Wesley Brownlee is charged with a series of shootings in Oakland and Stockton, California, between April 2021 and September 2022. Police said ballistics evidence linked the shootings, in which several men died and a woman was wounded. He was arrested in Stockton before dawn on October 15, 2022, and charged three days later. A grand jury indicted him in November 2025 on six counts of murder and one of attempted murder. He has pleaded not guilty. He has not been tried, and he is presumed innocent.
His case has been slowed by a question that comes before any trial of guilt: whether he is mentally competent to stand trial. His lawyers say he has stopped speaking to them, to prosecutors and to the doctors appointed to examine him. Prosecutors say he is choosing not to talk. In September 2026 a jury in Stockton began hearing evidence on that question alone, and in October it found him competent to stand trial.
Brownlee grew up in Oakland. An Associated Press report published two days after his arrest said he grew up about six blocks from where the Oakland victim was later killed. United Press International reported that in the mid-1990s, when he was a teenager, his brother and two close friends were killed on the same block in East Oakland, his hometown, and that his legal troubles began around then.
According to the Associated Press, he was arrested in Alameda County at 15 on an allegation of selling crack cocaine and was placed on house arrest. At 18, in 1997, he was arrested for possessing crack cocaine and received three years of probation, which was revoked a year later after he sold cocaine to an undercover officer. In January 1999 he was sentenced in Alameda County to two years in prison for possessing and selling a controlled substance; he was sent to San Quentin and paroled in August 1999. In December 2001 he was convicted again in Alameda County of a drug-sale offense and sentenced to three years. He was paroled in May 2003 and discharged from parole in May 2006, according to state corrections records cited by Bay City News. The AP said his record also included traffic violations. These drug convictions are the basis of the charges that he possessed a gun and ammunition as a person with a felony conviction.
Prosecutors later sought his school records from the Oakland and Stockton school districts. In January 2023 a judge allowed records from when he was 13, covering 1992 to 1999, to be produced in discovery.
By 2022 he was working as a commercial truck driver. The then district attorney, Tori Verber Salazar, said he had lived mostly in the Bay Area and moved to Stockton that summer, where he had family. Stocktonia reported that his employment records had been subpoenaed from a building supply company.
His mother told the competency jury in September 2026 that he had been a quiet child, and that at 29 he was hallucinating and believed someone was after him. In an application for Social Security disability benefits she had described his understanding as "less than zero," Stocktonia reported.
The earliest shooting in the charges took place in Oakland on April 10, 2021. Juan Vasquez Serrano, 39, was shot dead at about 4:15 a.m., according to the Alameda County coroner's bureau as quoted by the AP. Later reports named him as Juan Alexander Vasquez; a 2025 Stocktonia report said he had formerly been listed as Juan Miguel Vasquez Serrano.
On April 16, 2021, Mervin Harmon was shot dead in Oakland in the early morning. His death was not publicly linked to the Stockton shootings until December 2022, when prosecutors added it to the charges. Harmon was a father of three, an uncle and a brother. His nephew told CBS Sacramento in January 2023 that he had been a "friend to everyone," and that the family was in shock to learn that the man accused of shooting him was the man accused in Stockton.
At about 3:20 a.m. that same day, April 16, 2021, a woman of 46 was shot and wounded in Stockton. Prosecutors allege that Brownlee shot Harmon in Oakland and the woman in Stockton hours apart on the same day. She survived. She later described the attacker as a man of unknown race, five feet ten to six feet tall, of thin build, in a dark hooded sweatshirt with the hood up, dark pants and an all-black face mask. She said no words were spoken. "Didn't come any closer. Didn't say anything. Just started shooting," she told CBS Sacramento.
Stocktonia reported in December 2022 that Stockton police did not conduct a follow-up investigation of her shooting in 2021. A police spokesman, Joseph Silva, confirmed to the news site that he and Chief Stanley McFadden had apologized to her privately in October 2022, shortly before a vigil at City Hall, because a follow-up had not been done. She said she believed the apology was sincere but that she was still angry. "It's clear to me there are people that are dead because they (police) didn't reach out," she told Stocktonia.
