Fatal BART stabbing suspect faces murder, robbery charges

A San Francisco man was charged with murder Thursday for the fatal stabbing of a 49-year-old man on a BART train at the transit agency’s South Hayward station on Tuesday afternoon.

Jermaine Brim, 39, is scheduled to be arraigned on the murder charge and four other felony counts at a hearing before Judge Armando Cuellar in Department 712 at the East County Hall of Justice at 5151 Gleason Drive in Dublin at 2 p.m. Thursday.

BART police said Brim, who had walked away from San Leandro Hospital sometime earlier, got into a physical confrontation with 49-year-old Oakland resident Oliver Williams after Brim tried to steal shoes from another passenger who apparently was asleep and Williams intervened.

Police said Williams took out a knife during his confrontation with Brim, but Brim was able to control the knife and allegedly used it to stab Williams multiple times.

A witness described the suspect as a black man wearing a blue hooded sweatshirt, camouflage pants and no shoes and said he had run down the stairs from the platform at the South Hayward station to its concourse level, BART police Officer Ronald Rodriguez wrote in a probable cause statement.

In the meantime, Williams had suffered multiple stab wounds to his neck and was pronounced dead at 1:09 p.m. Tuesday, according to Rodriguez.

At about the same time, Hayward police notified BART police that a man matching the description of the suspect had been spotted near Tennyson Road and Mission Boulevard, near the South Hayward station, Rodriguez wrote.

Witnesses told police that the suspect was now shirtless, still barefoot and was trying to wash off blood from his body and clothing at a gas station at Tennyson and Mission, according to Rodriguez.

The suspect then ran over to an auto dealership next door, grabbed the keys for a car from salesman Steven Castro and attempted to steal the vehicle but it didn’t start, Rodriguez wrote.

He then ran into the street, stopped a vehicle and tried to take that car but was unsuccessful, the officer wrote.

Officers were then able to arrest and identify Brim, according to Rodriguez. Brim, whose home address is listed as being in the 1400 block of California Street in San Francisco, is being held without bail at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin.

A BART spokesperson said Brim had been labeled as a “missing person at-risk” after going missing from the San Leandro hospital but didn’t say when Brim left the hospital.

In addition to murder, Brim is charged with attempted second-degree robbery for trying to steal property from Williams, second-degree robbery for taking property from an unnamed victim, attempted carjacking for trying to take the car from Castro, and attempted carjacking for his second attempt to steal a car.