DUBLIN — A former Alameda County sheriff’s deputy was sentenced to at least 50 years in prison Tuesday for the execution-style killings of a Dublin couple, after they were gunned down in their home two years ago while their relatives looked on in horror.
Devin Williams received back-to-back sentences of 25 years to life in prison for the fatal shootings of Maria and Benison Tran, who were shot at near point-blank range after Williams snuck into their Dublin home and confronted them in a fit of jealous rage. The killings — carried out with Williams’ service pistol — capped a monthslong affair between Williams and Maria Tran that Alameda County Judge Jennifer Madden described as “volatile.”
Sobbing through nearly an hour of testimony, the couple’s relatives decried the deputy’s “heinous” actions and their lasting impacts. The couple’s 16-year-old son, identified in court Tuesday only as John Doe, said plainly that “I can’t forgive you for what you did to my parents.”
“You caused a pain I wouldn’t wish on anyone,” said the son, in a letter read aloud by a prosecutor. “Do you ever think about what you’ve done, even once?”
“You destroyed my foundation,” the teenager added. “You have made sure I will walk this world alone.”
The families also lamented the collective damage that Williams, 26, caused to their trust in law enforcement. Several, including Maria Tran’s sister, Jennie Wong, spoke tearfully about how “we all must life with this agony, this crushing sorrow, for the rest of our lives.”
“A deputy is entrusted to protect the public,” Wong said. “The betrayal of trust is staggering.”
Wearing a dark grey suit, Williams mostly sat silent and stared ahead as the Trans’ relatives spoke Tuesday. He broke that silence only to offer a brief apology, while stressing he’d never forgive himself for the killings.
“I wish this tragedy never happened,” Williams told the judge. “Just know I am truly sorry.”
Authorities framed the killings as the work of a jealous and enraged lover who became obsessed with Maria Tran while the two had an affair in the months leading up to the shooting. Voluminous texts messages — often written in all capital letters — were presented at trial and in court documents, with Williams once telling Maria Tran in May 2022 that “you’re gonna make me do something stupid.” In another text, he once threatened to “break in,” promising to show up to her house “before” the cops got there if she called them, or demanding she “calm me down.”
On Sept. 6, 2022, Williams ended his shift at the Santa Rita Jail and made his way to the couple’s home on Colebrook Avenue, where he broke in while armed with his department-issued pistol.
In what a judge Tuesday called “the worst 911 call I’ve ever heard in a case,” the couple and their relatives could be heard wailing as Williams opened fire. One relative, Dalton Tran, recounted in searing testimony how it all unfolded before his eyes — Williams first shooting Benison, then walking down the stairs and firing rounds into both their heads.
The couple’s teenaged son was in the room when it happen, and he held Maria Tran in his arms as she died.
The case became a flashpoint the debate over District Attorney Pamela Price’s approach to administering justice in the East Bay, particularly after her office dropped a specific sentencing enhancement — called a special circumstances allegation — that would have removed the possibility of Williams ever receiving parole.
At the time, the couple’s families called it “a sweetheart deal to protect a police officer and the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office and gain favor with the police associations that have repeatedly challenged your competence as district attorney.”
Price, who was the subject of a recall campaign at the time, now appears on the path to being removed from office. The recall question led by a nearly 2-to-1 margin with nearly 430,000 votes counted as of Tuesday afternoon.
Williams’ attorneys asked Judge Madden to order the sentences be served concurrently, effectively halving the time that Williams would have to wait before becoming eligible for parole. Williams was only 24 years old at the time of the killings, and he “led up to this point a very productive life,” said one of the deputy’s attorneys, Matthew Dalton. He also argued that Williams suffered from a mental condition caused by a traumatic brain injury suffered from two prior assaults.
The killings struck “against the character of a person they knew since he was a young boy,” Dalton told the judge, citing dozens of pages of letters written in support of Williams by his family and friends. Several of the deputy’s relatives sat behind him in court Tuesday.
Yet Madden said she couldn’t look past the fact that the couple was “executed,” and that they would never see their families again. Worse yet, she said, is how their son would forever struggle to be the “fullest version” of himself, adding “I don’t even know if that’s possible.”
“It’s not lost on me, Mr. Williams, that you took an oath to serve and protect,” the judge said. “For you to commit these acts, it’s really unthinkable.”