After the April 2021 shootings, more than a year passed before the next shooting that police later linked to the series. Chief McFadden said in October 2022, before any arrest, that he had "absolutely no answer as to why that pistol went dormant for over 400 days."
Five men were then shot dead in Stockton between July 8 and September 27, 2022. Authorities said they were alone, in the dark, within a few square miles of one another. Police said none was robbed or beaten, that the men did not appear to know one another, and that they did not believe the shootings were tied to gangs or drugs.
Paul Yaw, 35, was killed just after midnight on July 8, 2022. Members of his family attended Brownlee's court hearing in November 2022.
Salvador Debudey Jr., 43, was killed shortly before 10 p.m. on August 11, 2022.
Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez, 21, was killed at about 6:40 a.m. on August 30, 2022. He was the youngest of the men who died.
Juan Carlos Carranza-Cruz, reported as 52 and named in several early reports as Juan Cruz, was killed at about 4:27 a.m. on September 21, 2022.
Lawrence Lopez Sr., 54, was shot shortly before 2 a.m. on September 27, 2022. His family also knew him as Lorenzo. His brother told a Sacramento television station that he "was just a person who was out here at the wrong place, at the wrong time, at the wrong circumstance." His mother told a vigil in October 2022, "He was a wonderful person, he would have given his shirt off his back to anybody." His nieces said the family had learned of his death from a note left on their grandmother's door.
Police said four of the seven people shot were Hispanic.
On September 30, 2022, three days after Lopez's death, Stockton police announced that the 2022 killings appeared to be linked. "It definitely meets the definition of a serial killer," Officer Joseph Silva said. In early October police said ballistics tests and video tied two more cases to the series: the April 2021 death in Oakland and the April 2021 wounding of the woman in Stockton. Police would not confirm that one gun was used in all seven shootings, but McFadden referred to a single pistol.
"We don't know what the motive is," McFadden said. "This person's on a mission." On October 4 police released surveillance video of a person of interest, filmed from behind, and asked the public to look at the person's "distinctive, upright posture and uneven stride." McFadden said police had no evidence directly linking anyone to the crimes beyond the ballistics reports. Police said there might be more than one person involved.
The city manager, Harry Black, said the reward for information leading to an arrest had risen to $125,000, including $25,000 from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The district attorney said she was comparing evidence with agencies across the country to see whether there were further victims, and police said they were receiving hundreds of tips a day.
Tips from the public led police to Brownlee's home, according to CBS Sacramento. The AP reported that investigators watched his residence and studied his movements. UPI reported that he was under surveillance for about a week. At about 2 a.m. on Saturday, October 15, 2022, after officers saw him drive away from his home, they stopped him in Stockton. Police said he was dressed in black, had a black mask around his neck, and had a handgun.
At a news conference that day, McFadden named him as Wesley Brownlee, 43, of Stockton. He said Brownlee had been "out hunting" and that "we are sure we stopped another killing." Police said they had concluded from his movements that he was about to strike again.
Investigators said ballistics tests and video linked the crimes. UPI reported that detectives had also used cellphone data. Court filings later described the gun found with him as an unserialized "ghost gun," and police said he allegedly used an unregistered "ghost gun" in at least some of the shootings. A CBS Sacramento report said it was unclear whether the gun found on him was the one used in the shootings. The ATF said all the shootings were connected through ballistic evidence.
At news conferences, the Stockton police and the district attorney's office said they were certain Brownlee was responsible. His defense would later object to those statements.
Brownlee first appeared in San Joaquin County Superior Court on October 18, 2022. He was charged with three counts of murder, in the deaths of Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez, Juan Carlos Carranza-Cruz and Lawrence Lopez Sr., with firearm allegations, and with possession of a firearm and of ammunition by a felon. He was held without bail. Verber Salazar said the multiple-murder special circumstance made the case eligible for the death penalty, and the judge told him that if convicted the minimum sentence would be life without parole and the maximum death.
