UC Berkeley student held in fatal stabbing

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BERKELEY (KTVU) -- Friends and family on Monday were mourning the loss of a UC Santa Cruz student who was killed three days earlier during a stabbing attack while at home.

Berkeley police say they found the body of Emilie Inman, 27, on Friday at the home she rented on Ashby Avenue, across from Alta Bates Summit Medical Center.

Pablo Gomez Jr., 22, a UC Berkeley student, has been arrested in the slaying of Inman and the stabbing of another woman who was also attacked.

The second woman was found on Ridge Road a block north of campus. Police did not publicly identify the second victim, who seriously injured but is expected to live.

Police said they did not know what prompted the attacks, one of which marks the first slaying in Berkeley of 2017.

"This is very brutal. It's very unusual," said Berkeley police Capt. Ed Spiller. "We've had stabbings. They're not uncommon, per se but this type of violence - it is uncommon."

Gomez is from North Hollywood, Calif. He was arrested by Burbank police on Saturday. KTVU has learned that Gomez is on a psychiatric hold while in the custody of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.

Gomez was being held Monday without bail.

Berkeley police plan to travel to Los Angeles to interview him and bring him back to Alameda County. Prosecutors have not yet reviewed the case.

A neighbor in Berkeley told KTVU off-camera that the victim apparently did not know the suspect and that he went to the home looking for someone else who had previously lived there.

Inman was a French native who grew up in San Luis Obispo and attended UC Santa Cruz, studying environmental studies.

She worked with schoolchildren as a nature educator at Sienna Ranch in Lafayette and as a marine educator at the Marine Science Institute in Redwood City.

The director of the Bay Area Center for Waldorf Teacher Training told KTVU that Inman would have graduated from a three-year training program in July.

A sign in the window of Inman's home reads, "We stand with Standing Rock." A profile picture on her Facebook page also confirms Inman supported the protesters fighting the Dakota Access Pipeline.

The suspect, meanwhile, is also involved in various social causes.

Gomez studied Chicano/Latino studies at UC Berkeley. He's been involved with the Queer Alliance Resource Center on campus. He's also a climate action fellow at the Alliance for Climate Education.

On Facebook, he often posted about transgender issues and blasted officer-involved slayings of African Americans.

Students are stunned by the killing.

"It's completely shocking," said student Juan Castillo. "I mean, it just tell you how people can have multiple personalities or reactions to things. It kind of tells you, you don't really know people that you study with."