesting, like I was sayingearlier about how people when something different happens
and you start putting it together,you think it's connected. In my head,
when those other things happened in myold hometown, I thought they were

(16:07):
connected for sure, you know,I put it in my own head that
way. So I think it's interestingtoo, because when you're researching the individual
cases, you'll see a lot ofother ones pop up and the newspaper doesn't
cover. And we talked about thisbefore in depth into every murder case,
and so there'll be a couple ofdetails, and so they'll sound like they're
all very similar, but you don'thave the information the police do. You

(16:30):
don't know what other things they mightknow about that case that you don't know,
and they're not followed up on bythe press. So you just have
those two pieces of information that theywere, you know, in a similar
location, with a similar means ofmurder, and they start to look like
they could all be connected. Right. So the next day, on October
two, we woke up to thepolice chief saying that they were looking for

(16:52):
a person of interest in a seriesof five killings they believed could possibly be
connected. The five murders did notinclude the murder of people in their vehicles,
but five murders that had occurred inNorth Stockton between July and September of
this year. They also at thattime released a black and white photo of
a person of interest. We'll havethat on our website as well as any
other information that we can put togetherfor this case. And all of the

(17:18):
five murders they believed were connected followeda pattern. They again, they had
happened in the dark. They hadhappened in places that were hidden from view
or cut off from cameras, someof them near very busy roads, but
in places where you wouldn't easily seewhat was happening, places that were not
lit. They were murders committed witha gun. Nothing at the scenes,
were taken or robbed, and allthe victims were believed to be alone.

(17:41):
All five victims were also male,several of them were unhoused, and several
were also Hispanic. Police made itclear they didn't have a motive for these
crimes, so people shouldn't necessarily feelthat they were being targeted. But again,
it was very important for you tobe with people, not be by
yourself, not be out late,if pable, you know, staying areas
that are lit, that kind ofthing. They also made it clear during

(18:04):
that press conference that they didn't knowif it was a single individual who was
committing these crimes, or you know, several people working together, or if
that person they had the picture ofwas just a person of interest, possibly
witness. And they were very carefulto, I think, be moderate with
their words to you know, say, we're looking into this, it's something
we should all be aware of,but you know, we're also still putting

(18:26):
evidence together, right And I thinka great example of when you can really
screw up by telling too much isDiane Feinstein giving the shoeprint out of the
night stalker in San Francisco. Ithink it was when he was in San
Francisco and then those shoes. He'dtossed those shoes right away. So when

(18:47):
you get like things like that,you know, you want to make sure
how you actually say your words,especially the law enforcement and stuff like that,
so you're not tipping your hand ofto the the actual murder or of
what's going on. Yeah, onehundred percent. And I think also,
you know, you're trying to makesure you get maximum tips, so you

(19:07):
don't want to make people think thatsomething they may have seen doesn't matter now
because you know it was committed bya single person or something like that.
So I think it's a very It'sa difficult you know, how much information
to get to give to the public. You don't want people freaking out,
but you also want people to besafe. I don't know how they decide
that, but it's a slippery slope. Yeah, definitely. Very quickly,

(19:30):
two more crimes were added to thefive original that police connected, and this
not only increased the area which theybelieve the perpetrator or perpetrators were killing,
but also the dates. The crimesadded were an attempted murder in Stockton in
twenty twenty one and a murder inOakland, California, in twenty twenty one.
Well, there hasn't been a lotof information released about part evidence they

(19:53):
specifically have in these cases. Theyhave said that they believe the murders are
connected based on bullet matching and footagenear or around the crime scenes. We
do not know at this time whichmurders or which crimes have footage and which
ones don't, and were that personof interest was caught on camera, but
they did allude that that same personof interest was conon camera at least a

(20:15):
couple of times, so it wouldbe very unlikely that they weren't somehow involved.
The FBI also became involved. They'rekeeping a certain amount of that information
to themselves. But like you said, Sean, telling the public is the
same as telling the perpetrator or perpetrators, so they might change what they're doing.
They might get rid of evidence,making it more difficult to bring them
to justice. Hi, this isMolly and Cody, the host of Over

(20:44):
the Fence true crime podcasts. Pleasejoin us as we talk about true crime
in the most normal place in theworld, over the Fence, to be
specific, over our backyard fence.We're both moms of humans and of dogs.
We live directly next door to eachother and share many conversations about life
and family, but mostly true crimeover our backyard fence, and we invite
you to come learn more about truecrime and well us. We give a
lot of attention to California true crime, but I've ventured throughout the US and

