BCN contributed to this report.
Daniel Jordan Dewitt, 23, was scheduled to be arraigned today at 2 p.m. in Alameda County Superior Court. He's suspected of killing Peter Cukor, 67, with a flowerpot.
Dewitt is the grandson of a former Alameda city councilman. According to his mother, Candy Dewitt, he became a paranoid schizophrenic at 18, but she was unable to "get him into a permanent treatment program.”
According to a Bay City News report, Detective David Marble said Cukor called police at 8:45 p.m. on Saturday to report a suspicious person in his garage. Detective Marble said Dewitt initially left the property when he was asked to, but later came back and entered their gate which leads to their front door.
Cukor again told Dewitt to get off of his property and Dewitt responded that he was "psychic and he was told to go through the front gate to find Zoey." Dewitt later claimed to the police that Zoey was his finace, but she turned out to be imaginary.
Dewitt then left the property once more and Cukor walked across the street to get help from the fire station, however firefighters were out on a call.
Detective Marble said that when Cukor returned to his property, Dewitt "viscously assaulted" Cukor, hitting him in the head with a ceramic planter.
Cukor’s wife called 911 and Cukor was then taken to a hospital, where he died. Berkeley police officers who responded to the scene saw a person nearby who matched the suspect's description and arrested Dewitt, who had fresh blood on his hands, sweatshirt, pants and shoes. Additionally, the knuckles on Dewitt's right hand appeared to be swollen and Andrea Cukor identified him as the person who had assaulted her husband.
After he was arrested, Dewitt admitted that he was on the Cukors' property, had looked through their windows, and described the interior of the Cukors' home. He said that he was "looking for his fiancee Zoey.”
But SF Gate reports that Daniel DeWitt's father, Al DeWitt Jr., said Zoey doesn't exist. Dewitt "made [her] up in his mind" about a year ago.
BCN contributed to this report.
