Stockton ‘serial killer’ potentially linked to two murders 2,000 miles away in Chicago
All of the victims were shot, and five were Hispanic men
Police officers in Stockton, California and Chicago are working together to determine whether a suspected serial killer operating on the west coast was responsible for deaths in the Windy City.
According to CBS 13 in Sacramento, police in Stockton have been speaking with Chicago investigators to probe if a connection between the killings exist.
In 2018, two men — Eliyahu Moscowitz and Douglass Watts — were killed within 36 hours of each other. Both men were shot in the head while out walking. The deaths became known as the Rodgers Park murders, and surveillance footage showing a suspect walking with a limp convinced police the individual may have killed both men.
Police in Chicago began referring to the man as the "Duck Walk Killer." The suspect in those murders is still at large.
In Stockton, police believe that may have linked six murders based on ballistic tests and surveillance videos. Each of the victims was shot, and despite the fact that some of the murders took place 70 miles apart, police think the same person may be behind the shootings.
Five of the victims were Hispanic men between the ages of 21 and 54, leaving the community worried that they may be the preferred targets of the killer.
The first known victim, Juan Vasquez Serrano, 40, was shot and killed on 10 April, 2021. Six days later a Black woman experiencing homelessness told police a man clad in black attempted to shoot her but she defended herself and escaped.
On 8 July, a white man experiencing homelessness, Paul Yaw, 35, was shot in a park in Stockton.
Since then, every month two Hispanic men have been shot and killed. In August, Salvador Debudey Jr, 43, and Jonathan Hernandez Rodriguez, 21, were both killed. In September, Juan Cruz, 52, and Lawrence Lopez Sr were shot and killed.
Surveillance footage of a suspect in the Stockton killings shows a man with a limp similar to the man Chicago police have dubbed the "Duck Walk" killer, leading both departments to suspect they may be after the same man.
Ballistics tests have found that the same gun was used in all of the murders.