A Sacramento County jury has convicted a man in the 2022 shooting death of former CapRadio executive Charles Starzynski in East Sacramento.
The Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office announced yesterday 26-year-old Desean Brasser Jr. was convicted of first-degree murder. Jurors also upheld enhancements that the murder was committed during a robbery, and that Brasser had personally fired a gun during the deadly crime.
Prosecutors said the 70-year-old Starzynski had visited a midtown ATM on Oct. 20, 2022, to make business deposits, and was carrying a blue bank bag back to his car.
The DA’s office said Brasser was in a car being driven by Tajenae Cooper. The pair followed Starzynski as he left the bank and drove to a parking alley behind the Sutter Lawn Tennis Club, pulling up next to him.
As Starzynski parked and opened his trunk, Brasser got out of the car and approached him with a gun. Prosecutors said a witness heard Brasser yell, “give me the bag” and reached into Starzynski’s trunk to steal the bank bag.
Brasser then pulled several items out of the trunk, shot the former station executive in the head and fled in Cooper’s car, according to the DA’s office. Sacramento police responded just after 12:30 p.m., and Starzynski was pronounced dead at the scene.
Police soon found Cooper’s vehicle parked at an apartment complex in the Pocket neighborhood, and both were arrested.
The District Attorney’s Office said evidence in the case included video footage, DNA from a cellphone dropped by the gunman matching Brasser, and ballistics matching a gun found in Brasser’s mother’s house.
Brasser is set to be sentenced on April 10, and faces a maximum sentence of life without parole. Cooper pleaded no contest on Feb. 9 to second-degree robbery in connection to the case. She is set to be sentenced May 29.
Starzynski was hired by CapRadio as a classical music announcer in 1979 and served as a producer, reporter and host before becoming the station’s program director. He left CapRadio in 1998.
"I consider myself one of the precious few who have a career that is not only creative, but also serves the community,” Starzynski wrote for the CapRadio Members Magazine in 1997.
"Charles was a key staff member when we first launched KXPR in 1979, and he dedicated nearly 20 years to the growth and success of public radio in Sacramento,” a station spokesperson wrote in 2022 after Starzynski was identified.
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