(KRON) — An ongoing “negative relationship” between two men escalated in the DeLaveaga Park area of Santa Cruz and led to a deadly stabbing, police said.
The homicide happened just before noon on April 19 in George Washington Grove. Santa Cruz Police Department officers found the victim gravely injured from stab wounds.
Officers took Joseph Dale Young into custody on suspicion of murder, SCPD said. Detectives discovered that the victim knew his killer, police said.
“Mr. Young and the victim had a disagreement, which led to the stabbing. This was not a random act of violence, and the victim in this case was targeted due to their prior negative relationship with Mr. Young,” SCPD wrote.
The motive and circumstances surrounding the stabbing remain under investigation. The victim’s identity will be released by the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Coroner’s Office once his family is notified.
Young is scheduled to be arraigned on murder charges when he makes his first court appearance Tuesday.
The George Washington Grove killing was Santa Cruz’s second homicide of 2024. In February, a young University of California Santa Cruz student, Zainab Mansoor, 21, of San Ramon, was strangled to death on Seabright State Beach, police said. A former UCSC student, Samuel Stone, is charged with murdering her.
