Suspected gunman in Santa Rosa hotel shooting arrested

A 46-year-old parolee, who police say was the gunman in the shooting death last month of a 21-year-old Marin County man at Santa Rosa’s Vagabond Inn, was arrested Monday afternoon in Sacramento.

David Espinal was taken into custody at about noon by Santa Rosa police officers, with the help of the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Office, said Santa Rosa Sgt. Dave Linscomb. Police tracked him to an apartment in Sacramento and he was arrested without incident.

On Friday, Espinal’s alleged accomplice, Donald “Buddy” Paul Parker, who was arrested last week in Vallejo, was charged in Sonoma County court with first-degree murder in the death of Max Weinreb on Aug. 31, in what appears to be a drug deal gone wrong.

Espinal is being held in the Sacramento County jail on suspicion of a parole violation and will eventually be transferred to Sonoma County, Linscomb said.

Weinreb and another man, who has not been identified by police, went to the Vagabond Inn on Cleveland Avenue to sell marijuana, but Espinal and Parker apparently intended to rob them, Linscomb said.

“We believe the victim brought a large amount of marijuana to the hotel where they met the suspects,” Linscomb said. “After the exchange, the victim asked for payment. At some point, Espinal took out a gun and shot him.”

Linscomb said police had not yet recovered the murder weapon.

During the meeting in the first-floor hotel room, Weinreb was shot several times in the torso and died at the scene.

The suspects took the marijuana and fled out of the window of the room to a red car which was parked on the north side of the hotel’s parking lot.

Linscomb said some drugs were found when Parker was arrested in Vallejo last week but they did not find any drugs when they took Espinal into custody.

Parker was identified by police in part from information he left behind in the hotel room the night of the shooting. Espinal was a known associate of Parker, he said.

Parker is expected to be in court Wednesday for a possible plea.

Weinreb’s family had offered a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the second suspect in the case, but that did not play a role in the police finding the suspects, Linscomb said.

“We mainly tracked him through interviews and other means,” he said.