Muderer surrenders after calling news station

California man surrenders in Las Vegas for killing ex-girlfriend after calling TV news


William Gardner III, 30, called CBS 13 in Sacramento before he surrendered to authorities in Las Vegas. The arrest ended a weeks-long manhunt launched after Gardner allegedly shot and killed his ex-girlfriend, Leslie Pinkston, 32, in broad daylight outside her Winters, Calif., workplace.




A man accused of fatally shooting his girlfriend as she drove to work in a small California town was taken into custody early Tuesday — after he called a TV station during a standoff at a Las Vegas home.

William Gardner III — the suspected gunman who killed Leslie Pinkston, 32, as she sat in her SUV at a Winters, Calif., intersection on Nov. 18 — burst into the Nevada home on Monday night when police were called, according to a report.

Gardner called CBS 13 in Sacramento — about 30 miles east of Winters — before a police negotiator in Las Vegas joined the line, the station reported.

“I know that even if I tell police the full story, the full story is never going to come out,” Gardner told the station over the phone. “That’s just how the cookies (sic) crumbles. It never comes out.”

Gardner stopped when he heard SWAT team members descending on the home. Police said two adults and a 3-year-old child were inside the home at the time, but none of them were being held against their will.


Leslie Pinkston, the mother of a 6-year-old girl, died after she was shot three times while sitting in her BMW SUV parked near her office.
Leslie Pinkston/via Facebook
Leslie Pinkston, the mother of a 6-year-old girl, died after she was shot three times while sitting in her BMW SUV parked near her office.


It was not clear they had any relationship to Gardner.

The wanted man continued his bizarre rant with a concern that he was being judged as a killer.

“Those that know me, they actually know me,” he said. “They know who I am. They know how good I am. They know how solid I am as an individual. (Those) who don’t know me, they can only speculate.”

Authorities cuffed Gardner a short time later.
Police believe Gardner approached the vehicle and shot Pinkston after she parked the vehicle near her Winters, Calif., workplace.
KOVR-TV
Police believe Gardner approached the vehicle and shot Pinkston after she parked the vehicle near her Winters, Calif., workplace.

Gardner was waiting to be extradited back to Yolo County in California, where he was expected to be charged with murder. The suspected killer was also facing felony charges that included stalking vandalism and making criminal threats after a spat with Pinkston in January.



Court papers show that Pinkston, the mother of a 6-year-old girl, tried to get protection from Gardner after the alleged incident, The Sacramento Bee reported.

The documents said the danger was “so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate and specific as to...cause that person reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety,” the newspaper reported.

Gardner was released on bail just three days before Pinkston was killed, authorities said.


Leslie Pinkston, 32, went to court seeking protection from Gardner after a violent spat earlier this year.
Leslie Pinkston/via Facebook
Leslie Pinkston, 32, went to court seeking protection from Gardner after a violent spat earlier this year.

The woman was on her way to her job at Aleco Electric when Gardner allegedly approached her after she parked her black BMW SUV.

The gunman fired through the driver’s side window and struck Pinkston at least three times. The ex-boyfriend fled the scene, leaving his former girlfriend bleeding in the driver’s seat, police said.



Emergency workers rushed her to a local hospital, but she could not be saved.

Hundreds of relatives and friends attended Pinkston’s funeral a few days later.
Authorities investigate the scene where Leslie Pinkston was shot and killed in broad daylight on Nov. 18.
KOVR-TV
Authorities investigate the scene where Leslie Pinkston was shot and killed in broad daylight on Nov. 18.

“Leslie was a force to be reckoned with,” Heather Pinkston McCants said in the eulogy, according to the Daily Democrat.

“She was definitely a woman we all looked up to, wanted to be like, wanted to be close to.”

McCants remembered the slain woman’s laugh as “part giggle, part cackle, all adorable.”

 

And now I await the negative comments

 

This reminds me of when radio personality Tom Leykis had a female caller on his show. The woman admitted to Leykis that she had killed a man about 15 years ago because her boyfriend refused to give her money for child support. And it wasn't reported. Leykis reminded her that her admission was now recorded and he was going to report her to the authorities. The caller was in Arizona. She then said something that really bothered me, "People tell lies on the air all the time." The authorities did catch up to her and she was held for questioning. It goes to show that whether or not a caller is joking or telling the truth, someone will be listening. This story is so very sad. I guess he wanted to tell his side of the story before anyone distorted it with speculations and insinuations.