Deanna Esmaeel, the mother of The Sandlot actor Marty York, was found dead in her Northern California home on Thursday. York confirmed the news on social media.
Esmaeel was a California police deputy and courthouse bailiff. She and Walter had been living together. The man suspected of murdering Esmaeel was arrested in Curry County, Oregon on Friday night.
The suspect, who legally changed his name to Edward Patrick Davies in July, was last seen in Crescent City on Thursday morning. The sheriff declined to say how Esmaeel was killed.
Officials found the body of Deanna Esmaeel, a Del Norte County sheriff’s deputy, inside her home on North Bank Road in Crescent City on Thursday morning, according to a Facebook post from the sheriff’s department.
Her boyfriend, 54-year-old Daniel James Walter, was announced as a suspect in the attack a short time later and arrested just over the California-Oregon border in Brookings on Friday night, authorities said.
“This is the hardest post I’ll ever have to write but I found out from the sheriff department last night that my mother was murdered by a man she was seeing,” York wrote on Instagram on Friday, next to a Christmas picture of him smiling alongside his mother. “The emotions I have are horrible right now between rage, vengeance, crying.”
York was best known for playing Alan “Yeah-Yeah” McClennan, one of the members of the ragtag baseball team at the center of “The Sandlot.”
York also made appearances in the sitcom “Boy Meets World,” and actors Rider Strong and Danielle Fishel from that series offered their condolences online Friday.
In an interview, Del Norte County Sheriff Garrett Scott said Walter was arrested near a homeless encampment along the Chetco River in Oregon on Friday. A judge signed a warrant to extradite Walter back to California, according to Scott, who said murder charges are expected to be filed next week.
Esmaeel was working as a courthouse bailiff for the sheriff’s department and joined the agency a little over three years ago, Scott said. She and Walter had been living together. The sheriff declined to say how Esmaeel was killed.
Sheriff’s deputies had several prior contacts with Walter over what Scott described as “mental health episodes,” including instances where he had threatened suicide.
Deputies were able to connect him with service providers in those incidents, Scott said. It was not clear how long ago those episodes took place, and Scott said deputies had not interacted with Walter recently.