(21:08):
even across the Pond and plan tocontinue our world domination in the near future.
Listen to us wherever you listen toyour podcasts, or give us a
follow on Instagram at over the FenceUnderscore podcast. So grab a drink and
talk with us over the fence.So let's go through each murder or attempted

(21:32):
murder that they have publicly said couldbe connected and learn a little more about
the crimes, the victims, andwhere they happened. In Stockton, the
first crime that they currently believe maybe connected, and maybe the very first,
which is in Oakland. On Apriltenth, two twenty one, at
about four to eighteen am, acouple named John and Sherry Smith were awakened

(21:55):
by the sound of two gunshots inthe Seminary neighborhood of Oakland, California.
Police recalled, and when they gotto the corner of fifty seventh Street and
Harmon Avenue, they found Juan MiguelVasquez Serrano on the ground near a telephone
pool. He was shot. Paramedicstried to give Serrano CPR, but ultimately
he died. In the East BayTimes, in the initial article, it

(22:18):
says he had been shot and policebelieved he may have gotten into an argument
with someone before the shooting. Serranowas thirty nine years old and unhoused at
the time of his death. Hehad been living in this neighborhood for about
eight months, and he was verywell known to the people living in that
same neighborhood. He was often seenriding his bike around and he was well
liked and sounded like an established figurein that area, where he would fix

(22:41):
on cars for people. There weretimes when he would work on someone's car
and to someone in neighborhood would lethim sleep in the car just to thank
him for all the trouble of fixingit up. The Smiths not only heard
gunshots that morning, but they alsoknew Serrano and they had actually had him
work on their nineteen seventy three buick. John Smith described him as quote he

(23:03):
was cool, real humble. TheSmiths have also reported that after the murder,
a woman and a young girl cameto the area to talk with neighbors.
They identified themselves as Serrano's wife anddaughter and said they were searching for
answers in his death. While Serranoand his wife were strange, they told
the Smith that they loved him verymuch and they wanted to know what happened
to him. The area that Serranowas murdered is an older neighborhood and very

(23:27):
residential. Many of the homes inthe area were built in the nineteen forties,
while that corner of fifty seventh inHarmon Avenue are still residential. They're
also in an area with freeways ontwo sides, which is not unheard of
when it comes to big cities.It's about one point four miles to Interstate
five eighty and less than a mileto California Freeway one eighty five, which

(23:48):
could connect to other parts of Oakland, to places like San Leandrow and to
the Interstate six eighty, which alsoconnects across the Bay to the Bay Area.
It's also less than a mile fromMacArthur Ovar that's a major road in
Oakland. It connects to both freeways, and you could just take it to
all sorts of other places in Oaklandand around the area. And the reason

(24:08):
I just kind of list these roadsis because you could take them to be
anywhere in California, the Bay Area, you know, down to Sacramento to
La They're just they connect to somany other places that they're big. You
know, you're even though you're ina residential area, do you have these
really huge roads, which I supposeit is common for cities, but well,
it's it's something to think about,especially when we talk about crimes in

(24:30):
California, is the idea that especiallysomething that might on the surface look random,
that it's It can be hard tosets out something that's connected because of
the fact that you could commit acrime and then within two minutes beyond a
main thoroughfare and be tens of milesor hundreds of miles away and relatively short

(24:53):
order. This neighborhood in Oakland isalso a place where shootings happen off The
Seminary neighborhood is an area often referredto as part of a quote kill zone
in Oakland because of the amount ofgun violence. In fact, in a
Daily Beast article, Cherry Smith,who knew Serrano, referred to gun violence
in the area as quote the norm. I think it's really important to keep

(25:15):
saying throughout the episode because we aretalking about two places, Oakland and Stockton,
where people I think associate with gunviolence. There is a lot of
gun violence, but they're also neighborhoodslike like this couple live there and you
know, they know the people aroundthem, and they're just you know,
raising their families and going to work. They're not just places that are unsafe

(25:37):
well, it's two cities in Californiathat both have a historic view maybe from
the outside of how they are,but both communities struggling with gun violence,
but also both of them are workingtogether within the city, both Stockton and
Oakland to help prepare that and combatthat, not only combat the violence,
but also combat that image, youknow, revitalization projects, celebrating what those

