Two of the four individuals arrested for a series of deadly robberies at Donnelly Park in Turlock have now been charged with murder after the death of a Patterson man.
The Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office amended charges against Shaun Santos, 22, of Modesto and Lavinia Perez, 38, of Modesto to include murder charges, with the special circumstance that the murder occurred during the course of a robbery.
The two were also charged with four counts of robbery, with Santos having two enhancements of using a deadly weapon, to wit a metal bat, and inflicting great bodily injury.
The murder charges stem from the death of Cameron Tracy, 21, of Patterson. Tracy died Dec. 13 after being in a coma since being attacked during the robbery on Dec. 4.
Two male juveniles, a 15-year-old and a 16-year-old from Modesto and Manteca were also arrested for robbery.
Santos and Perez were arraigned Wednesday on the charges and had a bail set of $2.2 million each, according to the district attorney’s office.
A GoFundMe page established for Tracy and his family stated he had been at the park visiting his girlfriend when “4 masked assailants pulled up in a white van jumped out and surrounded Cameron and beat him to unconsciousness.”
Turlock Police Investigators were able to identify the suspect vehicle, a white 2004 Kia Sedona with Nevada license plates, after reviewing surveillance video from an area business. Using this information, detectives working in conjunction with the Manteca Police Department were able to locate the suspect vehicle in the City of Manteca.
With the assistance of the California Highway Patrol and the San Joaquin County Sheriff’s Department, detectives were able to stop the suspect vehicle and its occupants in the City of Stockton. All four subjects were taken into custody without incident and booked into the Stanislaus County Jail and Stanislaus County Juvenile Hall.
In the vehicle investigators found some of the stolen property and replica handguns.
The first robbery occurred around 5:30 p.m. Nov. 17 at the park. The male victim told investigators he was surrounded by a group of suspects all in black and that they demanded he hand over his property. The victim refused, which is when the group started attacking and punching him, before fleeing with his personal property. The victim had a complaint of pain after the incident, said Turlock Police spokesman Sgt. Russ Holeman.
Another robbery was reported around 6 p.m. Nov. 26. In that case, the victim was at Donnelly Park when he was approached by several unknown individuals, who were all dressed in black and had their faces covered, Holeman said.
The victim told investigators the robbers threw him to the ground and kicked him as they stole his phone. One of the suspects then pointed a gun at a female victim and took her purse and phone.
The criminal complaint states they used the female victim’s credit cards at gas stations in Ceres and Manteca and at a fast food eatery in Modesto.
Around 6 p.m. Dec. 4, the Turlock Police Department was dispatched to the park for a report of a robbery that had just occurred in the western parking lot of Donnelly Park. At the time, the police stated the victim, later identified as Tracy, had been critically injured with an unknown weapon and was rushed to an area hospital.
The fundraising page described Tracy as a “bright, funny, upstanding young man” who had plans to move to Utah.
“Cameron had plans to move the following weekend to his home state of Utah he had a job lined up as well as many plans to start his life as an independent young man,” the page stated.
The case returns to court at 8:30 a.m. Dec. 29.
The GoFundMe page can be found at https://www.gofundme.com/pray-for-cameron.
