Details emerge in prelim for man charged with killing 2 women in Vacaville

Details began to emerge Tuesday during a Solano County Superior Court preliminary hearing for a 31-year-old Sacramento man charged with killing two females in early 2021, with one witness testifying that, while watching a cellphone feed, she saw a victim, “naked and hurt” and lying on a bedroom floor, as the defendant livestreamed the shootings’ aftermath from a Vacaville apartment.

During the afternoon session in Department 1 in Fairfield, Makayla McCaleb told Deputy Public Defender Eric Charm that, after she grabbed the cell phone from her sister while sitting in a car near the Rocky Hill Veterans Apartments, she recognized Raymond Michael Weber, the defendant, in the video.

“I could see he had a gun,” said McCaleb, 19, dabbing tears from her eyes as she spoke and adding that she watched the Instagram feed for “10 to 15 seconds at most” and could see a “bullet hole” in one of the victims and saw “Raymond and two girls.”

Questioned by Charm, she testified that she “recognized where Raymond was,” inside her mother’s apartment and saw two people lying in a bedroom.

Raymond Michael Weber, 31 (Solano County Sheriff’s Office) 

McCaleb also testified that the two females arrived at her mother’s Rocky Hill Road apartment on Jan. 29 while McCaleb, then 17, was working on homework. She let Weber into the apartment but returned to her room. Later, she came out of her room and saw “several people hanging out on the couch” in the living room.

She told Charm that she could see the two females, one of them appearing to be “pretty young” and the other older, and they appeared to be bruised and wearing bandages.

But McCaleb, her mother and siblings left the apartment, saying she was angry at Weber, her cousin, “because he wouldn’t leave.” She also told Charm that seeing the two injured females in the apartment “was not normal.”

The hearing began at about 10:30 a.m. in Judge Jeffrey C. Kauffman’s courtroom in the Justice Center. Weber, standing 6 feet 1 inch tall, clad in a striped jail jumpsuit,  shackled, his hair in braids that fell to the middle of his back, sat at the defense table near his defense counsel, Tim A. Pori, a Fairfield criminal defense attorney.

Kauffman then read the charges against Weber: Two counts of first-degree murder, one count of being a felon in possession of a firearm, all felonies, followed by a list of special circumstances, among them that the murders were committed to prevent a lawful arrest; the murders were committed during an attempted commission of rape; the murders involved torture; and he used a handgun to kill the victims.

The judge also noted that Weber was convicted in 2006 of assault with a firearm and in 2016 of unlawful possession of a controlled substance while armed, both in Sacramento and both felonies. Weber also faces charges of domestic violence and making terrorist threats, both cited in an out-of-county warrant, and human trafficking of a minor for a sex act.

As his first witness during the morning session, Charm called Vacaville Police Lt. Dustin Willis, who testified that he dispatched himself to 582 Rocky Hill Road after a 911 call, thinking it was a domestic violence call, arriving at about 11:45 p.m.

At one point, he heard “yelling,” believing it was coming from a first-floor apartment, and, as other officers arrived, heard “six to eight audible pops, very crisp pops,” thinking they were gunshots.

Charm then showed about eight minutes’ worth of Willis’ bodycam footage, with officers knocking on doors on the apartment complex’s third floor.

Upon cross-examination, Pori questioned Willis’ ability to ascertain the sound of gunfire coming from inside an apartment, but Willis responded, “I was certain I heard gunshots, but I was unsure where they were coming from.”

Weber was arrested on Jan. 30, 2021, following a lengthy standoff with Vacaville police.

Court records show police responded to the apartment complex in the 500 block of Rocky Hill Road shortly after 12:40 a.m., when a woman reported that a man armed with a handgun was live-streaming from an apartment where two women, not moving, were lying on the floor.

Upon their arrival, police said the man, later identified as Weber, had barricaded himself inside. SWAT and Critical Incident Negotiation teams were deployed.

Negotiations were unsuccessful, neighbors were evacuated and flash bangs and chemical agents were then discharged into the apartment. Officers found Weber hiding there and, following a brief struggle, shot him with a Taser to bring him under control. He was arrested at 8:32 a.m.

Both female victims, ages 15 and 27, were found dead, police said. The older victim was identified as Savannah Theberge, with ties to Utah and Georgia, and the teenager, who was not named because of her age, was said to be from Elk Grove, south of Sacramento.

Weber, who remains in the Stanton Correctional Facility in Fairfield without bail, made his first court appearance on Feb. 2, 2021.

If convicted at trial, Weber likely will face life without the possibility of parole because of the special circumstances cited in the criminal complaint.

The preliminary hearing resumes at 10 a.m. Wednesday in Department 1 in the Justice Center in Fairfield.