(26:03):
cities have to offer, and havingspent way more time in Stockton than Oakland,
but even in these last post pandemicand pre pandemic, having had a
chance to go and spend some timein Oakland, Like it's they're great cities.
You know, they have a lotto offer, and so you know,
yeah, we're reporting on these terriblecrimes, but it is important to

(26:26):
remember that they are They are morethan the some of their parts, right,
and those other crimes are just asimportant that these ones that they get
solved. Right. According to investigators, they were able to link Serrano's murders
to those in Stockton using ballistics andseeing the same person of interest on security
cameras in the area. I believethat's one of the commonalities. If there

(26:48):
is more evidence, it hasn't beenreleased, but that's to be expected in
an investigation of this kind. Thenext known crime, and the only one
currently known to involve a victim who'slived, occurred in Stockton on April sixteenth,
twenty and twenty one, at threethirty am. This is six days
from Serranto's murder in Oakland. Onthat early morning, it was around forty

(27:10):
four degrees fahrenheit according to the weatherUnderground website, and still about three hours
from the sun rising. Natasha LaTour was unhoused and staying in a tent
on the corner of Park Street andUnion Street. This area is an industrial
area and it is a place inStockton not too far from what's considered kind
of the older downtown area of thecity. There are movie theaters, restaurants,

(27:32):
It's where the courthouse is. It'swhere I had to go to jury
duty. This area around Park Streetis one with several businesses. It is
really kind of an industrial park.Like it's described. A lot of those
businesses are completely fenced in, andparticularly at night, they would also be
locked up. But there are alsoseveral empty lots, including one by train
tracks, and it is less thana mile from the train station where you

(27:55):
can catch the ace train that's calledthe Altamont Corridor Express. That train connects
Stockton with San Jose and it hasten stops along the way. So with
this train, how we were talkingabout highways like on the last one in
Oakland. With this train, isthis train running at this time that this
murder might have happened or this attemptedmurder. This attempted murder happened on a

(28:18):
Friday, and I believe the firsttrain that leaves stocked in is around four
ten am. Okay, so notexactly at that time, but pretty close
because it is a commuter train,so lots of people are using it.
Natasha Latour is a very important witnessas the only person currently known to have
survived the terrifying encounter with the suspect. On the early morning of April sixteenth,

(28:41):
Natasha was outside the tent she wasliving in at the time when she
describes a man wearing dark pants anda dark hooded sweater with a dark mask
walking towards her with an arm outstretched and a gun pointed at her.
The person, who she describes asa man, didn't say anything but began
to shoot her. It's as ifhe was standing between her and the road

(29:02):
where she needed to go in orderto get away, so she actually has
to run towards this man to getto the road, and as she was
running in that direction, he kneeledand continued shooting. She was shot nine
to ten times, but still somehowmanaged to crawl into the street and flag
down a car to ask them tocall nine one one. Ambulances and police
arrived on the scene and spoke withher. But this crime happened so quickly

(29:26):
and the person who shot her,the suspect, was fully covered. She's
also severely injured, so she didn'treally get a chance to be fully interviewed
in that moment. She gave policewhat little information she had and then she's
taken to the hospital. She wokeup four days later in the hospital and
spent a total of twelve days there. While she was there, she reported

(29:48):
that not a single police officer cameto interview her or take a statement about
the crime that had happened to her, and she also felt that the way
they spoke with her was just kindof like they didn't really believe her.
They felt like she holding information backand she had to actually reach out to
them. She gave an interview tothe two or nine times. We will
link that. It's on Facebook's We'lltry and link that if we can,

(30:10):
because it's really interesting to hear whathappened in her own words, and as
you can imagine, she's very upsetthat no one seemed to care about this
horrific crime on its own, andalso because now it's possibly connected to all
of these other crimes, and shefeels like if she had been able to
talk with them, maybe at somepoint they could have found this person or
stopped this before more people would havebeen murdered. Yeah, it's it's a

(30:33):
terrible situation where, first off,the one was shot nine or ten times.
It's amazing that she was only spenttwelve days in the hospital, so
to be to be a victim ofthat heinous crime, and then to turn
around and feel like you're being victimizedall over again by police, I can

(30:55):
understand why, you know, heroutrage and rightly so. Yeah, she
feels that the police were dismissive becauseshe was unhoused at the time, and
she was also suffering from jaback addictions, so that she was she felt she
was really being treated like this hadto do with that second class of the
sen it's not a priority crime toget solved. Yeah. She contacted the

