Final suspect in Petaluma home invasion robberies arrested

The final suspect in last week’s Petaluma home invasion robberies is now in custody in North Carolina, according to the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.

Officers in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, took Jade Lafay Johnson, 19, into custody Thursday on a traffic stop, sheriff’s Sgt. Spencer Crum said Monday.

Sonoma County sheriff’s detectives traveled to North Carolina over the weekend to interview Johnson, and she will be extradited to Sonoma County for prosecution, Crum said. She is being held on a $1 million arrest warrant in connection with the March 12 robberies of residents in three homes on a rural lane southwest of Petaluma.

Already in custody in the Sonoma County Jail are seven men, from the Richmond, Virginia, and Winston-Salem areas, suspected of being accomplices. Eight masked robbers burst into the Eugenia Drive homes about 3 a.m. seeking marijuana. There was no marijuana at the homes, officials said. Residents were tied up and one man was hit with a gun before the eight fled, heading south on Highway 101.

Four men were arrested following a law enforcement pursuit in Novato and three others were arrested that night at San Francisco International Airport while attempting to fly to the East Coast.

Johnson made it back to the East Coast and Sonoma County sheriff’s detectives have been working with law enforcement there on the investigation, Crum said.

The Petaluma case mirrors two Santa Rosa-area home invasion robberies on Feb. 8, and another one on Jan. 26 in Cloverdale. Detectives are investigating possible connections.

In the Santa Rosa case, masked intruders broke into a Fulton Road home where they shot and wounded a 42-year-old man. At a Melcon Lane home, intruders shot and killed resident Jose Luis Torres, 54. In those cases the robbers demanded marijuana and cash but left empty-handed, officials said.

Four men are in custody in the Santa Rosa case, three of them from the same East Coast regions as suspects in the Petaluma crimes. A woman, Amber Hembree, 20, of Richmond, Virginia, also is a suspect but hasn’t been arrested.

The Cloverdale robbery involved armed and mostly masked men looking for marijuana, cash and guns. They broke into a downtown-area home during the night and tied up a man and his adult son, beating the father, according to the victim.

No one has been arrested in that case, although one of the suspects in the Santa Rosa robberies looked like one of the Cloverdale robbers, according to the victim.