Man killed while running on California freeway was double murder suspect
A man who was fatally struck while running on a Southern California freeway last week was wanted in the killing of two people at his neighbor’s house in Shasta County.
During the investigation of the June 27 murders, it was discovered that the suspect’s father was missing. The older man is still being sought, the Shasta County Sheriff’s Office says.
Daun Eric Sanders, 35, was killed last Wednesday around 4:25 a.m. as he ran across Interstate 15 in Ontario. He had abandoned his crashed pickup truck, which he had been driving the wrong way in the southbound lanes. A dog he was carrying was also killed.
Sanders had been a fugitive since the previous Saturday, when three people were shot at a home on a rural road between Redding and Shingletown.
Jon Charles Depoorter, 59, and Michael Barton Stanfill, 66, died at the scene, the Shasta County Coroner’s Office said. A third person suffered critical gunshot wounds.
The site of the shooting was Depoorter’s home. Sanders, who lived about 300 yards away, had fled by the time sheriff’s deputies arrived.
Deputies have not released any possible motive in the shootings.
The organizer of a GoFundMe for Stanfill’s funeral said the surviving victim is Stanfill’s sister.
The Shasta County Sheriff’s Office this week continues to search for Sanders’ father, William “Bill” Sanders, 80, of Shingletown. He reportedly had not contacted family members since June 25, two days before the shootings.
— The Los Angeles Daily News contributed to this report