{"id":190631,"date":"2026-02-23T23:01:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-23T23:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/190631\/"},"modified":"2026-02-23T23:01:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-23T23:01:07","slug":"suspected-emeryville-murder-weapon-sat-in-opd-custody-for-nearly-two-years-without-link","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/190631\/","title":{"rendered":"Suspected Emeryville murder weapon sat in OPD custody for nearly two years without link"},"content":{"rendered":"

OAKLAND \u2014 The revolver that was used to kill 34-year-old Dexter Appleby on an Emeryville street was seized by police six months after the May 2023 homicide, but investigators didn\u2019t realize it for nearly two years, according to court records.<\/p>\n

Oakland police found the gun \u2014 a silver Colt revolver \u2014 while raiding the Ney Avenue home of 44-year-old James Wheeler while investigating\u00a0the Nov. 21, 2023 shooting death of Johnny James Johnson Jr.<\/a> Wheeler, then a UPS driver, was arrested, charged and eventually convicted of manslaughter in Johnson\u2019s killing, after his lawyer argued self-defense at trial.<\/p>\n

But all the while, the revolver sat in an Oakland Police Department locker, without police in Emeryville or Oakland aware of its potential link to Appleby\u2019s killing. It wasn\u2019t until June 2025, a month before Wheeler\u2019s manslaughter conviction, that one of his family members called police and implicated him in Appleby\u2019s shooting that police tested the gun, according to testimony.<\/p>\n

A ballistics technician linked it to bullets found at Appleby\u2019s death, court records show.<\/p>\n

Wheeler now faces a murder charge in Appleby\u2019s killing<\/a>. At his preliminary hearing last month, police revealed the shocking break in the case: Wheeler\u2019s own mother reached out to police and identified him as Appleby\u2019s killer. But the defense said she had strong \u201cbias\u201d and a motive to lie about her son, due to a serious conflict within their family.<\/p>\n

Appleby allegedly had enemies, something that was readily apparent to police after someone fatally shot him about 20 minutes before midnight on May 26, 2023, on 41st Street and San Pablo Avenue in Emeryville. A detective almost instantly recognized Appleby from prior contacts, then as police were taping off the crime scene, a man walked up, according to records.<\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody was going to kill his (expletive),\u201d the man allegedly told police, adding, \u201cI was going to tell my brother to kill his (expletive).\u201d<\/p>\n

Emeryville police Sgt. Edward Mayorga, who overheard the remark, conceded on cross-examination\u00a0he made no attempt to figure out who the man\u2019s brother was. One of Appleby\u2019s relatives later told authorities he believed that the killing was over infighting in an Oakland gang that Appleby had joined. Police also identified a suspect, drafted a murder warrant for that person, but later found out through phone records he was at a gas station at the time, authorities said.<\/p>\n

At the hearing\u2019s end, Wheeler\u2019s lawyer argued the positive identification was tainted by \u201cbias\u201d and that the firearm had plenty of time to change hands before it ended up in Wheeler\u2019s house. But Judge Clifford Blakely upheld the murder charge, ruling that cumulatively there was enough to meet the low legal bar of probable cause.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven taking into account the bias and other discrepancies that you\u2019ve pointed out, I think the fact that the gun involved in the shooting here was found in the Ney residence, and closely associated with your client, provides some corroboration of that identification,\u201d Blakely said to Wheeler\u2019s lawyer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"OAKLAND \u2014 The revolver that was used to kill 34-year-old Dexter Appleby on an Emeryville street was seized…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110424,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[861,862,59207,59208,143,145,5061,864,144,865],"class_list":{"0":"post-190631","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-oakland","8":"tag-bay-area-crime","9":"tag-california-crime","10":"tag-emeryville-murder","11":"tag-emeryville-shooting","12":"tag-oakland","13":"tag-oakland-headlines","14":"tag-oakland-homicide","15":"tag-oakland-murder","16":"tag-oakland-news","17":"tag-oakland-shooting"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190631"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190631\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}