A dead man was found this morning in a ravine in the unincorporated Alameda County territory known as Cherryland, underneath some elevated BART tracks near Hayward. A neighborhood woman has surmised it may be a homeless man. more ›

A man was stabbed to death last night just before 7 p.m. in a Fifth Street homeless shelter run by the St. Vincent de Paul Society. An assailant fled the scene and remains and at large. The victim was pronounced dead at S.F. General. more ›

A 61-year-old woman was shot and killed in her Santa Rosa home Sunday afternoon, just before the Super Bowl kickoff around 2 p.m. Neighbors heard a gunshot, followed by a woman screaming, and saw a man between the ages of 35 and 40 leave the apartment at 934 Clark Street and drive off in a silver car. The motive for the killing is still unknown. more ›

A man killed in Bayview Thursday night was San Francisco's second homicide of 2012. The unidentified victim was sitting inside his car at the intersection of Jennings Street and Revere Avenue around 8:20 p.m. when someone came up to him, asked for drugs, and then was shot. more ›

74-year-old Ying Hua Wu, who is the sole suspect in the December 9th stabbing death of his 72-year-old wife Hao Mei Wu, remains in custody in the hospital this week, and his arraignment has now been delayed twice for what defense attorneys say are "medical reasons." You may recall that Ying Hua Wu stabbed himself in the neck with a knife and furthermore confronted paramedics with the same knife the night of the murder. more ›

Police were called to a home in the 1900 block of Johnston Avenue in San Jose Friday night to find two injured women, one of them fatally injured with a "machete-type weapon." The dead woman has been identified as 65-year-old Yvonne Marie Kirk, and the second woman, who was later arrested in the killing, has been identified as Sagal Mohamod Sadiq. more ›

Hao Mei Wu, the 72-year-old murder victim found unconscious in her Bernal Heights home on Friday night, appears to have been manually strangled by her husband. Police are still weighing a murder charge against 74-year-old Ying Hua Wu, her husband who was the "knife-wielding suspect" who confronted paramedics at the scene as they were trying revive Hao Mei. The husband is said to have confronted paramedics, coming at them with a knife in a threatening manner after he had stabbed himself in the neck. more ›

The "Homicide in California 2010" (pdf) report showed a significant decrease in the number of murders. Numbers say that homicides declined from 1,970 in 2009 to 1,809 in 2010. Oakland Tribune reports, "Rates of homicide, rape, robbery and aggravated assault declined across the board over the past decade. Taken together, violent crime decreased by more than 22 percent from 2001 to 2010." However, not too shockingly, most of said murders involved firearms. more ›

Ronald Stanley Bridgeforth, who may or may not have been a member of the Black Liberation Army in San Francisco — an extra-violent off-shoot of the Black Panthers — was charged along with seven other men with murdering police Sgt. John Young at Ingleside Station on Aug. 29, 1971. He was previously accused and arrested for shooting on an officer in South San Francisco in 1968, after being stopped for credit card fraud at a discount store — after which he jumped bail and remained on the lam, around the Bay Area until 1971 or so, and then disappearing to Africa and eventually returning to get a Masters Degree and living, likely under an assumed name, as a husband, father, and college counselor in an undisclosed location. more ›

As expected Gary Scott Holland, the parolee accused of murdering 46-year-old Kate Horan after posing as a utility worker to gain entry to her Russian Hill home, pled guilty to murder in Superior Court today, accepting a plea deal that could net him 50 years to life in prison. more ›

Gary Scott Holland, the 43-year-old parolee and alleged Satanist who is accused of posing as a PG&E worker to invade the Marina apartment of Kate Horan and murder her, may be sucking it up and taking a plea deal tomorrow, according to prosecutors who spoke to the Examiner. Holland pleaded not guilty a year ago to the October 29, 2010 crime, and details of the current plea bargain have not been released. more ›

The Hells Angels sure have been in the news a bunch lately, with that funeral murder and the suspect disappearing (and there was the whole mortgage fraud thing too). And now one of their ranks was killed in a pretty violent fashion on Saturday in Oakland in what appears to have been a road-rage incident. A paratransit van, whose driver may have been enraged by a group of Angels who cut him off on eastbound 580, swerved and struck one of the motorcyclists, whose body and bike became caught on the front of the van and were subsequently dragged for miles before the driver pulled over in San Leandro. more ›

Financial District / Shots Fired: A car chase that led CHP officers off the freeway and into downtown S.F. Saturday night ended with the driver crashing near the TransAmerica pyramid and subsequently firing shots at the officers. This all happened at around 11:30 p.m., and the suspect managed to flee on foot without being captured. The suspect, a black male around age 25, remains at large. [Examiner, Appeal] more ›

Gunmen open-fired, with semi-automatic weapons, shortly after a party let out Saturday night/early Sunday outside a warehouse in San Leandro, killing three people and wounding three others. The party, publicized on Facebook as a Tattoo Party for tattoo enthusiasts wanting to mingle and show off their tattoos, apparently drew hundreds to the semi-remote, industrial location. From the sound of it, the three fatalities were among three people who may have known each other: 19-year-old S.F. State student and S.F. resident Shanice Kiel, 16-year-old Lanisha Worthington, and 23-year-old Josh Alfred of Oakland. more ›

There's a manhunt straight out of the movies happening in the dense woodland around Fort Bragg, up in typically quiet Mendocino County. The other day we posted about a surveillance-camera sighting of murder suspect Aaron Bassler, and just yesterday authorities exchanged gunfire with Bassler, whom they spotted about a hundred yards away in the forest near the unincorporated town of Northspur. Bassler shot at the officers, who are Alameda County deputies, and then managed to escape deeper into the woods. It's sounding like he kind of doesn't want to be taken in alive! more ›

