Daniel Walter is a suspect in a murder investigation in Del Norte County. (Del Norte County Sheriff)
The mother of Marty York – an actor best known for his role in the popular 1990s baseball film “The Sandlot” – was found dead in her Northern California home Thursday morning and a suspect was arrested in Oregon, the said Authorities with.
According to a Facebook post from the sheriff’s department, officers found the body of Deanna Esmaeel, a Del Norte County sheriff’s deputy, in her home on North Bank Road in Crescent City on Thursday morning.
Her boyfriend, 54-year-old Daniel James Walter, was announced a short time later as a suspect in the attack and was arrested Friday evening just across the California-Oregon border in Brookings, authorities said.
“This is the hardest post I’ve ever had to write, but I found out from the sheriff last night that my mother was murdered by a man she was dating,” York wrote on Instagram on Friday alongside a Christmas photo of himself smiling next to his mother. “The feelings I have at the moment are terrible between anger, revenge and crying.”
York is best known for his role as Alan “Yeah-Yeah” McClennan, one of the members of the ragtag baseball team at the center of “The Sandlot.” York also appeared on the sitcom “Boy Meets World,” and actors Rider Strong and Danielle Fishel from that series expressed their condolences online Friday.
In an interview, Del Norte County Sheriff Garrett Scott said Walter was arrested Friday near a homeless camp on the Chetco River in Oregon. A judge has signed an arrest warrant to extradite Walter back to California, according to Scott, who said the murder charge is expected to be filed next week.
Esmaeel worked as a bailiff for the sheriff’s department and joined the agency a little more than three years ago, Scott said. She and Walter had lived together. The sheriff would not say how Esmaeel was killed.
Sheriff’s deputies had already had several contacts with Walter about what Scott described as “mental health episodes,” including instances in which he had threatened suicide. Officers were able to connect him with service providers in those incidents, Scott said. It was not clear how long ago these episodes occurred, and Scott said officers had not interacted with Walter recently.
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This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times.