Background: News footage of the home where Christopher Jaber was found dead on March 21 (KNTV). Inset: A 2019 mug shot of David Swank Prince (Contra Costa County Sheriff”s Office).
A California man was arrested in connection with a grisly homicide that authorities said was “targeted.”
David Swank Prince, 35, was charged with murder, according to the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office, which called the alleged crime a “targeted act.” Prince was arrested on March 21, the same day family members called the Lafayette Police Department for a welfare check on 34-year-old Christopher Jaber. Jaber, who lived in a unit behind his parents’ house in Lafayette, California, was found dead by officers.
Prince was located shortly after, walking around the same neighborhood, and was quickly arrested.
According to the DA’s office, the person who called 911 told dispatchers that they saw someone “suspicious” in their backyard carrying a hatchet and trying to break into an accessory dwelling unit where Jaber lived at the time. Local NBC affiliate KNTV spoke to neighbors who knew Jaber and his family, and one woman, Christina Coleridge, said someone’s surveillance camera captured a man later identified as Prince walking around the Bay Area neighborhood.
Coleridge told KNTV, “Never seen him before. He was really calm.” She also told the station that Jaber’s parents were not at home at the time of the alleged murder.
Several media outlets including KNTV and local Fox affiliate KTVU reported on a Facebook post that was written by a user sharing Prince’s name. The post, originally published on Feb. 19, included Jaber’s full name and a call for “the chaos of the supernatural to end.” The user referred to Jaber as “the eye” and included his full address.
A reply to the comment by the same user was posted six days before Jaber was found dead that read, “Can someone please kill this man.” The posts were later deleted. Authorities have not confirmed that Prince was the one who posted the comments or that the Facebook user was him.
Prince, who had a history of arrests and convictions for assault, is charged with murder and is in custody at the Martinez Detention Center. He is being held on $2 million bond and is scheduled to appear in court again on April 2.
