In a quiet Berkeley Hills neighborhood on Sunday morning, a wierd sense of calm had descended on a pair of streets the place, only a day prior, two ladies and a person have been stabbed, one fatally.
Owners walked their canine across the block. A household with young children performed within the entrance yard. An older lady watered her crops. On the floor, it was a morning like many others within the wooded enclave just some blocks from Tilden Park. However for residents who knew the lady who died and her household, issues felt removed from regular.
“I simply don’t perceive how this might ever occur,” stated Mardi Sicular, the sufferer’s nextdoor neighbor on Overlook Street. “We’re simply completely devastated. It’s so last.”
Reserving data present Berkeley police have an individual in custody recognized as Jonah Jeremiah Roper, an unemployed 36-year-old man. Roper, who has an in depth felony report, is going through expenses of tried homicide, elder abuse, automobile theft, and youngster abuse. Police as of Sunday afternoon nonetheless had not formally recognized Roper because the assailant.
In accordance with neighbors, the occasions started on Overlook Street, the place a person acquired right into a wrestle with two residents of a home — an grownup man and an grownup lady. Within the preliminary 911 name, at 12:33 p.m., the incident was described as a household disturbance. The suspect’s relationship to the residents of the home had not been recognized publicly by police as of Sunday.
The person proceeded to fatally stab the lady, then chase the person who lived in the home down the block to Middlefield Street. There, the fleeing man encountered a gaggle of individuals strolling their canine. The group then retreated into a close-by home to name the police. It was in that home that the second lady — one of many walkers and an obvious bystander — was stabbed.
Lisa Snow, a resident on Middlefield Street, stated the suspect proceeded to steal the automobile from the proprietor of the home the place the second stabbing occurred.
Officers undertook a automobile pursuit that ended at Gilman and Ninth streets in Berkeley, the place the suspect was taken into custody.
When officers arrived at Overlook Street, the positioning of the primary stabbing, they discovered a feminine stabbing sufferer who was pronounced lifeless. In accordance with Sicular, the coroner’s truck got here to retrieve the physique of the lady at roughly 6 p.m. on Saturday.
Jessica Perry, a public info officer with the Berkeley Police Division, stated the male sufferer was handled on the scene for stab wounds, whereas the second feminine sufferer was taken to a hospital. She has since been launched from the hospital and is in secure situation.
“It’s simply tragic. Somebody misplaced their life,” stated Snow, standing exterior her home Sunday morning.
An arraignment for Roper has been scheduled for Wednesday morning on the Wiley Manuel Courthouse in Oakland.