OAKLAND – An East Bay man and woman have been charged in reference to a police chase in March that resulted in an Alameda police officer's vehicle being rammed, court records show.
But each suspects are well-known to police because their names keep cropping up in murder investigations. The couple, identified in court documents as 35-year-old Jorge “Yogi” Rodriguez and 32-year-old Marie Rayann Krum, have been named by eyewitnesses as witnesses to a 2023 murder and a fatal shooting just three weeks ago, police said.
Rodriguez was arrested on Aug. 18 after being named as a suspect within the Aug. 8 killing of 41-year-old Ivan Ortegon. The man was shot by a still-unidentified person wearing a scary clown mask and white overalls, authorities said. The shooting occurred on the train tracks near the 5900 block of Coliseum Way in East Oakland.
Rodriguez was not charged with Ortegon's killing, but after his arrest he was charged with assault on a police officer and fleeing from police in reference to the March incident.
Krum, meanwhile, is charged with possession and receiving stolen goods within the vehicle that Rodriguez allegedly drove into Alameda police officer Brock DeWitt's occupied patrol automobile on March 11. When she was arrested in July, she reportedly identified herself on surveillance video and confessed to her role within the chase. She didn’t come forward because she and her boyfriend Rodriguez led a “lifestyle like felons,” police said in court documents.
Last yr, Krum and Rodriguez were listed as possible witnesses within the May 30, 2023, killing of 49-year-old James Rodriguez. He was shot near a hundredth Avenue and Pearmain Street in East Oakland, allegedly by his girlfriend, 42-year-old Yaeko Payne, who’s charged with murder. James Rodriguez, who is seemingly not related to Jorge Rodriguez, had been arguing with Payne all day when Jorge Rodriguez and Krum showed as much as borrow money from him and witnessed the deadly violence that unfolded, based on police.
Oakland police Sergeant Michael Romans-Rowe testified at Payne's preliminary hearing last March that Krum described parts of the incident to police. He claimed James Rodriguez jostled Payne, leaving him with a bloody lip. Payne allegedly left the argument, returned with a firearm and shot Rodriguez twice, hitting him slightly below the armpit. He died inside minutes, police said.
When Rodriguez was shot, he yelled “Do it, do it, do it” at Payne as she pointed a gun at him, based on Romans-Rowe's testimony. At the top of the hearing, Payne was found guilty of murder, assault and possession of a weapon, although her attorney tried to argue that it was lawful self-defense and that Payne was a victim of ongoing domestic violence.
“I take my hat off to you. You've put together a very good theory about what happened, with the details of who touched whom and when, but none of it is supported by evidence,” Alameda County Judge Delia Trevino told Payne's attorney at the top of the hearing. She later added, “It's unfortunate that we don't always get all the evidence at the preliminary hearing, but I believe the evidence I have supports this charge.”
The case was bolstered by two jailhouse witnesses, considered one of whom claimed Payne confessed to killing James Rodriguez and leaving the gun with Krum and Jorge Rodriguez, but authorities never found it. Both jailhouse informants said Payne killed James Rodriguez because she was “tired of him beating her,” based on the police statement.
Police were in a position to discover and track down Krum in that case because she had been named as an individual of interest in a nonfatal shooting just three weeks earlier. In that case, Krum and a lady allegedly argued outside a 24 Hour Gym in Oakland – over a shared romantic relationship – and a person living in an RV in the world shot the opposite woman within the leg. According to police testimony in court documents, Krum later denied in a police interview that she had ordered the “leg search.”
Recently, Jorge Rodriguez and Krum were named by an eyewitness as individuals who were in the world where Ortegon was killed. Police have already identified several possible suspects and individuals of interest within the case, with several witnesses claiming there have been completely different scenarios, motives and shooters behind it. Investigators have arrested at the least three people believed to have been in the world, but say they’re still working to find out who actually killed Ortegon and why.
Originally published:
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