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East Bay Regional Park District police Tuesday increased a reward to $25,000 for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the fatal shooting of a teacher from Danville’s The Athenian School in a park in the Oakland hills last month.
David Ruenzel, 60, who taught English at the local campus and wrote poetry and essays, was fatally shot on a hiking trail in Huckleberry Botanic Regional Preserve at about 3:25 p.m. on Nov. 25, two days before Thanksgiving. The park is on Skyline Boulevard just south of Elverton Drive.
Ruenzel lived in the Oakland hills and often hiked in the park, East Bay parks police Lt. Gretchen Rose said at a news conference at police headquarters in Castro Valley on Tuesday morning.
Rose said Oakland police and park district officers who responded to reports of gunfire came to the scene and found Ruenzel lying down on a trail south of a staging area. Paramedics pronounced him dead at the scene.
Ruenzel came to the park at 3:12 p.m. and witnesses who were in the area said they heard three gunshots about 12 minutes later, Rose said.
Witnesses told police that they saw two men on the trail just before they heard the gunshots. Authorities describe the men as “persons of interest,” not suspects, at this time.
Police said one of the men is described as a man who is black or possibly of mixed race and in his late 20s or early 30s with dreadlocks, a medium complexion, high cheek bones, a narrow face, a thin build and was wearing dark clothing.
Police said the other person is described as a black man who is 6 feet tall, weighs about 240 pounds, is clean shaven with short hair and was wearing dark clothes and a black backpack. Witnesses described the man as being out of shape and “overly friendly,” police said.
Police have released sketches of both individuals.
The reward in the case had been $10,000 before being raised to $25,000, Rose said.
“We’re asking the community for the continued support in trying to resolve this case,” Rose said.
Any information, no matter how insignificant it might seem, could help police bring the killer or killers to justice, she said.
Police are looking at robbery as a motive for the shooting because Ruenzel’s wallet was stolen and his credit cards were used in Oakland later during the day he was killed, Rose said. However, police haven’t ruled out other possible motives, she said.
Doug McConnell, a local television journalist who is a friend of Ruenzel’s family, read a statement from Ruenzel’s wife, Nancy Aldrich-Ruenzel, in which she said, “I lost my husband and best friend to a senseless shooting.”
Aldrich-Ruenzel described her husband as, “A warm and kind-hearted man who volunteered in West Oakland and helped many lives through education.”
Aldrich-Ruenzel said the fact that he was killed on a trail in a quiet park in broad daylight shows that killings “could happen to anyone at any time.”
McConnell, who hosted a show on KRON called “Bay Area Backroads,” said Ruenzel’s death was “a tragic loss of life in a place that was his sanctuary.”
East Bay parks police said anyone with information about the shooting should call their investigations unit at (510) 690-6549 or their tip line at (510) 690-6521.
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