Suspect’s ID confirmed in slayings of deputies
Two-time deportee, wife in custody in California rampage
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A man suspected of killing two deputies during a shooting rampage in Northern California was deported twice to Mexico and had a drug conviction, federal authorities said Saturday.
The suspected shooter told Sacramento County Sheriff’s investigators that he was 34-year-old Marcelo Marquez of Salt Lake City. However, his fingerprints match the biometric records of a Luis Enrique Monroy-Bracamonte in a federal database, said Virginia Kice, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman.
Monroy-Bracamonte was first removed from the country in 1997 after being convicted in Arizona for possession of narcotics for sale. Monroy-Bracamonte was arrested and repatriated to Mexico a second time in 2001, Kice said.
“The fingerprints were the basis for our request for an immigration detainer,” she said.
The detainer requests that local authorities turn him over to federal custody after his case is adjudicated so ICE can pursue his deportation, Kice said.
The suspect was being held without bail on suspicion of two counts of murder, two counts of attempted murder and two counts of carjacking.
His wife, 38-year-old Janelle Marquez Monroy, was also in custody on suspicion of attempted murder and carjacking after the attack Friday that left two deputies dead and two other victims wounded.
Investigators spent Saturday at the multiple crime scenes “trying to kind of sort through the chaos so we can methodically rebuild this,” Placer County Sheriff Ed Bonner said.
The two suspects were questioned for hours as authorities sought a motive for the shootings that began when Sacramento County sheriff’s Deputy Danny Oliver, 47, was shot in the forehead with an assault rifle at close range as he checked out a suspicious car in a motel parking lot.
The suspects have talked to investigators, Bonner said, but what sparked the shootings remained unclear.
“ ‘Why,’ I guess, will remain a question for a long time,” he said. “Why was his reaction so violent?”
It also was unclear what brought the heavily armed suspects from Utah to California, Bonner said. There were no indications they had been sought by authorities.