How Police in Stockton, Calif., Caught an Alleged Serial Killer In the Act: 'He Was on a Mission to Kill'

Mar. 15, 2025

On July 8, 2022, police in Stockton, Calif., found the body of 35-year-old Paul Yaw in a park just after 12:30 a.m. He had been fatally shot.

“It was such a senseless killing,” says his mother, Greta Bogrow. “He wasn’t doing anything to anybody. He didn’t even have time to defend himself.”

A month later, on Aug. 11, Salvador Debudey Jr., 43, was fatally shot in the parking lot of a fast-food restaurant.

Three more murders followed.

Stockton Police Chief Stanley McFadden.Rich Pedroncelli/AP/Shutterstock

“He was minding his own business on the sidewalk, and this dude just shot him and left him in the gutter,” says Lopez’s ex wife Betty Gauna. “He was an amazing dad and didn’t deserve this.”

Stockton — located in California’s Central Valley — was gripped in terror as authorities announced that their belief that the slayings were the work of a serial killer who was hunting victims on the streets.

“We started seeing a different set of patterns that we are used to from our regular homicides in Stockton,” police department spokesperson Joseph Silva tells PEOPLE. “We started noticing that our victims were alone in the dark. They were out late or in the early morning hours, and these were areas that were not well lit and really didn’t have too many surveillance cameras.”

Silva says it didn’t appear that any of the victims were robbed.

“We just didn’t know what a motive was,” he says. “Just that whoever was doing this was out to kill.”

Investigators believe the killer had actually struck earlier, in 2011. They also believe they linked the murder of Juan Serrano in Oakland on April 10, 2021, to the killings; they also think the attempted murder of Natasha LaTour six days later, on April 16, in Stockton, were the work of the suspect.

On October 4, police releasedgrainy surveillance footageof a person of interest, hoping members of the community would recognize the man’s rigid posture and distinctly stiff way of walking as well as a description of the attacker. Police went out in force, under cover, knocking on doors, gathering home surveillance cameras, watching the streets and waiting for a break in the case.

Their big break came in mid-October when they began surveilling a person of interest after “a good couple of tips came in” from community members, Silva says.

“Our surveillance team followed this person while he was driving,” Stockton police chief Stanley McFadden explained at a press conference Oct. 15. “We watched his patterns and determined early this morning he was on a mission to kill.”

The suspect, say police, is 43-year-old Stockton truck driver Wesley Brownlee. The timing of his Oct. 15 arrest, police believe, likely saved a man’s life.

Juan Serrano; Paul Alexander Yaw; Salvador Debudey Jr.; Lorenzo Lopez; Natasha LaTour; Stockton Police Chief Stanley McFadden speaks during a news conference.Courtesy Analydia; CLIFFORD OTO/THE STOCKTON RECORD/USA TODAY NETWORK

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Near a city park, police say, the suspect got out of his van and walked toward a person before heading back to his vehicle. He was dressed in dark clothing and wearing a face mask around his neck, with a handgun in his waistband.

“He was out looking for a person to attack,” Silva says. “After he zeroed in on the man, we had to make a split-second decision to arrest him. We believe we prevented another homicide.”

San Joaquin County District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar says “good, old-fashioned detective work,” community involvement and tips were essential in capturing Brownlee.

Wesley Brownlee.Stockton Police Department

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“We had people out on the street who were truck drivers who were saying, ‘I’m out on the street,'” adds Salazar. “‘If I see him, I’m calling it in.’ Taxi drivers, Uber drivers, everybody was working towards it. People took time off from work, took vacation days to stay home and work on trying to solve this case.”

She adds, “That’s amazing to me because it showed that our community rallied and they said, not in our house.”

Brownlee, 43, has beenchargedwith the murders of Hernandez, Carranza- Cruz and Lopez.

source: people.com