Alameda County prosecutors filed murder and a slew of other felony charges Tuesday against a man accused of killing one person and wounding two others in a weekend stabbing spree in the Berkeley Hills.
Along with the murder charge, Jonah Jeremiah Roper, 36, faces two counts of attempted murder in attacks that left a wooded neighborhood just a few blocks from Tilden Park reeling Saturday.
Roper also faces charges of first-degree residential burglary and evading a police officer, along with numerous sentencing enhancements. He was being held without bail Tuesday evening at the Santa Rita Jail and is scheduled to be arraigned Wednesday morning in a downtown Oakland courthouse.
Authorities say the violence began midday Saturday when a man — later identified as Roper — got into a struggle with two residents of a home on Overlook Road. One woman was stabbed to death at the home, police said.
A person who called police at 12:33 p.m. described the incident as a family disturbance. Berkeley police say the attack was not “random,” though they have not revealed the suspect’s relationship to the residents of the house.
The name of the woman killed in the attack has not officially been released.
While responding to the Overlook Road home, officers learned that Roper allegedly chased a man who had been at the house to another residence in the area. There, Roper allegedly assaulted the man as well as another female victim, whom police described as a bystander.
He then fled in a vehicle that did not belong to him, leading police on a three-mile chase that ended in his arrest at Gilman and Ninth streets, authorities said.
A neighbor, Mardi Sicular, later told reporters that the woman killed was “a beautiful person, beloved, kind, generous … an angel of a neighbor.”
“We’re all devastated,” Sicular said.
Sicular said she arrived home about 15 minutes after the attack, and her son told her he heard screams and people yelling “help, help, call 911.” Sicular wasn’t sure if the scream her son initially heard came from their neighbor, but it was “a blood-curdling scream.”
Source: www.mercurynews.com