Stockton serial killings: Police do not believe there is connection with 2018 Chicago murders
As Stockton police continue to dig for any clues that could lead to an arrest in a series of killings, investigators were looking into a possible connection in Chicago, Ill. However, Friday morning, police confirmed that Chicago police do not believe there is any apparent connection between the killings in both cities.
Previous coverage below:
Joe Silva, a spokesperson for the Stockton Police Department, said officers were working Thursday with the Chicago Police Department to see if two 2018 Chicago murders are linked to the serial killings in Stockton and Oakland. The connection? The similarity in the suspect's manner of walking in the surveillance videos in both cities.
Surveillance video released earlier in October shows a person of interest Stockton officers want to speak with because they are either a suspect or a person of interest. Stockton Police Chief Stanley McFadden said the posture of that person is unusually upright, and that people should "pay attention to the uneven stride that this person has."
Everything we know and don't know so far about the Stockton serial killings here
In Chicago, two deadly shootings happened just 36 hours apart in the West Rogers neighborhood, according to the Chicago Tribune. Investigators released surveillance video of a suspect in those homicides. The person in this video — from the Sept. 30, 2018 murder — much like the person of interest in Stockton, had an uneven stride and walked with their hands in their pockets.
Silva told KCRA 3 that the way both people walked in the surveillance videos has both police departments looking to see if they could be the same person.
Chicago police also linked a .40-caliber gun to two more shootings in connection with the West Rogers shootings, the Tribune reports. The third happened two weeks after the first two, wounding two men. The fourth happened late March 2019, and no one was injured then.
Ballistics matched all four shootings together, but police think the Rogers Park killer might have ditched the gun when there was a lot of attention following the first two slayings and that the gun might have been in the hands of another for the third and fourth shootings, according to the Tribune.
It is unknown if ballistics match the Rogers Park shootings to any of the Stockton serial killings. The seven known attacks in California were all connected through ballistics testing, but it is not clear if that means the same gun or type of ammunition was used.
Of the seven linked attacks to the serial killings, six of them were deadly. The only known survivor described the assailant as a man between 5 foot 10 inches to 6 foot 2 inches.
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The six shootings in Stockton were in the northern area of the city, and the first known attack happened April 10, 2021, in the city of Oakland. The last known attack was Sept. 27, 2022, in Stockton.
The victims were identified by police as:
- 35-year-old Paul Alexander Yaw
- 43-year-old Salvador William Debudey Jr.
- 21-year-old Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez
- 52-year-old Juan Cruz
- 52-year-old Lorenzo Lopez
Stockton's police chief said the attacks tend to have a pattern: They happen when it's dark, late at night, and when people are by themselves in badly lit areas.
The victims also appear to have been caught by surprise, he said.
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