ALAMEDA, Calif. — A sheriff’s deputy was taken into custody Wednesday after authorities said he fatally shot a married couple, prompting a manhunt across suburban Northern California and a nearly hourlong phone conversation that ended with his surrender, officials said.
Devin Williams Jr., 24, is accused of shooting the woman, 42, and her husband, 58, with his service weapon inside their home early Wednesday in Dublin, roughly 25 miles southeast of Oakland, Alameda County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Lt. Ray Kelly told reporters.
The deputy was off duty at the time of the shooting.
Williams, who had worked in the courthouse division of the sheriff’s office for a year, had not yet been booked when authorities announced his surrender, Kelly said.
“Our agency is in shock,” Kelly said. “This is not something we deal with. This is not what we’re about. We had no idea that this could happen.”
Kelly added that “some significant things” happened in the deputy’s life in the recent months that appeared to have prompted an “emotional crisis.”
“A lot of those events went undiscovered and undisclosed,” Kelly said.
Kelly said there was “connectivity” between Williams and the couple, who have not been identified, though he did not provide additional details.
Williams worked a courthouse shift Tuesday, as well as an overtime shift at a county jail until 11 p.m., Kelly said. It wasn’t clear when or how Williams allegedly entered the Dublin home, he said.
Six people were in the home when gunfire was reported to authorities around 12:45 a.m., Kelly said. Among them was an out-of-town relative who became a key eyewitness in the shooting, Kelly said.
The couple were pronounced dead at the scene, the Dublin Police Department said in a news release. No one else was injured.
Williams allegedly fled the scene in a Volkswagen, Kelly said. Highway patrol officers took him into custody roughly 160 miles away, near the city of Coalinga, minutes before authorities announced his surrender during an 11:30 a.m. news conference, Kelly said.
Williams turned himself in after a 45-minute phone conversation with Dublin Police Chief Garrett Holmes, who used crisis intervention techniques to peacefully resolve the incident, Kelly said.
Before starting at the sheriff’s office, Williams worked in the state’s Central Valley for the Stockton Police Department. A spokesman for the department, Joe Silva, said he was employed for one year, between Jan. 16, 2020, and Jan. 19, 2021.
Silva declined to discuss Williams’ “separation” with the department, saying it was a personnel matter.
Kelly said the sheriff’s office conducted a thorough background check before hiring Williams and found that it was “immaculate.”
In the year since Williams was hired, no disciplinary or other issues were reported, Kelly said, adding that he’d done a “very good job.”
He “was really a remarkable young person,” Kelly said. “How we got here today — it will be part of our investigation and something we’ll be looking at as a law enforcement profession.”
It wasn’t immediately clear if Williams has a lawyer to speak on his behalf.