Suspect is arrested in series of killings in Stockton, California, police say

After a painstaking investigation into a series of connected fatal shootings across California’s Central Valley, authorities said Saturday that they had arrested a man in connection with the killings that had rattled Stockton and nearby communities.

The man, Wesley Brownlee, 43, was arrested in Stockton early Saturday while he was “out hunting” for another victim, Stanley McFadden, chief of the Stockton Police Department, said at a news conference. Charges were pending, authorities said.

The arrest came nearly two weeks after the police said that five victims, all men between the ages of 21 and 54, had been fatally shot while alone in dimly lit areas at night or in the early morning between July 8 and Sept. 27. Four of the men were Hispanic; one was white. None of the men was robbed.

The police later said that they had also linked those cases to two additional shootings: A 40-year-old Hispanic man who was killed in Oakland, California, about 70 miles west of Stockton, on April 10; and a 46-year-old Black woman who was shot in Stockton on April 16 and survived her injuries.

McFadden said on Oct. 4 that the authorities believed they were dealing with a “potential serial killer” after investigators connected the killings through ballistics and video footage.

Investigators interviewed the woman who survived and learned that she had been in her tent when she heard someone walking around her campsite. When she stepped outside, she saw someone wearing dark clothes and a mask pointing a gun at her, McFadden said.

She rushed toward the gunman and was shot multiple times, McFadden said, before the man lowered his gun.

The killings had spread anxiety among residents in Stockton, a city of about 322,000 people that has long struggled with poverty and violence.