This article ran in the Aug. 3 edition of the Daily Post. Be sure to pick up a paper every day to keep up to date on what our local reporters dig up.
BY BRADEN CARTWRIGHT
Daily Post Staff Writer
A homeless man who was killed in a downtown Palo Alto parking garage was hit in the head with a wrench while he was sleeping, according to the police investigation.
Another homeless man — Alvaro Javier “AJ” Lopez, 34 — was arrested for the murder on Thursday afternoon at the High Street parking garage, police said.
Lopez allegedly killed James Allen Rudolph, 60, in the morning on July 25 using an 18-inch wrench.
“The victim in this case was brutally attacked and murdered,” Officer Chris Correia wrote in a synopsis of the investigation.
Word spread quickly through the homeless community. Homeless woman Kelly Dewey told detectives that she saw Rudolph sleeping at the Bryant Street garage at 3 a.m. before he died.
Dewey spoke to her friend “Ali,” who said that she spoke to another homeless man named “Omar,” police said.
“Omar” relayed that Lopez said he knew someone had been hit in the head with a pipe or a stick, before the police had put any information out publicly, Correia said.
Dewey also told Correia that Lopez stayed at the Bryant Street garage but had recently moved to the High Street garage.
Detectives went to the High Street garage and found clothes, bags, boxes, food, bike parts and a wheelchair on the fourth floor, Correia said.
After getting a search warrant for a wooden box, officers found a Husky pipe wrench that had a dried blood on the end.
The night after the murder, Lopez “was under constant surveillance,” Correia said.
Detectives grabbed a glass bottle that Lopez threw out and secretly obtained his DNA, Correia said.
The Santa Clara County Crime Lab found Rudolph’s DNA on the end of the wrench, and found a sample of four people’s DNA on the handle, including Rudolph’s and Lopez’s DNA. Police are still awaiting test results from the wooden box, Correia said.
Lopez told police that he was “hallucinating” on the night of the murder, which is why he moved to the garage at 528 High Street.
Lopez was previously arrested on June 29 for public drunkenness on University Avenue and on July 4 for a theft at Lytton Plaza, police said.
Police said yesterday that they aren’t releasing details about Lopez’s motive or whether other people were involved.
Lopez was scheduled to make his first court appearance yesterday in San Jose, but the hearing was moved to Monday. Judge Hector Ramon said no bail will be allowed for Lopez.