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OAKLEY — On March 2, a violence prevention task force was preparing to serve a warrant at a home on the 1400 block of Carpenter Road.
Equipped with extra firearms, armor and a metal battering device to break down the door, the team was prepared for almost anything. But what they didn’t expect was what happened next: 32-year-old Billy Bruce Cole, of Oakley, came running out of the home, fully naked, bleeding from the hand, according to investigators.
“Someone has been shot back here, I was going to call the police,” he reportedly said.
When police entered the residence, they discovered the body of 35-year-old Sacramento resident Rommel Hernandez. He’d been shot and appeared to have died several hours earlier, according to police.
Also in the home was Anastashia Wilfong, 27, of West Sacramento, who was detained in a back bathroom of the residence.
When the smoke cleared, prosecutors charged Cole with murdering Hernandez and Wilfong with accessory after the fact. Both remain in Contra Costa jail and have pleaded not guilty.
According to court records, Cole and Wilfong told police that Wilfong and Hernandez were in a dating relationship, and that Cole — who’d been staying at the house for about three weeks — was the one who shot Hernandez. At one point during an interview where he gave inconsistent versions, he said he shot Hernandez while “fighting for the gun,” according to police.
Cole also told police that if they checked security cameras at the home they would see him kicking Hernandez’s body after the shooting.
Both Wilfong and Cole were held to answer at a preliminary hearing last May, but a trial date has not yet been set, court records show.
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