"We believe we have the person responsible," Verber Salazar said. She said charges were based only on the evidence processed so far and that more were likely: "There are two more murder victims and an attempted murder." The case was expected to be tried in San Joaquin County, a spokeswoman for her office said. A deputy district attorney, Elton Grau, said prosecutors in Texas, Arizona, Illinois and Florida had contacted the office about similar cases.
On October 19, 2022, sixty small candles were lit on the steps of Stockton City Hall in memory of the men who had died. Mayor Kevin Lincoln thanked the families "for your courage and your strength during this very difficult and challenging season." The police chief, the district attorney elect, Ron Freitas, and Sheriff Patrick Withrow also spoke. The surviving woman had attended the arraignment the day before and said she was angry that no charge had yet been filed over her shooting.
His public defender, Allison Nobert, asked the court for a protective order to stop officials from discussing the case in public. She argued that statements by McFadden and Verber Salazar, who had described him as "on a mission to kill" and his behavior as "hunting," would make a fair trial difficult. She said she was not trying to keep the press out of court, but to stop officials from sharing information that she said would not withstand scrutiny.
Judge Xapuri Villapudua denied the request on October 25, 2022. She said some of the officials' comments were concerning but found no "reasonable likelihood" that the coverage would prevent a fair trial or an impartial jury. She noted that the trial was a year or more away, said her ruling did not condone "inflammatory statements," and urged both sides to take care in speaking to the media.
At a hearing on November 14, 2022, Brownlee appeared in a red jumpsuit, which CapRadio reported denotes a high security risk. He did not enter a plea. The judge received employment records subpoenaed from a former employer and records related to the April 2021 shooting of the woman. His family attended, as did the surviving woman and relatives of Paul Yaw.
On December 27, 2022, the district attorney's office filed an amended complaint adding four murder charges and one attempted murder charge. The new murder counts covered Juan Vasquez Serrano and Mervin Harmon, both shot in Alameda County, and Paul Yaw and Salvador Debudey Jr. in Stockton. The attempted murder count covered the April 2021 shooting of the woman in Stockton. The Harmon case had not been publicly linked to Brownlee before. "We only file charges we feel we can prove beyond a reasonable doubt," the office said, and it named the agencies on the case as the Stockton and Oakland police, the FBI and the district attorneys of San Joaquin and Alameda counties.
On January 3, 2023, Brownlee returned to court in a red jumpsuit with his head bowed. Nobert asked for an eye exam for her client, who said he had trouble reading papers put before him, and moved to quash subpoenas for his school and work records. At a hearing on January 17 the judge allowed school records from 1992 to 1999 and employment records, including GPS and time logs, saying this was discovery and the documents might never be introduced. Prosecutors said he never turned to look at the victims' relatives in the courtroom.
Brownlee pleaded not guilty to all charges, Stocktonia reported in 2025. In 2023 the defense asked the court to bar prosecutors from seeking the death penalty; Judge Villapudua denied the motion. He was held without bail in the San Joaquin County Jail.
In late 2024 Nobert filed a declaration of doubt about his competence to stand trial. At a hearing in April 2025 the judge reviewed psychiatric evaluations without reaching a decision. The defense said he had refused to communicate with his own lawyers, with prosecutors and with the mental health evaluators assigned to examine him. His lawyers at the competency stage were Nobert and John Philipsborn.
Stocktonia's 2025 report listed the people named in the case as Paul Alexander Yaw, 35; Salvador William Debudey Jr., 43; Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez, 21; Juan Cruz; and Lorenzo Lopez in Stockton, and Juan Alexander Vasquez and Mervin Harmon in Alameda County, and said one person had survived and was considered a key witness. Investigators had not disclosed a motive.
