After hundreds of tips, police said they found and followed Stockton's suspected serial killer as he drove and searched through dark areas Saturday, hunting for his seventh victim.
“At one point a person was in a park that may have been seen by the suspect and at that point we intervened and we truly believe we may have stopped the killing,” said Police Chief Stanley McFadden.
Wesley Brownlee was arrested in the same neighborhood, not too far from his home, dressed in black and armed with a handgun.
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“We've bounced around a lot of things but nothing has come to the surface that we can hang our head on as being this person's motive, as of right now it's clear that this person was on a mission to kill,” said McFadden. “There’s a lot of theories, there’s a lot of things we can speculate about what may have or may have not occurred, but what we know is this was a very vicious person and we're just trying to make sure we haven’t missed any cases anywhere.”
Police said they seized several items from Brownlee's home and are waiting for new ballistic test results.
Meanwhile criminal justice expert, professor Kimberly Richman, said the time frame for this arrest is really uncommon and says there're three big questions to look out for in Brownlee's arraignment Tuesday.
“What charges the DA will bring, whether any of those will be capital charges and also whether the suspect pleads guilty or not guilty, those will determine what happens after that” said Richman.
She also says Brownlee's lack of violent crime history means there might be a hearing to determine if he is competent to stand trial.
She said its unusual to see someone with low drug offender cases progress to multiple murders that have nothing to dos with drug deals.
In that case, professor Richman said a psychotic break may help explain the suspect's motivations, or at least his state of mind.
