Berkeley Official Accused of Murder
BERKELEY — A city official charged with beating a UC professor and his wife nearly to death has been charged with murder after the disappearance of the chief witness against him, police said.
Police said Friday that they obtained a warrant to arrest city waterfront commissioner Enrique Zambrano for the murder of Luis Reyna, 32, a university administrative assistant who was last seen six days ago. Reyna’s body has not been found, police said.
Zambrano, 44, allegedly confessed to Reyna that he bludgeoned Prof. Robert Mishell, of the department of microbiology and immunology, and his wife, Barbara, in their home Jan. 31, reportedly because he believed the couple had made threatening phone calls to his home.
Reyna, who was supposed to meet Zambrano on Monday in Berkeley’s industrial section, told his mother before he left: “If I don’t come back in an hour, don’t forget, call the police because something will have happened to me,†his family said.
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