The manhunt continues for the fourth straight week for murder suspect Aaron Bassler, who allegedly shot and killed a Fort Bragg city councilman on August 27 in the woods outside of town. New surveillance footage shows Bassler carrying a high-caliber rifle, like the one used in the murder, and vandalizing a cabin. Bassler, whose family says he suffers from schizophrenia and is not medicated, had been living in a cabin on private land when city councilman Jere Melo and another man hiked in to investigate. Bassler shot at both men, killing Melo, while the other man escaped unharmed. more ›

The volunteer responsible for finding the remains of murdered nursing student Michelle Le on Saturday morning was the mother of a young girl who was murdered just two years ago. Carrie McGonigle of San Diego tells KRON4 that she spends time volunteering in efforts to find missing children, and she had brought along a search dog in training whom she named Amber, after her deceased daughter — whose remains were not found for thirteen months after her disappearance. "I was taking her leash off to attach to her harness, which is how we train, when Amber unexpectedly bolted down the trail," McGonigle says. "I called several times for her to return which she did not." more ›

Bayview / Stabbing: Athena Wortham, 42, stabbed and killed a man at her Bayview home whom she claimed was an intruder. This all happened around 4 a.m. Sunday. Police have now booked Wortham on murder charges in the death of Anthony Payne, whom she claims she did not know. Police say they've found holes in her story. more ›

Cindy Nguyen, 60, a Vietnamese-language radio host on AM 1290 KAZA in San Jose, was carjacked Saturday night after having some reported "car trouble" and pulling into a Target shopping center. She called her assistant shortly after, but was never heard from again. The suspect in the case is a career criminal by the name of Paul Ray Castillo. Nguyen's body was found Saturday morning at a home to which Castillo had ties. more ›

The disparity between real life and the city's increasingly out-of-touch gastronomic set came to light over the weekend when Mission Local published a revealing article about the overlap of foodies and gangs in the Mission. After Gaspar ‘Tio’ Puch-tzek, a line cook at Hog & Rocks, was shot and killed last month in a case of mistaken identity, Mission Local asked neighborhood food fans for their thoughts on the recent spat of shootings. The answer may not surprise you. more ›

Mission / Murder: A shooting on Camp Street (near Guerrero and 16th Streets) marks the third Mission homicide in a week. An unidentified man in his 40s was shot several times and killed by a "cocky"-sounding suspect around 2:20 a.m. Monday. There's no further information at this time. [Chron, Examiner] more ›

Mission / Shooting: Police today increased efforts to learn more about the daylight killing of 18 year-old Kevin Hall, who was shot near the intersection of Alemany Boulevard and Crescent Avenue on August 25. [Examiner] more ›

Aaron Bassler, suspected of shooting Fort Bragg city councilman Jere Melo last Saturday, remains at large, and now his father has come forward to tell reporters that his son is schizophrenic, and that he was likely responsible for a second murder that occurred 30 miles away on August 11. James Bassler says his son had refused psychiatric treatment, and had moved into the woods after going broke four months ago. Furthermore, investigators have found two small poppy fields in the woods where Bassler was confronted by Melo and another witness who survived. They say the fields aren't "sophisticated" and look like they were for personal use. more ›

West Oakland / Multiple Murders: The weekend saw three homicides in Oakland. 16-year-old Najon Jackson was killed just before midnight Saturday on the 9300 block of Sunnyside Street in East Oakland — and his 18-year-old brother was also shot and killed last fall. 26-year-old Giselle Ortiz was gunned down in West Oakland in the early morning hours of Sunday. And an unidentified 21-year-old man was shot near the corner of 87th Avenue and G Street in East Oakland around 3:20 a.m. Sunday. more ›

Santa Clara County / Murder-Suicide: Two men's bodies were found in a home on Wednesday on the 14000 block of Clara Street in unincorporated Santa Clara County, and they've now been identified as 50-year-old Imad “Ed” Daou and his 22-year-old son Andrew. Police now say this was a murder-suicide. Daou was described by an anonymous source as a successful developer who recently had some marital problems, and the son was a basketball star whose athletic career suffered after two bouts with Hodgkin's lymphoma. more ›

We mentioned earlier today that Saturday's homicide in Richmond brings the murder rate on par, for the first seven months of the year, with the city's total homicides in 2010, totaling 21. Much of the violence, including nine people shot and killed in July alone, has been attributed to tit-for-tat retaliations between rival gangs in Richmond and unincorporated North Richmond. Today, starting at 4 p.m., City Councilmember Corky Booze (that is his real name) is convening a community meeting and inviting residents from both communities to attend and discuss what might be able to be done about the violence. more ›

East Palo Alto / Shooting: It's also shaping up to be an extra-violent year in East Palo Alto, where an 18-year-old was killed and a 19-year-old wounded in a shooting outside a taqueria last night. [NBC] more ›

Last week's disturbing case of a burning female body that was dumped in the middle of a quiet Rockridge Street early one morning appears to be heading somewhere. First, the victim was identified as 21-year-old Monica Rodas-Alfaro, a mother of one. And police arrested two men yesterday in connection with the case who were spotted walking on the 4800 block of Macarthur Boulevard, who subsequently took off running. Cops gave chase, and the two men, whose names have not been released, were apprehended and taken into custody. more ›

Richmond / Shootings: A turf/gang war appears to have reignited in Richmond with two more consecutive shootings Sunday night that left two dead and two injured. [CBS] more ›

With shouts of "fuck the police" filling the background, the following (very graphic) video shows SFPD officers just moments after they shot and killed armed 19-year-old Kenneth Harding on Saturday. You can see Harding try to move several times, bob his head up and down, while his blood grows wider on the sidewalk. more ›