OAKLAND — Police here have been forced to take extra investigative steps after learning their prime suspect in a 2023 carjacking has an identical twin brother.
The 33-year-old man has already been charged with carjacking, gun possession by a felon, and multiple counts of home invasion robbery in a series of incidents throughout 2024. Police believe he also carjacked a man in July 2023, based on a DNA hit from evidence taken from a vehicle, court records show.
But there’s one problem: The DNA hit was for the man’s twin brother, who shares his DNA. Now detectives are working to get his fingerprints with the hopes of confirming or excluding his identity that way, as even twins don’t share fingerprints.
The victim of the 2023 carjacking was robbed of his Acura as he pulled into his home on 6th Street in Oakland, police said. There were two suspects who wielded guns and pulled the victim’s hoody over his face to obscure his vision.
Prosecutors have recently filed another case against the man, alleging he committed a misdemeanor by refusing to allow detectives to take his DNA when they served him with a court order at Santa Rita Jail. He later agreed to the DNA sample, court records show.
The defense lawyer has argued for his release from jail, arguing his client’s childhood was ridden with “severe abuse and neglect,” including witnessing a friend being killed as a teen, and shot roughly a year later. Prosecutors say he has seven felony convictions, five of which are for residential burglary, since 2009.