In November 2025, after about six weeks of evidence, a San Joaquin County grand jury indicted Brownlee on six counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, CBS Sacramento reported. Stocktonia reported that the indictment also charged him with one count each of possessing a gun and ammunition, based on a felony drug conviction from about a decade earlier. An indictment lets prosecutors bypass a preliminary hearing.
The district attorney by then was Ron Freitas. He said the indictment would speed up a case that he believed had dragged on too long. Prosecutors told CBS Sacramento that they believed Brownlee was responsible for a seventh homicide but that it was still under investigation and had been left out. Stocktonia reported that the Oakland homicide first linked to Brownlee in December 2022 was not included in the indictment, which Freitas acknowledged. Brownlee did not enter a plea when the indictment was announced; he had previously pleaded not guilty.
Freitas said there would be separate trials on Brownlee's competence, on his guilt or innocence, and on any punishment. In November 2025 the case was paused while his competence was determined. In a memo that month Nobert asked for pretrial disclosures from the prosecution to challenge the indictment, including an inquiry under the California Racial Justice Act, a 2020 law that lets defendants gather evidence on whether racial bias affected their cases.
On January 26, 2026, Freitas announced at a news conference that his office would seek the death penalty, saying it intended "to ask for the harshest penalty possible." California has not carried out an execution since 2006, and Governor Gavin Newsom ordered a moratorium on executions in 2019, so any death sentence would not be carried out while the moratorium stands. Nobert did not respond to Stocktonia's requests for comment.
Freitas also said that month that Brownlee's silence would not stop the case. He argued that Brownlee's choices were his own, and that prosecutors would show he was competent and that the case should proceed.
In early March 2026 Nobert told the court that her client's refusal to communicate impaired her ability to represent him. Later that month, on a Monday, Judge Villapudua denied the defense objections and rejected its demurrer, which had asked her to dismiss the indictment on legal grounds, the district attorney's office reported. She also ordered the grand jury transcripts unsealed, making the evidence and testimony behind the indictment public. Stocktonia described the charges at that point as covering crimes in Stockton and Oakland and reported that no trial date had been set.
Stocktonia reported on July 30, 2026, that a San Joaquin County Superior Court judge had set jury proceedings on competency to begin on August 25, 2026. The surviving woman attended the latest hearing that month and said she believed the case was "going in the right direction" after years of waiting.
The competency jury does not decide whether Brownlee committed any crime. It decides only whether he is mentally fit to stand trial.
Stocktonia reported on September 18, 2026, that testimony had continued that day and that opening statements had been given the previous Friday. Grau presented the prosecution's case that Brownlee can communicate and appears to understand what is said to him. The defense argued that he is mentally unfit and has stopped talking to his lawyers and to medical professionals.
His mother was the first witness. She described him as a quiet child and testified about his mental health in his late twenties. Prosecutors then played recordings of phone calls and some in-person visits between Brownlee and his younger brother, covering the period from his arrest in 2022 to April 2026. Some calls ran for more than 20 minutes. The brothers talked about sports, childhood memories and family birthdays. On one call, after the amended complaint was filed, his brother told him that four more murder charges had been added, and Brownlee answered, "Wow." In a call of January 19, 2023, Brownlee said he had not called sooner because he did not want to stress his family. The last recording, from April 2026, ended with him asking his brother to tell a son that he loved him and to stay focused on school.
His brother testified that Brownlee never told him he did not understand his lawyers, heard voices or could not speak. He also said that Brownlee had become "rail thin" and withdrawn over about four years in the county jail, that the two had stopped talking for much of 2024 and 2025, and that they had not spoken since April 2026.
A clinical and forensic psychologist, Christy Trombley, testified that she had received a defense file of almost 200 pages, including arrest videos, police reports, school records and family accounts. She had not finished her testimony when court adjourned that week, and the defense said she would return. The jury had not yet reached a decision.
