Skyline Blvd. murder victims may have been lured; suspect could get death penalty

San Mateo County sheriff’s officers investigate two homicides on Skyline Boulevard. Photo by Karl Mondon, Bay Area News Group, via AP.
San Mateo County sheriff’s officers investigate two homicides on Skyline Boulevard. Photo by Karl Mondon, Bay Area News Group, via AP.

BY EMILY MIBACH
Daily Post Staff Writer

A Pacifica man who fatally stabbed a tow truck driver and a cab driver on Skyline Boulevard within 24 hours may have called them to the area, San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said Friday (June 21).

Wagstaffe also said that the suspect could be eligible for the death penalty.

Malik Dosouqi, 26, is accused of killing Abdulmalek Nashar, 32, of Pacifica on Monday night and John Sione Pekipaki, 31, of East Palo Alto on Tuesday night.

But Wagstaffe said his office is still working to find a motive.

“Motivation right now is totally speculative,” Wagstaffe said. “They may have just been two unlucky guys who got the call.”

Wagstaffe said that Pekipaki, who was a tow truck driver for Speciality Towing in East Palo Alto, was responding to a call on Skyline.

Nashar, a cab driver, was also responding to a call.

But Wagstaffe said his investigators were still looking into whether it was Dosouqi who called Pekipaki and Nashar.

It all started Monday night at around 11 when a deputy found Nashar’s body on the west side of the road just north of Reids Roost Road. He had been stabbed to death.

On Tuesday night, deputies returned to the area where Nashar’s body had been found to look for additional evidence.

At 11:55 p.m. Tuesday, deputies heard someone calling for help and they found a man with stab wounds lying on the ground in a turnout off Skyline Boulevard.

They found Pekipaki, who would later succumb to his injuries.

Around the same time, deputies saw a man in a BMW driving toward them. Deputies fired at the oncoming BMW, and the car drove off the roadway and into a ditch. Dosouqi suffered a laceration to his arm in the accident.

Deputies arrested Dosouqi. He was carrying a “large flat knife” that he used to threaten a tow truck driver, deputies said over the police radio.

Dosouqi was then taken to the hospital for the laceration to his arm. He is facing two murder charges with the special circumstance of having multiple victims, which makes him eligible for either the death penalty or life without parole.

But Wagstaffe said Dosouqi’s mental health will likely be a factor in this case and how the case goes forward.

Dosouqi is being held in jail without bail and will be in court on Monday (June 24).