Berkeley police arrested a 28-year-old man on Tuesday, three days after his girlfriend was found dead in the city’s first suspected homicide of the year.
Police found the 37-year-old woman in her apartment on the 1900 block of California Street, where the property manager reported discovering a dead body. The victim’s name has not been released.
In a Wednesday statement, police said the woman appeared “to have died after a physical assault.” Evidence gathered during the investigation led police to her boyfriend, Damarcus Jones. He was arrested in Dixon on suspicion of murder.
The case was being reviewed by the Alameda County District Attorney’s Office for prosecution. The Alameda County Coroner’s Office was also conducting an autopsy to determine the woman’s official cause of death.
Her death marked Berkeley’s first suspected homicide since January 2025.