The jury found him competent to stand trial; prosecutors announced the finding on Wednesday, October 28, 2026, CBS News Sacramento reported, and the case was set to return to court on November 2. He has not been tried on the murder, attempted murder or weapons charges and has not been convicted of any offense in this case. Freitas has said there will be separate trials on his competence, on guilt or innocence, and on any punishment.
All of these shootings are allegations. No court has found that Brownlee shot anyone.
The number of deaths attributed to the series has varied with each stage of the case. Police said at his arrest that he was suspected of shooting seven people and killing six. The amended complaint of December 2022 charged seven murders. The November 2025 indictment charged six, and the district attorney said a further death was still under investigation and that the Oakland homicide first linked in December 2022 had been left out. Some news reports and photo captions in the same period gave different totals.
Police and prosecutors have not said in public how all the cases were linked. Police said ballistics, video, tips and, according to UPI, cellphone data led them to Brownlee. Stocktonia reported in January 2023 that prosecutors had tied the first three charged shootings to him through ballistics but had not said how they linked the others. Police would not confirm in 2022 that one gun was used in all seven shootings.
No motive has been made public. Before the arrest, police said the victims did not appear to know one another and that the shootings did not appear to be robberies or related to gangs or drugs.
Prosecutors told reporters in October 2022 that agencies in four other states had contacted them about similar cases.
The victims' names and ages appear in different forms in different reports. Juan Vasquez Serrano has also been reported as Juan Alexander Vasquez and Juan Miguel Vasquez Serrano. Juan Carlos Carranza-Cruz appears in many reports as Juan Cruz. Lawrence Lopez Sr. has also been reported as Lorenzo Lopez, and as 54 or 52. The surviving woman's age has been given as 46, 47 and 48.
1997: At 18, arrested in Alameda County for possessing crack cocaine; placed on probation, revoked a year later.
January 1999: Sentenced in Alameda County to two years for a drug offense; paroled August 1999.
December 2001: Convicted again in Alameda County of a drug-sale offense; three years; paroled May 2003; discharged May 2006.
April 10, 2021: Juan Vasquez Serrano shot dead in Oakland.
April 16, 2021: Mervin Harmon shot dead in Oakland; the same day a woman, 46, shot and wounded in Stockton (prosecutors allege the two shootings were hours apart).
July 8, 2022: Paul Yaw, 35, shot dead in Stockton.
August 11, 2022: Salvador Debudey Jr., 43, shot dead in Stockton.
August 30, 2022: Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez, 21, shot dead in Stockton.
September 21, 2022: Juan Carlos Carranza-Cruz shot dead in Stockton.
September 27, 2022: Lawrence Lopez Sr., 54, shot dead in Stockton.
September 30, 2022: Stockton police announce that the 2022 shootings appear linked.
October 4, 2022: Police link the April 2021 Oakland death and Stockton wounding; release surveillance video; reward $125,000.
October 15, 2022: Brownlee arrested in Stockton about 2 a.m.
October 18, 2022: Charged with three murders and two weapons counts; held without bail.
October 19, 2022: Vigil at Stockton City Hall.
October 25, 2022: Judge Villapudua denies the defense request for a gag order.
December 27, 2022: Amended complaint adds four murder counts and one attempted murder count, including Mervin Harmon.
January 2023: Hearings on subpoenas for school and work records.
2023: Defense motion to bar the death penalty denied.
Late 2024: Defense files a declaration of doubt about his competence.
April 2025: Judge reviews psychiatric evaluations; no decision.
November 2025: Grand jury indictment on six murder counts, one attempted murder count, and gun and ammunition counts; case paused for competency.
January 26, 2026: District attorney announces he will seek the death penalty.
March 2026: Judge denies the defense demurrer and objections; orders grand jury transcripts unsealed.
July 2026: Competency jury proceedings set to begin August 25, 2026.
September 2026: Competency trial under way; jail call recordings played (Stocktonia, September 18, 2026).
October 28, 2026: Prosecutors announce that the jury has found him competent to stand trial.