A jury found an ex-Alameda County sheriff’s deputy guilty of killing a couple in Dublin. This tragic case also brought to light the fact that nearly 50 other deputies had “unsuitable” scores on their psychological tests for law enforcement.
Devin Williams, 26, was found guilty of first-degree murder on October 3 for killing Maria and Benison Tran, husband and wife, in their home on September 7, 2022.
There was proof that Williams was seeing Maria Tran, who was married to Benison Tran, while she was in a relationship with his girlfriend.
At the time, their teenage son was in the house.
It was important to District Attorney Pamela Price in a statement that her victim and witness advocates worked “diligently to get the conviction and provide services to the victims’ families, despite the intense public scrutiny and questioning of our commitment to successfully prosecute this case.”
Price took away special circumstances improvements for Williams, which caused some controversy in the community.
“We recognise this horrific tragedy leaves a son without his parents and a community forever traumatised by this unacceptable and vicious home invasion attack on an unarmed and unsuspecting couple,” Price said in a post.
Williams said he wasn’t guilty of murder in 2022.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Williams’ lawyers pushed for voluntary manslaughter charges and said the killing was a crime of passion.
Williams failed his police psychological test soon after the double murder, but he was still able to be a deputy.
Greg Ahern, who was sheriff at the time, started to look into who else in the department might have also failed because of legal concerns.
Out of a total of 47 deputies, some of their tasks were temporarily taken away because they were never good enough.
The state looked into how this could have happened, but no official punishment or report was ever given or made public.
Since then, most of the officials have gone back to work.
Williams could spend anywhere from 50 years to life in jail. He will be given his sentence on November 12.
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