Sheriff: Gunman in Bodega Bay attack tracked down ex-girlfriend with GPS device

Before he shot and wounded a woman in Bodega Bay last week and turned the gun on himself in an apparent suicide, an East Bay man had installed a tracking device on his ex-girlfriend’s car, using the signal to ambush her and two friends at gunpoint in the seaside community where they were staying, Sonoma County sheriff’s officials said Monday.

Edward Hegarty, 57, of El Sobrante barged into the home Friday morning with a shotgun, taking the woman and her friends by surprise, and eventually shooting at and wounding one of her friends, according to the Sheriff’s Office.

Chilling new details about the attack surfaced Monday, when Sheriff’s Lt. Carlos Basurto said that Hegarty had secretly placed a GPS device on his ex-girlfriend’s car and then followed the signal given off by that device to the Taylor Street home where she was staying in Bodega Bay.

Two days before the shooting, Hegarty’s ex-girlfriend had secured a restraining order against him in Sacramento County, Basurto said.

Hegarty also had prior felony convictions for stalking and domestic violence, sheriff’s officials said.

The July 29 restraining order, in addition to his prior felony convictions, meant that Hegarty was prohibited from having any firearms, Basurto said.

But Hegarty showed up at the house, unannounced and unwelcome, just before 9 a.m. Friday while the women were still asleep. He brought a sawed-off shotgun, a type of gun illegal in the state, Basurto said.

He held the women captive and made statements “threatening their lives and his own,” Basurto said.

He scuffled with one of the women, but at some point during the encounter the women managed to get away, fleeing through different doors and in different directions, officials said.

Hegarty stepped out onto the home’s front porch and fired the shotgun at one of the women, hitting her two to three times, sheriff’s investigators said. The other women ran in different directions for help. Several people in the area called 911 to report gunfire.

Deputies found the injured woman lying in the street, unconscious. Not knowing the shooter’s location, they carried her to paramedics who were waiting at a safer location around the corner from the house.

The injured woman, a 64-year-old Antioch resident, was in stable condition Monday at a Sonoma County hospital.

The women were not identified because they are the victims of domestic violence.

Tactical deputies with the sheriff’s SWAT team found Hegarty inside the house, where ?he appeared to have sat on a couch and shot himself, officials said.

Basurto said that detectives were still actively investigating the case.

Anyone with information about the case can call the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office investigations team at 565-2185.

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