Police said the woman was found in her California Street apartment after a property manager reported a body.
BERKELEY, CA— A 28-year-old man has been charged with murder after police said his girlfriend was found dead in a suitcase inside her Berkeley apartment during a welfare check on May 30.
Damarcus David Jones was arrested June 2 in Dixon after Berkeley detectives identified him as a suspect in the death of Vanessa Sanchez, 37, authorities said. The case is Berkeley’s first suspected homicide since January 2025 and has moved from a police investigation to an Alameda County prosecution.
Police said officers were called at about noon May 30 to an apartment building in the 1900 block of California Street after a property manager reported finding a deceased person inside one of the units. Officers found Sanchez, a Berkeley resident, and said she appeared to have died after a physical assault. Berkeley police said detectives developed evidence during the investigation and obtained an arrest warrant for Jones, who was Sanchez’s boyfriend. “Detectives located Damarcus Jones in the City of Dixon, where they arrested him without incident,” police said in a statement. Booking records showed Jones was arrested on suspicion of murder and later booked into jail.
Court and police details released after the arrest added a grim account of the scene. The woman’s body was found unclothed, wrapped in multiple plastic bags and placed inside a suitcase, according to reports describing the investigation. Investigators also reported that Jones admitted killing Sanchez and hiding her body, then leaving an air purifier running to try to reduce the odor from decomposition. Police have not released the full timeline of when Sanchez died, and the official cause of death remained pending. The Alameda County Coroner’s Office was conducting an autopsy to determine how she died. Authorities have not publicly detailed a motive.
The apartment building is on California Street near University Avenue, a busy part of central Berkeley close to homes, shops and transit. The first police response drew detectives and patrol officers to the block as the death was treated as a possible homicide. Officials said the case began after concern grew when people could not reach Sanchez. The discovery came during a rare stretch for Berkeley, which had not recorded a homicide case in more than a year. The city recorded one homicide in 2025 and four in 2024, according to local reporting based on city records and prior cases.
Alameda County District Attorney Ursula Jones Dickson’s office filed a murder charge against Jones and also cited a probation violation, according to reports on the court case. Jones had been on probation for an earlier assault and hate crime case tied to a 2019 attack in Berkeley, court records showed. In that case, he was sentenced in December 2025 to one day in jail and two years of probation for assault with force likely to produce great bodily injury and a hate crime. His probation was set to run until December 2027. His arraignment in the new murder case was scheduled for Friday morning.
The earlier case stemmed from an attack near Gilman Street and Stannage Avenue, where records say Jones punched and kicked a man, threatened to kill him and used a homophobic slur after the man objected to his driving. Prosecutors are now handling the new case while police continue to collect evidence in Sanchez’s death. Investigators have not said whether they recovered weapons or other items from the apartment. They also have not said whether anyone else was inside the unit before the property manager entered, or when Sanchez was last seen alive by friends, neighbors or relatives.
Neighbors on California Street saw police vehicles and investigators around the apartment building after the body was found. The block includes older apartment buildings, small storefronts and steady foot traffic from nearby University Avenue. Berkeley police said the case remains under review and that the autopsy findings will be key to the final record of Sanchez’s death. The criminal case now turns to court filings, evidence review and future hearings in Alameda County Superior Court.
Jones remained the named suspect in the murder case as prosecutors began formal proceedings. The next public milestone was his scheduled arraignment, with the coroner’s ruling on Sanchez’s cause of death still pending.
Author note: Last updated June 6, 2026.