(31:17):
Stockton Police Department in May and adetective was assigned to her case, she
says in June twenty and twenty one, so this would just be a couple
of months after she suffered this attemptedmurder. A detective told her that the
gun during her attack was linked toa murder in Oakland. The next known
or belief connected murder happened on Julyeighth, twenty and twenty two, so

(31:40):
this is a little over a fullyear later. Paul Yaw, who was
thirty five years old, was walkingin Holiday Park in Stockton and at approximately
twelve thirty am was murdered with agun. This area is residential. Holiday
Park sits right behind Saint Mary's CatholicHigh School. The high school was very
large, and it's behind the highschool. It's these tennis courts and baseball

(32:00):
and stotball fields, and then thispark is connected right at the back and
I don't even think there's a streetbetween the park and the school. So
on one side of the park isthe school and then all round the other
three areas of the Park are allresidential homes. According to KCRA, which
is an established news channel in thisarea, it covers the whole San Joaquin

(32:22):
Sacramento Medesto region. He was murderedon the fifty six hundred block of Kermit
Lane. This would be on thenorth side of the park. And all
of these crimes will be very closeto main streets. In Stockton. We
live in a small city which basicallytwo main streets, so we take a
lot of backstreet residential areas to getfrom one place to another. When we

(32:44):
lived in Stockton, we generally usefive or six main streets to get everywhere,
just because it was so much faster. So all of these areas are
really close to well traveled areas.So the main point to this is that
all of these murders happened in residentialareas, but they're all just a hop,
skip and a jump to streets thatwould lead you anywhere else in Stockton,

(33:06):
often to freeways that are on bothsides of Stockton. And again for
somebody who who knows the area ofStockton, which we know this when we
talk about who the suspect is,it makes sense well that these are the
roads that are easier to get awayfrom it, so we won't go over
each road, but we will havemaps up on our website for people who
are interested. So those areas,those streets are pretty typically pretty busy,

(33:30):
I think, even early in themorning. So this park is about a
mile from them. It's about amile from places like the Sherwood Mall,
which is a big two part mallin Stockton, and several other shopping centers
like a Target, also Delta College, which is a junior college in Stockton,
and again it would just a quicktrip to the Interstate five or the
ninety nine, which we've talked toboth about both those things and how connected

(33:52):
they are to the rest of California. At the time of his murder,
y'all was on house and that nightat twelve thirty am, neighbors of Holiday
Park her shots ring out. Anambulance took him to the hospital, but
he passed away. Paul y'all's motherlives in Texas. She lost another child
when they were a baby, andthis was her only living son. Y'all

(34:13):
was also a father himself and haslots of family members who want to find
answers and hold whoever committed this crimeresponsible. His mother spoke to a couple
of media outlets she hadn't seen Yawmany years, and importantly, like I
said, she wants justice for him. But one of the things that you'll
see, because a lot of thevictims' families have been interviewed, is how
hard it's been for them with allthe media attention. Some people don't want

(34:36):
to be on camera or have theirrelationships kind of displayed for everybody to discuss
and GoF about and think about,but they still want to speak for their
loved ones who aren't here to speakanymore. Well, I'm hard because some
of these victims have had have complicatedrelationships with their family, So on top
of dealing with the grief of losingyour loved one to violence, now you're

(34:59):
having to display all of the otherhard or uncomfortable truths about your relationship with
that person in a public sphere.Also, I think when you have a
tragedy like this, when you're dealingwith it, you want to talk on
your own terms, and I don'tthink media. The media doesn't really give
you that space because they want theirstory now. So it's they're kind of

(35:23):
hounding a lot. And I canunderstand the frustration, and yeah, it's
not it's not their you know,a newspaper or new digency's trying to get
almost not quite a soundbyite. It'ssomething that would fit conveniently in a two
minute piece on the nightly news orin a one column article. But you
know, as we've seen with thesevictims, it's you can't encapsulate what's what

(35:46):
their life is entailed in that Andlike you said, John, I agree
with you too. That's you don'twant to process your feelings are your grief.
You need to do that on yourown. And then to have a
microphone. And we've say again,we've talked about that quite a bit.
Yeah, I mean, like,look at those those old pictures of every
news station in the world on StevenStainer's lawn, like and I bet they

