Bay Area sheriff’s deputy wanted in double homicide turns himself in

A rookie Bay Area sheriff’s deputy wanted in connection with a double homicide turned himself in Wednesday, authorities said.

According to a statement from local authorities, witnesses told police that Alameda County sheriff’s Deputy Devin Williams Jr. gunned down a man and a woman Wednesday morning inside a home in Dublin, a city roughly 25 miles east of Oakland.

Nearly 12 hours after the shooting, Dublin Police Chief Garrett Holmes announced that Williams, 24, had called police and said during a 45-minute phone call that he wanted to surrender.

The California Highway Patrol arrested Williams near Coalinga in Fresno County, about 160 miles south of Alameda County. Detectives from Alameda County are traveling to the Central Valley to retrieve Williams.

“It’s a great loss for for our community. It’s even more disheartening to find out it was one of our own who was actually the trigger person behind this incident,” Holmes said.

Alameda County sheriff’s Lt. Ray Kelly said Williams may have used his service weapon and thrown it out of his vehicle’s window while traveling south. On Wednesday afternoon, police were searching the Altamont Pass, the main mountain crossing from Dublin and the East Bay to Interstate 5 in the Central Valley.

“I think there are a lot of questions to be answered,” Kelly said at a news conference Wednesday. “This is a tragedy. We’re all in shock here.”

Holmes said law enforcement was able to get Williams to surrender less than 10 minutes before the start of the news conference.

Kelly also listened on the phone call with a crisis police officer and said Williams was “disturbed” and “in an emotional crisis.”

“I think it was phenomenal work to get him to surrender,” Kelly said.

The Alameda County district attorney’s office will handle the case, Kelly said. Williams worked out of the courthouse division in Oakland, and last worked Tuesday afternoon.

Williams knew the victims, who were described only as a 42-year-old woman and a 58-year-old man, Kelly said.

There were six people in the home during the shooting, including a child who was related to the victims, according to Kelly. Two other people in the home witnessed the shootings and described the gunman and a dark-colored vehicle to a 911 dispatcher.

Police discovered the bodies around 12:45 a.m.

Williams has been a deputy for less than a year and was off duty at the time of the shooting, Kelly said.

He briefly worked for the Stockton Police Department, but did not complete the police academy after failing officer field training, according to Kelly, who said the issues that kept him from completing the training were more about his abilities and skills than his conduct.

The Alameda County Sheriff’s Department conducted a background check, including a psychological exam, before hiring Williams, Kelly said.

“We’re going to go back in time,” Kelly said. “We’re going to look at what’s transpired in his life over the last year to see what exactly led up to this moment.”