Vallejo man charged with murder in Napa double homicide

A Vallejo man has been charged with two counts of murder in the weekend fatal shootings of two teenagers on a Napa residential street.

Jonathan Richard Wesley Nicholson Jr., 22, made his first appearance in Napa County Superior Court in Napa on Wednesday where he was arraigned before Judge Mark Boessenecker.

Nicholson is accused of killing the two young women, who were identified in a criminal complaint as Aileen Villasenor, 19, and Sasha Mufich, 17.

Boessenecker assigned Nicholson a public defender and then scheduled his return to court on May 7, when he will enter a plea. He remains jailed without bail.

Charges have not been filed against Santa Rosa residents Jessica Whitten and Judith Adolph, who are accused of assisting Nicholas in unspecified ways.

Their involvement is still being investigated for possible charges, said Carlos Villatoro, public relations and media officer for the Napa County District Attorney’s Office.

Both Whitten and Adolph remained jailed without bail as of Wednesday afternoon.

Investigators have yet to release the victims’ names as their autopsies are pending, but friends and family shared their names online in fundraisers and at the makeshift memorial set up near where they were killed. They said Sasha’s last name was Donnelly.

Napa police say the teens were shot at about 8:10 p.m. Saturday on Riverside Drive, a residential street directly south of downtown and parallel to the Napa River.

The shooting happened in the Napa Sea Scout Base’s dirt parking lot. One victim was pronounced dead at the scene and the other died after being taken to an area hospital.

Witnesses saw Nicholas “run towards the victims with a firearm in his hand and then heard several shots,” according to a Napa County Criminal Justice System arrest/detention/complaint form filed in court records.

The witnesses found the victims, dialed 911 and provided a description of the shooter and his vehicle. “Camera footage and digital evidence” were used in the arrest, according to the complaint form.

Nicholson was arrested at about 7:20 p.m. Monday at an unspecified location in Vallejo, police said.

Whitten and Adolph were arrested at about 3 a.m. Tuesday in Santa Rosa. They were arrested by investigators with the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office.

The makeshift memorial for the victims has grown since Sunday. Numerous visitors, loved ones and other Napa County residents, were condemning the killings.

On Tuesday, several visitors said they did not know the victims but were compelled to place flowers and candles in their memory at the memorial.

Several of them agreed the shootings were rare for the city of Napa and Riverside Drive is historically a quiet street.

“It’s not representative of our community and it’s not something we experience often,” Napa resident Cheryl Laughlin, 56, said Tuesday at the memorial. “This is a tragedy and my heart goes out to those two girls. I can’t imagine why this happened.”

Napa police are still investigating what led to the double homicide, which had been described as an isolated incident.

Napa Police Lt. Chris Pacheco said Tuesday that the shootings are not believed to be gang-related. Additional details about the investigation have not been released.

The Napa Police Department is asking anyone who witnessed the crime, has information or photos or video surveillance footage of the incident to contact Detective Dustin Dodd at 707-257-9568 or ddodd@cityofnapa.org.

This story corrects an earlier version that mispelled the name of defendant John Nicholson

You can reach Staff Writer Colin Atagi at colin.atagi@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @colin_atagi