(36:07):
didn't call every single one of thosepeople and say hey, I'd like to
talk to you now. So theyjust showed up. And that's that's the
hard part right there. Yeah,it's been interesting to watch it, this
current case because so much, likeyou could said, so much attention has
come to it. And we actuallywent to a we'll talk about it a
little bit of meeting where there area lot of press, and I've seen
a lot of local press that Caseyr. A and the Record be really

(36:30):
vigilant in treating those people with respects. But I think just the fact that
you feel like you probably have totalk to them in a way because you
mean, who wouldn't want to speakfor their family member. But you can't
control what people say on social mediaor the ideas they jump to, and
it's just it's hard to watch peopleto go through this, and there's so
many people in Stockton affected by thesecrimes. Yeah, I will say for

(36:53):
the most part, our local mediaand by Sarah, our local also in
northern California local media. For someof those reputable news sources, like you
know, Casey r A being oneof them, the big TV station,
the Stockton Record obviously, even evensay the Sacramento b you know, another
big they have been characteristically cognizant ofthe community of trying to highlight the victims

(37:17):
and not put so many salacious detailsor kind of you know, so many
times we've talked about focusing too muchattention on the perpetrator and not on the
victim. And I think in thistime it's starting to see some of that
change of like, no, they'reputting the focus on the victims. Unfortunately,
sometimes that comes with the intrusiveness oftrying to talk to some of these

(37:37):
people and their worst day possible.I think that'll be interesting to see because
we're watching it play out live andtalking about it live. In five years,
when this becomes the Stockton serial killerstory, right, will we will
those names still be pronounced, Yeah, as prominently as they are right now.
So it's just it's just an observationand to look at in the future.

(38:00):
Yeah, I think that's any timeto go back and look at see
him. Those maybe gets varnished awaywith time. Right. One of the
other things I want to bring upthat Y'aw's mother said her name was Greta
Bagro, and I just this quotewas really interesting and I think very important.
She said that she felt police werequote working way harder than they would

(38:22):
have been if it was just ahomeless person that was killed. And I
think that's such a I mean,that's just horrifying to think. But in
a lot of ways, these caseshappened and before everyone knew they were connected,
they didn't get very much attention.Right. She also described her son
as kind and someone who'd stand upfor others. The next murder happened on

(38:43):
August eleventh, twenty twenty two,so a little over a month after Yaw's
murder. Salvador Dubide Junior was inthe parking lot of a Popeye's restaurant when
he was shot at nine forty ninepm. People in the area heard the
gunshots and they called nine on one. Life saving measures were performed by first
responders, but Dubide died. Hewas forty three years old and a native

(39:05):
of Stockton. He went to FranklinHigh School. In the prior month or
so, Dubida had gone to Popeyeseveral times on the night in question.
His wife was unsure why he wasthere, if it was to eat,
or maybe he was there to meetsomeone. This Popeyees is located at four
nine six six West Lane, Andthis is one of those busy streets I
was talking about in Stockton, andit's very close to another busy street,

(39:28):
March Lane. On one side ofthe Popeyes is an apartment complex and on
the other side is the Starbucks andthen also a shopping center across the street
from Popeye. So across West Laneas I said, this a busy road
has several lanes going in each direction. It's a little more empty, some
empty fields, things like that.And on August eleventh, when this happened,
that was a Thursday, and Popeyeswas opened that day until ten thirty

(39:51):
pm. The restaurant itself sits veryclose to the front of the property with
its drive through kind of sneaking aroundthe back, and it has its own
parking lot, but it also sitsin front of a very As you go
all the way to the back,there's kind of an empty lot. So
I do not know where this crimehappened in that area near Popeyes, but
we'll have a pick soel you cansee all those different aspects of where it's

(40:14):
saying. The lot that it isis kind of interesting. There's a few
empty buildings there is there is arelatively busy Starbucks, there's a drug store.
There's a half a dozen kind ofrestaurants and or other businesses. But
there's kind of a large back lotthat's open behind it and dark, yeah,
dark, any lights or anything backI think that's because there's been plenty

(40:35):
of times you know that we've frequentedthis, not only this Popeyes. But
this this this area, and someof the lights are off. You know,
there's the back area that's kind ofbehind Popeyes is really dark. There's
no lights. But there's a thatnext to where the apartment complex is.
Its overgrown trees and and things likethat that kind of shadow some of the

