What happened to Fresno County’s most notorious killers? Here’s where they are now
.jpg "Fresno County has had multiple famous murder cases within the past three decades. Learn where the convicted killers are now.")
Fresno County has encountered its share of shocking murders over the past three decades — including a deadly robbery, a bus stop shooting and a fatal inheritance scheme.
The men convicted of these crimes include serial killers and mass murderers.
Where are Fresno County’s most notorious inmates now? Are they still incarcerated?
Here’s what happened to the people involved in six high-profile cases:
Who hired a friend to kill his family?
On Easter Sunday 1992, Dale Ewell, his wife Glee and his daughter Tiffany were shot to death in their Fresno home in what authorities initially believed to be a burglary gone wrong, The Fresno Bee previously reported.
However, their deaths were eventually traced back to son Dana Ewell, then 21.
Ewell, who stood to inherit millions of dollars upon his parents’ deaths, plotted with a friend to commit murder his family.
Investigators arrested Ewell and his friend, Joel Patrick Radovcich, in 1995.
A jury found Ewell and Radovcich both guilty of three counts of first-degree murder in 1998, and they were sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
Ewell was sent to Corcoran State Prison, The Bee reported in 2023.
As of Friday, May 22, It wasn’t clear if Ewell, now 55, was still incarcerated there.
Inmate records for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation listed his current location as “not disclosable.”
Radovcich, also 55, was incarcerated at California Health Care Facility in Stockton as of Friday, records show.
Robber fatally shot 7 people at Fresno bar
Johnnie Malarkey fatally shot seven people in 1993 while robbing Carrillo’s Club in southeast Fresno, The Los Angeles Times reported.
Two men walked into the bar just after closing time and opened fire, killing the owner, his mother and half-brother. A customer, a bouncer and the cook and his wife also died by gunfire.
One of the shooters was Malarkey, then 23.
In 1998, while serving a 25-year prison sentence for other shootings in 1993, Malarkey confessed to the Carrillo’s Club shootings along with three unrelated killings.
A Fresno County judge sentenced him to eight consecutive life sentences plus a 37-year term and a term of 40 years to life.
As of Friday, the 56-year-old Malarkey was behind bars at California State Prison in Corcoran.
Fresno man murdered children during police standoff
Mass murderer and child rapist Marcus Wesson murdered nine of his children in 2004 during a custody dispute that led to a police standoff in Fresno.
Wesson was 57 years old at the time.
In 2005, Wesson was convicted of nine counts of first-degree murder and 14 sex crimes. He received the death penalty.
As of Friday, Wesson, now 79, was incarcerated at California Health Care Facility, according to state records.
Lemoore man convicted of killing ex-wife
In 2006, Debbie Hawk vanished from her Hanford home.
Her three children found blood trails from their mother’s bedroom to the garage, The Hanford Sentinel reported. Her missing minivan was later found abandoned in southwest Fresno.
Her ex-husband, Lemoore resident Dave Hawk, was convicted of her murder in 2009, and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.
In 2016, a decade after Debbie Hawk’s disappearance, a farmworker found her remains in a field, the Visalia Times Delta reported.
Dave Hawk appealed his sentence in 2021, arguing that he did not receive a fair trial in Kings County, but that appeal was denied.
As of Thursday, Hawk, now 67, was being held at Mule Creek State Prison in Iona.
Why did Fresno County serial killer murder 3 men?
In 2010, Fresno County resident Buford King killed his first victim — strangling Alberto Contreras to death after suspecting that he’d assaulted a young woman in a Visalia apartment, The Fresno Bee previously reported.
King then propped Contreras’ corpse up on a tree stump and used it for target practice.
Years later, King killed two more men, Donnie Lee and Aleksey Shelest, believing they had hurt women or children.
King pleaded guilty to all three murders and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
As of Friday, the 40-year-old Yokuts Valley man was incarcerated at Wasco State Prison, according to state records.
What happened to killer behind downtown Fresno shootings?
Kori Muhammad began his downtown Fresno shooting spree in 2017 by opening fire at a bus stop, The Bee previously reported.
Muhammed shot and killed three men — Mark Gassett, David Jackson and Zackary Randalls — in the area of Fulton and Mildreda avenues.
A week before the downtown shooting, Muhammed killed a security guard working at a Motel 6 in southeast Fresno.
A jury convicted Muhammad of murder, attempted murder and other charges in 2020.
He was sentenced to life without the possibility of parole, plus 145 years to life, with an additional 61-year sentence.
As of Friday, Muhummed, 48, was behind bars at California State Prison in Sacramento.
