OAKLAND — As he awaits sentence for killing a man in November 2023, a local resident now faces a new murder case, this time for allegedly killing a man six months earlier in Emeryville.
James Wheeler, 44, was acquitted of murder but convicted of voluntary manslaughter last July, in the November 2023 shooting death of Johnny James Johnson Jr. But now prosecutors in Alameda County have charged Wheeler with murder in the death of 34-year-old Dexter Appleby in May 2023, authorities announced Tuesday.
Appleby was shot and killed about 20 minutes before midnight on May 26, 2023, on 41st Street and San Pablo Avenue in Emeryville. The case went unsolved for two years, then police released surveillance video of a suspect, prompting a person who knows Wheeler to come forward implicating him, authorities said.
Authorities say they’re exploring the theory that Wheeler shot Appleby during an argument. Similarly, prosecutors say Wheeler shot and killed Johnson after they got into an altercation on Nov. 21, 2023 outside a Taco Bell on the 6900 block of Bancroft Avenue. At the time of his arrest, Wheeler was working as a UPS driver, court records show.
After he was arrested on suspicion of murder, Wheeler allegedly called a woman from jail and gave his side of the confrontation, saying that Johnson “tried to vehicular manslaughter me or whatever.” His lawyer argued at trial that Wheeler had defended himself during the incident.
The defense also pointed to posts on Johnson’s Instagram — he had the habit of posting the same picture with different captions each time — that alluded to him challenging people to violent confrontations. One picture of him, with apparent blood smeared over his bald head, said “Let be a blood bath (sic).” Another post of the same picture had the caption, “I love breaking bones period.”
Wheeler is scheduled to be sentenced in Johnson’s killing on Oct. 17, court records show. He has not yet been arraigned on the new murder charge and is being held at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin without bail, where he has been since his arrest on Nov. 28, 2023, according to jail records.