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Homicide cases can be among the most drawn-out criminal proceedings in our court system.
It makes sense when you think about it – the investigations are complex, there is so much at stake, and county courts are overburdened on the whole. Nevertheless, the duration can be mind-numbing for the victims’ families, the defendants, the witnesses, the detectives, the lawyers, the judges and the public at-large.
I decided to check on the status of several recent unresolved murder cases in the Tri-Valley, finding most are moving along at one pace or another but alone each update probably isn’t worth its own individual headline.
After reading through the case files and asking around, I’m struck at the similarities that arise in our local homicides and those in the national news. Making no judgments on the facts of these cases nor assumptions about how the legal process will play out each time, it’s just hard to ignore common themes like domestic violence, mental health, family troubles, intoxicated driving and more.
Take the murder case against 31-year-old Malcolm Tilley, charged with brutally stabbing his 71-year-old mother Marjory Tilley in the Pleasanton house they shared on April 1.
She was remembered by friends as a devoted volunteer and woman of faith who kept her home life private, while he claimed to officers that she berated and emasculated him for years and “he had enough”, according to the initial police report.
Come to find out he’s challenged the veracity of that police interview and apparent confession in the months since. Malcolm Tilley, who has been representing himself in court, filed a motion to dismiss handwritten from jail, citing Fifth and 14th Amendment grounds among other reasons.
“At no point in time at PPD or after has the defendant referred to themself as a murderer,” he wrote. “IN FACT, the defendant attempted during interrogation to inform the PPD of the ongoing abuse endured, & a fight that culminated in the decedent attempting Grand Theft, & promptly dying.”
With Malcolm Tilley standing as his own attorney, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Toni Mims-Cochran held him to answer for charges of first-degree murder and special allegations of deadly weapon use and great bodily injury after a preliminary hearing Dec. 1. Malcolm Tilley was subsequently arraigned and pleaded not guilty, and his next court date was this week with results pending.
Pleasanton’s other murder case of 2025 is not nearly as far along in the legal process.
Lucas Chan, who turned 29 while in Santa Rita Jail this fall, finally entered a plea for the first time Nov. 3 – not guilty and denying special allegations for the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of his 61-year-old father Lance Chan in the family’s home on Helpert Court in August.
He faces first-degree murder, six counts of possessing a destructive device near a populated location and one count of having components of a destructive device. The probable cause statement authored by Pleasanton police Officer Brian Jewell sheds more light on what happened Aug. 15.
Lucas Chan’s mother told police the couple had limited conversations with their son over the last three to four years while he still lived at home. On that fateful day, there was a confrontation after video footage in the house showed Lucas Chan urinating on shopping bags belonging to friends of his parents, according to Jewell. (Upon being interviewed by police, the suspect claimed without evidence that his parents’ friend raped him in the past and he peed on the bags as revenge, the officer stated.)
An argument reportedly ensued when the parents went to Lucas Chan’s room. They confronted their son through the closed door to his bedroom but walked away after determining the conversation was not being reciprocated; five to 10 minutes later the mom heard multiple gunshots and found her husband on the floor bleeding from his chest, according to the officer.
Police allege Lucas Chan admitted to holding one gun in each hand and just firing through the door to kill whomever was on the other side.
Investigators also reported finding multiple destructive devices and associated manufacturing materials, ghost guns, a 3-D printer and high-capacity magazines in his bedroom.
Lucas Chan has not yet had his preliminary hearing, which is when a judge will decide if there’s enough evidence to order him to stand trial. His next court appearance is scheduled for Feb. 19.
While mental health seems to be at play in both Pleasanton homicide cases, competency to face the charges has not been an issue.
That isn’t the case for Nicholas Paleveda, the 39-year-old Florida man accused of shooting Dublin resident Michael Dalipe, 37, on his doorstep at the Emerald Park Apartment Homes on Aug. 23, 2024 after the two apparently had some interactions on the gaming chat platform Discord.
Paleveda was found incompetent to stand trial, suspending the criminal proceedings before he had a chance to enter a plea to the charges. He has been admitted to Atascadero State Hospital for treatment – and he actually has a pending case with the Court of Appeal where he’s challenged an order granting involuntary administration of antipsychotic medication.
Our reporter Jeanita Lyman has been keeping a close eye on the murder case out of Santa Cruz County where Samuel Stone has been charged in the 2024 death of his girlfriend, 21-year-old Zainab Mansoor of San Ramon, who was a student at the University of Santa Cruz.
Competency proceedings briefly came into play, but Stone was cleared to stand trial in April 2024. His next hearing in the case is set for Feb. 24, Jeanita tells me.
We’re also watching the early hearings involving Brayam Chirinos, the 31-year-old man with ties to Texas and Florida who is charged with murdering Alameda County Public Health Commissioner David Hurst, 55, in Hurst’s Livermore home where he’d apparently been staying.
The publicly available records and official statements so far don’t explain the evidence police have about the motive and actions by Chirinos, other than he was allegedly found driving Hurst’s missing car in San Francisco.
Chirinos, who requires a Spanish language interpreter, has been assigned a private attorney appointed by the court after the Alameda County Public Defender’s Office voiced a conflict of interest in representing the defendant. He is scheduled to enter a plea to the charges next Tuesday (Jan. 20) in court in Dublin.
Jeanita is tracking the case against Badal Dholaria, who is charged with murder for allegedly driving drunk at over 120 mph on Crow Canyon Road in San Ramon at the time of the crash that killed 41-year-old Alix Sparks of Castro Valley on Nov. 29.
Dholaria, 27, of Pleasanton has pleaded not guilty, and the next key court matter will be his preliminary hearing at a date still to be determined.
While not classified as a murder (yet), but still a homicide nonetheless, our reporter Christian Trujano continues to prod the Pleasanton Police Department about the status of the probe into the death of Rowena Coronel. The 56-year-old Pleasanton woman was killed after being hit by a vehicle while crossing the street downtown Nov. 4. The circumstances are still under investigation, we’re told.
Christian also checked in this month with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration about the federal investigation into the crash that killed Pleasanton’s George family of four on April 24, 2024 when the VinFast VF8 electric vehicle they were riding in went off Foothill Road and struck a pole and a tree.
The feds confirmed their investigation remains open but declined further comment.
Our team is actively trying to report on more than a dozen fatal crashes from the past year or so, but those cases can take months or more for law enforcement to resolve – particularly if drug or alcohol testing is involved. Plus, prosecutors have to decide if a convictable crime occurred.
Looks like charges of murder and other counts were filed against Mohammed Yousef Omar in September, which we missed at the time. The 23-year-old Hayward man is accused of kidnapping his estranged girlfriend and terrorizing her to the point that she jumped out of the car on the freeway in Livermore, resulting in her death in 2024. He remains at-large.
We hope to have a full story on the Omar case soon.
If there is a murder case, traffic fatality or other death investigation in the Tri-Valley you’d like us to follow up on, please let us know and we’ll start digging.
Editor’s note: Jeremy Walsh is the associate publisher and editorial director for the Embarcadero Media Foundation’s East Bay Division. His “What a Week” column is a recurring feature in the Pleasanton Weekly, Livermore Vine and DanvilleSanRamon.com.
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