A “life coach” and community activist has been arrested in connection with a string of four cold case murders in San Francisco that date back to the early 2000s.
Sauntek Harris, 44, had been on authorities’ radar since 2019 when he was first arrested on suspicion of murder in connection with one of the four homicides, the San Francisco District Attorney said in a press release.
Harris was arrested three days after authorities found Dietrich Whitley dying of multiple gunshot wounds.
The fatal shooting was in retaliation for a fight the two men had gotten into months earlier, when Harris was working as an activist and life coach at a nearby community center, SFGate reported.
Harris has also been charged in the killings of three other people in 2002 in the Bayview-Hunters Point neighborhood, according to the release.
Prosecutors say Harris and another man, Shaun Britton, now 48, killed 37-year-old Perry Bradstreet on January 18, 2002.
The men, operating as part of a criminal street gang, killed Bradstreet using a 9mm assault firearm in an attack authorities say was an act of street terrorism.
Authorities say the killings Harris is responsible for don’t stop there.
Prosecutors allege Harris is also responsible for the fatal shooting of Lorenzo Richards, who was ambushed with a 9mm semiautomatic pistol inside an apartment complex on February 24, 2002.
Prosecutors also say that Harris killed Gerald White, 37, on July 28, 2002, just three days after White received a summons to testify as a witness in a grand jury case for Bradstreet’s killing, according to SFGate.
Authorities allege Harris killed White to prevent him from testifying in the case.
Harris has been charged with four counts of first-degree murder, while Britton faces one first-degree murder charge. Both men are accused of committing some of the homicides “for a criminal street gang.”
Both men are currently in custody and are set to be arraigned on June 6, ABC 7 News reported.
Authorities are determined to find any additional witnesses who may be willing to provide authorities with information relating to the case.
“It’s really about working with our law enforcement partners on the ground and making sure they are using every avenue available to them to try to solve these cases and put cases together,” District Attorney Brook Jenkins said. “Oftentimes, we have witnesses who are reluctant but who have information, so we want to make sure that we do everything that we can to gather what we need to prove who committed these crimes.”
The investigation is ongoing.
