Suspects identified in Sebastopol double homicide still at large

A major breakthrough in a whodunit case that left two people dead and a third wounded during a rural Sebastopol marijuana deal last month led Sonoma County detectives to the Philadelphia-area doorsteps of the suspected killers.

But Robert Lee Randolph, 30, and his girlfriend Maria Teresa Lebron, 28, were nowhere to be found, apparently slipping away not long before Sonoma County sheriff’s detectives flew across the country to arrest them this weekend.

“We had just missed them, by their neighbors’ accounts,” Sonoma County Sgt. Spencer Crum said Monday.

Detectives suspect the couple - considered armed and dangerous - may have fled across the Delaware River to Burlington County, New Jersey.

Randolph and Lebron remained at large Monday, and sheriff’s officials asked the public to look for vehicles associated with them: a 2014 red Dodge Charger with a Pennsylvania license plate HZZ1085 and a 2010 silver Dodge Caravan with Pennsylvania plate KDG0264.

They are prime suspects in the Oct. 15 fatal shooting of former teacher Nathan Proto, 36, of Sebastopol, and John Jess Mariana, 28, of Guerneville, at a home in the 5000 block of Highway 116 South, according to the Sheriff’s Office. A 23-year-old woman was also shot but is expected to survive.

The new details revealed this week have similarities to a 2013 triple homicide at a Forestville cabin in a deal over marijuana intended for sale on the East Coast. A 24-year-old man who grew up in Sebastopol, Raleigh Butler, helped arrange the transaction, which brought people from New York, Colorado and New Mexico to his mother’s cabin for the sale.

A Colorado man, Mark Cappello, double-crossed his business partners and shot them as they were kneeling on the floor putting marijuana into bags. Cappello was found guilty in March and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

In the current case, Crum said Mariana, who was originally from the Philadelphia area, arranged a “large marijuana transaction” with Randolph - a deal investigators suspect involved about 100 pounds of marijuana and cash estimated between $100,000 and $200,000. Crum said investigators declined to say more about how Mariana and Randolph knew one another.

Randolph and Lebron had traveled to California several times over the past six months before their Oct. 13 flight from Philadelphia to San Francisco, Crum said. On Oct. 13, Lebron rented a Hyundai Sonata and the couple spent time in various parts of the Bay Area and Sacramento, Crum said.

They met up with Mariana sometime during the evening of Oct. 15 and drove to Proto’s home, where he was growing marijuana on a rural parcel about five miles southeast of Sebastopol, officials said.

Detectives estimate they were together for about an hour before Randolph began firing a handgun, Crum said.

Witnesses in the area saw a sedan speeding away from the property, Crum said.

Detectives had little else to go on - vague descriptions and no names - and engaged in time-intensive methods to identify the male shooter and a female accomplice in a newer Hyundai Sonata.

A key advance came when a detective watching hours of grainy surveillance videos taken at Bay Area bridge toll plazas honed in on a Sonata passing through the cash lane and reconstructed a partial license plate, Crum said.

“We knew a vehicle description, had (Randolph’s) picture and we had an idea when he would have been crossing a bridge,” Crum said.

Acting on a hunch the vehicle had been rented, they identified Lebron Friday through the rental agreement, he said. They had already identified Randolph, partially through tipsters who saw photographs of him taken at a Sonoma County coffee shop that the Sheriff’s Office broadcast publicly on Oct. 22.

Detectives confirmed their flight details, addresses and made plans to head east.

“That was the first time (detectives) left for Philadelphia with suspect knowledge and warrant in hand,” Crum said. “We still don’t have the firearm and we don’t know where the marijuana and cash went.”

Detectives believe Randolph and Lebron stashed the pot and money somewhere or with someone in California before flying home. They “have a connection” in Sacramento and may have left it with someone there, he said.

They are asking the public to come forward “if anybody had contact with these people as customers, rented a storage shed to them or had any contact with these people or these names,” Crum said.

Randolph’s criminal history includes convictions of marijuana or hashish possession in 2011 in Camden County, New Jersey and heroin possession in 2006 in Mercer County, New Jersey as well as a pending DUI case stemming from a 2014 arrest in Philadelphia, according to court records in those states.

Lebron’s record appears clear in those states, apart from 2010 a traffic ticket for driving through a stop sign, state records show.

Randolph is described as black, 5 feet 8 inches and weighing about 160 pounds.

Lebron is described as Latina, 5 feet 3 inches and weighing about 140 pounds.

Anyone with information about Randolph or Lebron is asked to call Detective Jeff Toney at 707-565-2650. Anyone aware of their whereabouts is asked to immediately call 911.

You can reach Staff Writer Julie Johnson at 707-521-5220 or julie.johnson@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @jjpressdem.