Healdsburg man was stabbed in neck, girlfriend in jail

A 23-year-old Healdsburg woman was in court Tuesday morning, accused of killing the boyfriend she has known for less than a year.

Sheyna Douprea, mother of a 2-year-old girl, will remain in the Sonoma County Jail at least until Dec. 30, when she is scheduled for a bail hearing and will likely enter a plea in the death of 46-year-old Daniel Mooney.

Mooney suffered two stab wounds to the neck in the altercation Sunday with his girlfriend and was undergoing an autopsy Tuesday morning to determine the actual cause of death, Bob Waner, deputy district attorney, said Tuesday following Douprea's brief court appearance shortly after 8:30 a.m.

“She’s very upset. She’s in the mental health ward” of the jail, said Jamie Thistlethwaite, Douprea’s attorney.

Douprea’s daughter, who is not the daughter of Mooney, was staying with her grandmother.

Mooney’s death Sunday apparently was the result of a domestic dispute, said Healdsburg Sgt. Matt Jenkins.

Police did not release any details about the fatal injuries Mooney suffered.

A neighbor of Mooney and Douprea’s said the couple were known to fight, and police had been twice called to their central Healdsburg apartment in the past, Jenkins said.

On Sunday, Douprea’s mother called 911 at about 12:33 p.m. to report someone at the Mason Street apartment might have a fatal injury.

Responding officers found Mooney, who was taken to Healdsburg General Hospital and later died.

Officers arrested Douprea at the upstairs apartment she reportedly shared part time with Mooney. The apartment, in a neatly maintained triplex, is about three blocks from downtown, not far from the Russian River, on Mason Street.

“We heard them fight a lot. She threw his keys off the balcony one night,” said neighbor Joann Brewer, who didn’t know the couple personally.

Sonoma County court records show Douprea was convicted in 2007 of battery and grand theft and in 2006 of battery on a spouse. Records containing additional information about the convictions were not available Monday.

Mooney did not have a local criminal history.

Healdsburg has one police detective and no crime scene technicians, so it was receiving help with the investigation from Santa Rosa police.

From Sunday afternoon through Monday morning, police officers and crime-scene technicians gathered evidence at the small apartment complex.

The violence was the talk of the neighborhood, which typically is a quiet one, Brewer said.

“We’ve all been calling each other. It’s crazy,” she said of the death occurring so close to home.

The last homicide in Healdsburg was more than two years ago when a resident shot and killed a former business associate who broke into his Sunset drive home, apparently bent on revenge for being fired from his job six years prior.

David Edward Ferguson, 47, of San Diego broke into the home of Lou and Sandra Phillips in February 2006 armed with a BB gun, a knife, a blindfold and restraints. He apparently had harbored ill will since losing his job with a Southern California Indian tribe and appeared to have stalked Lou Phillips for several months.

Ferguson was dragging Sandra Phillips down a hallway when her husband, who had retrieved a gun, opened fire, shooting him three times.

The shooting was ruled a justifiable homicide.