Federal agents join manhunt for serial killer in deadly Stockton shootings

Federal agents have joined the hunt for a serial killer who Stockton police said has gunned down at least six people and wounded another in a city gripped by the slayings.

Stockton leaders in a Wednesday community town hall said FBI and Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents are among those now part of the growing effort to find the killer or killers, according to news reports, as a reward in the deadly shootings has swelled to $125,000.

The ATF earlier this week added $25,000 to the reward fund that hopes to coax information and unlock clues into the shootings.

Six people have so far been gunned down in the deadly string — five in Stockton, and one in Oakland — stretching back to 2021. All are tied, police now say, to a single weapon.

“This person is on a mission,” Stockton Police Chief Stanley McFadden said at a Tuesday news conference. McFadden said ballistics tests confirmed that the gun that nearly took a Stockton homeless woman’s life more than a year ago “interconnect these cases.”

Natasha Latour, the woman who survived the gunman, told Stockton community website 209 Times this week of the moment she was shot 10 times in an April 2021 attack at downtown Stockton train tracks by the gunman police now link to the killings that have gripped the city.

Latour was camped along the tracks at Park and Union streets about 3:30 a.m. April 16, 2021, when she was shot as a train passed by.

“The train started to come toward me, then a man came around the corner — they already had the gun out — and they just started shooting,” Latour told 209 Times. Latour said she heard the sound of gravel underfoot before the shooting started.

“No words were exchanged. I just saw flashes,” she said in the interview. Latour said she ran closer to the street before the gunman squatted in a firing pose and opened fire again. “I fell to the ground. I felt wet and didn’t know why I was wet. I just wanted to sleep. I was dying,” she told 209 Times.

Latour said her assailant wore dark-colored pants, an open-hooded sweatshirt and a perfectly fitted COVID-19 mask over his face. “He looked like the Unabomber,” she said, a reference to Ted Kaczynski, the hooded serial bomber who terrorized Sacramento and the nation for more than a decade in a string of random explosives attacks before his capture in 1996.

Latour’s description hews closely to that of the shadowy “person of interest” in a video released by Stockton law enforcement this week.

The person, described as 5-foot-10 to 6 feet, dressed in dark clothing and donning a black cap, is seen walking with an even stride and upright posture in the grainy image.

“He’s someone we want to talk to,” Stockton police chief McFadden said Tuesday.

Anyone with information is asked to call Stockton Police Department’s tip line at 209-937-8167; or email policetips@stocktonca.gov.

Call Stockton Crime Stoppers with anonymous tips at 209-946-0600 or StocktonCrimeStoppers.org.