(40:57):
parking structures because I can see somebodylaying wait there. But it's it's still
shocking that it's that close to West. Yeah. And I think also the
time ninety nine pm, August eleventh, that would be like one of those
it's still pretty light outside up untilthat point, not light outside at that
time, but the sun hadn't gonedown too much before it. And like

(41:21):
another thing looking at a map,there is other businesses around, and how
a lot of times you hear itwas a fireworks or a gunshot that they're
loud. So to be that earlyin the day and be in such a
busy area, that's a very blatantthat's very risky. Yeah, I will

(41:43):
say this though, and I'm surebecause I know you you lived in big
cities as well, there's a lotof that noise that you tend to,
you know, become ear blind toa little bit right debutes why described him
as a wonderful person. They hadknown each other since high school. When
they met. She gave an interviewto k Cira and she didn't want to

(42:06):
be put on camera because she wasafraid. She didn't specifically say what she
was afraid of, but I thinkit does speak to again loved ones in
Stockton. He has a lot offamily in Stockton and the general feeling of
fear going on there and then alsothe Kurd. It's taking people to still
give interviews, to still talk,to give out their names, to delve
into their lives in the hopes thatsomeone who knows something will just come forward

(42:28):
at that time. According to thek Cira article, his wife said that
Debude was also un housed at thetime of this crime. I mean he
also had a child. The fifthvictim was also murdered, and that happened
on September twenty first on the eighthundred block of East Hammer Lane. Camera
Lane is another very busy street inStockton, one that connects to the West

(42:52):
Lane that we were just talking about. At six forty one am, police
received calls of a shooting inside theparking lot of an apartment building. When
they arrived, they found Jonathan hername is Rodriguez inside his vehicle with gunshot
wounds. Rodriguez lived in the apartmentcomplex and was only twenty one years old.
He was pronounced dead at the scene. Rodriguez was born in Stockton.

(43:14):
His friends called him Johnny. Hismother spoke with K c r. A
as she set up a memorial forher son near where he was murdered.
His family was missing him desperately andthey hope, they hoped at the time
before there was an arrest, thatanyone with information would come forward. The
sixth victim is a fifty two yearold man named Wang Cruise. There isn't

(43:34):
very much known about this victim thatI could find. He was murdered at
the forty four hundred block of ManchesterAvenue. That's an area of Stockton that's
filled with apartment complexes. Most ofthe roads in that area lead to again
big roads and those connect to freeways. And the last known victim was Lorenzo
or Lawrence Lopez. He was fiftyfour years old and on September twenty seventh,

(43:59):
two thousand, twenty two, hewas killed on the nine hundred block
of Porter Avenue at one fifty nineam. Porter Avenue is a residential street.
This block also has apartment complexes.And this location is point three miles
or so from a very busy placecalled Lincoln Center that has a safeway,
a Trader Joe's, has a bunchof stores and restaurants. It's a really

(44:22):
commonplace that's busy a lot of thetime. And it's just a reminder that
I don't I don't think too muchabout the places where we would go to
to get groceries or gas or whateverit was. They're lit with tons of
people and then are surrounded by residencesthat are it's darker streets, there's not
as many street lights, that kindof thing. Yeah, when we first

(44:43):
heard about the case and started readingup on it, and you're hearing these
places and you, you know,in the back of your mind, you're
registering, oh, that's where Iwent and got popeyes, or that's where
we went and go grocery shopping,or that's where i'd you know, got
on the freeway to commute to workor whatever it was. And then you
really start looking at those places andit is kind of astounding that there was
no more footage of this person caughtor witnesses or people that could identify him

(45:09):
at least publicly known, given thefact of how many of these places are
adjacent to really really busy thoroughfares orshopping centers or places where there would be
other people at the time. Again, you know, more than half of
these are done in a really earlymorning hours, So there is that.
Yeah, And I'm wondering if youtalked about the sixth victim, Juan Cruise,

(45:31):
how there was just a lot ofapartment complexes around if that's the apartment
complex where we got the footage,that first footage of the suspect walking through
the apartment complex. And I'm notsure if because he seems to pick out
where there aren't cameras and stuff likethat. Yeah, probably on that last

(45:52):
one you talked about at two am, the safeway and stuff probably isn't.
There's probably no one in those shoppingcenters, but it is so close to
all that stuff, which would stillhave lights on and things like that,
you would think, so, yeah, there's nothing around there in that morning.
There are a couple of bars.Oh okay, bars coming like that's

