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 murdering 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 s

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