Slaying suspect in San Diego charged with 3 more murders, including 2 cold cases

A San Diego man previously accused in a 2023 murder was charged Wednesday with killing three more people, officials said.

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Two of those victims were discovered decades ago, and investigators are examining other cases possibly linked to the defendant, Dwight Rhone, the San Diego County District Attorney’s Office said in a news release.

Rhone, 74, was arraigned on three additional murder charges and pleaded not guilty. His attorney’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

San Diego County District Attorney Summer Stephan credited a deputy prosecutor for the new charges, saying her “persistence and attention to detail helped uncover critical connections between this defendant and multiple victims, including victims whose cases had gone cold.”

The charges are connected to three men — Michael Brown, Ronald Johnken and Herierto Ruiz — according to the release.

Rhone was previously charged with murder in the death of Bernardo Moreno, 54, who was found near a highway interchange on Oct. 18, 2023, with a gunshot wound to the head. His body was found in what the prosecutor’s office described as burned debris.

Brown’s remains were found in December underneath a home where Rhone once lived in San Diego’s Southcrest neighborhood, the release said. Additional details about the cause or date of Brown’s death were not immediately available.

Johnken was found in a nearby creek in 2002. The medical examiner attributed his death to blunt force trauma to the head, according to the release.

Ruiz was discovered in an alley in the Southcrest neighborhood in 1993. He died by strangulation, the prosecutor’s office said.

The release identified two other people linked to the area whom authorities are seeking information about.

The body of Danice Galloway, 33, was found in an alley less than a mile from where Ruiz was discovered, the DA’s office said. Antenogenes Gomez Velasquez disappeared in 2021 and was last known to live on Newton Avenue, the street where Rhone once lived and Brown’s remains were found.