(46:15):
the perfect time of everyone fallen outdrunk. But the thing is is around
there. Other than those couple ofbars, Like you said, John,
there's not a lot of places thatpeople would you know, it's not like,
oh, we stumble a out ofthe bars and then go to a
food truck or go to you know, most of that stuff is closed by
that point. But there's a lotof lights. I think the really interesting

(46:36):
thing too about some of these apartmentcomplexes, especially on the very busy streets
like Hammer and Marsh and things likethat, is that they back up to
those streets and often there will belarge brick walls along the back of them,
so to protect you from from noisesand sounds or cars, you know,
jump in the sidewalk. And soI think a lot of those places

(46:59):
wouldn't have cameras behind them, asthey different than they would in front the
apartment complex on Hammer where there wasthe murder that faces Hammer, But a
lot of there would be less camerasbecause there's just these brick walls all along
where these apartment complexes or residences areeven to protect them from all of the

(47:19):
traffic. When police arrived, theyfound Lopez on the sidewalk. He was
suffering from gunshot wounds. According tothe Stockton record. First responders performed life
saving measures, but he unfortunately died. Like all of the victims, Lopez
has a family that misses him dearly. His brother has given interviews locally with
new stations and talks about how muchhe loved him, how difficult this has

(47:39):
been for their parents. According tohis brother, Lopez didn't have a quote
consistent living situation. He also didodd jobs and collected cans and things to
make a little money. He wasa musician that often rode about Stockton and
the streets and how dangerous it wasto live there. After police announced that
they believed all of these murder andthe attempted murder were connected, they released

(48:01):
a photo of a person of interest, also a short video showing the back
of that person walking by what appearsto be apartments. As Sean previously just
said, you can't see much inthe video because the person is dressed head
to toe and all black, butit does appear the person, who is
believed to be a male, haskind of a unique gait. You can
just kind of make it out atthe end of this quick little video,

(48:22):
maybe a little bit of a limp. It's subtle, but the police noticed
it as well, and they hopedsomeone might recognize this person based on that.
After the announcement, the whole worldturned its gaze on a Stockton and
this became a very heavily covered story. And I'm reminded of what y'all's mother
said about the police working extra hardnow that this was connected to several other

(48:44):
murders, and this I think isalso true of the press. It's true
of us, and it's true ofjust people in general. These were people
who, many of them were onhouse, many of them may have had
issues they needed help with, andnow after this happened, they're finally getting
attention. So we're going to stophere after we've talked about the victims,

(49:07):
and in our next episode, we'regoing to talk about Stockton being on edge
and being in fear, and alsoan arrest that's been made. Sean has
our Cold Case for this episode.On September third, two thousand and two,
twenty one year old Patrick Joseph Garzaand twenty year old April Leanne Webber
were gunned down in a parking lotof a quick stop on Fremont Street in

(49:30):
Stockton, California. April Webber diednear a pay phone in the parking lot,
and Joseph Garza was pronounced dead atthe hospital. Police believe the two
victims were in the wrong place ata wrong time and were caught in a
crossfire of another crime. A witnessreported seeing two men jump into a vehicle
after the shots were fired and intoa dark car parked near a close veterinarian

(49:54):
clinic. Surveillance footage from the quickstop also showed two men, but their
faces were not visible. Another unsolvedhomicide that occurred nearby was linked to this
one by ballistics, and in recentyears, another piece of evidence is being
looked at. At the scene ofthe crime. In the parking lot of

(50:14):
the quick stop was a bottle ofbeer standing upright and still cold. DNA
tests were done by Stockton detectives,and while they haven't been released, a
match was found. Detectives believe themurder of Patrick Garza and April Webber are
connected to gang violence and continue tolook for their killer or killers. Garza

(50:36):
and Webber had been together for twoyears. They left behind a family and
loved ones. Garza loved to draw, listen to music, and camping trips
to Woodward Reservoir in Oakdale California.Webber left behind her mother in California and
her son from a previous relationship.If you have any information about this crime,

(50:57):
you can contact Stockton Crime Stoppers attwo O nine nine four six zero
six zero zero, or submit atip online at Stockton Crimestoppers dot com.
Thank you for listening to this episodeof California and True Crime on the Darkcast
Network. For a full list ofour sources, as well as more information
on this and all of our cases, head to our webpage at California Chuecrime

(51:21):
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(51:42):
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