DUBLIN, Calif. – The mother of an Alameda County sheriff’s deputy charged in a shooting that left a married couple dead in Dublin says her son was romantically involved with one of the victims, the deputy’s mother told KTVU Thursday. Deputy Devin Williams Jr., 24, is being held without bond at the same facility where he worked just hours before the violence. He is accused of fatally shooting Maria Tran, 42, and her husband of two decades, Benison Tran, 57, in their home on Colebrook Lane early Wednesday. Anitra Williams, mother of the accused killer, said she had warned her son not to be with Maria Tran, whom he had met at John George Psychiatric Hospital in San Leandro, where Tran worked as a nurse. She said her son was “blinded by love.” “She told him she loved him, she was on a 10-day trip,” she said. But Anitra Williams said she believed Maria Tran hadn’t told her son the truth when they started dating in January.
Alameda County Sheriff’s Deputy Leaves Dublin Couple’s Shooting Death
Deputy Devin Williams Jr. called Dublin police while driving south to the Central Valley. He was arrested with the help of CHP officers in Coalinga and the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office. Tran “represented herself as a single woman,” Anitra Williams said. “In fact, her exact words were that she was a 35-year-old single parent who was recently divorced.” She says she urged her son to stay away from her. Anitra Williams has made it clear that violence is unacceptable. “The bottom line now is that there is a young boy who is missing both his mother and his father,” he said. “I don’t condone anything that happened.” She said her son called her while driving in the Central Valley after the murders. “I told him the cowardly thing would be to take your life. I talked to my son and I told my son look who I raised you,” she said. The deputy then called Dublin police, spoke with Chief Garrett Holmes for about 45 minutes and agreed to surrender to California Highway Patrol officers in Coalinga (Fresno County). Williams was a former Stockton police officer but failed probation after a year. “People say to us: ‘Did we miss something? Didn’t we do something right?” said Lt. Ray Kelly of the sheriff’s office, which provides police services in Dublin. Kelly said a background check revealed no red flags with Williams, who had been hired exactly a year before the killings. Kelly said no one was aware of the congressman’s internal turmoil. “Somewhere in the last few months of his life, some significant events happened that led to this moment. A lot of those events remained unknown and unknown,” Kelly said.
