OAKLAND — Last May, when 53-year-old Elk Grove resident William Lusk was arrested in Florida for allegedly possessing a pound of cocaine and distribution quantities of fentanyl, he allegedly told police that his close friend who had a drug cartel connection had been gunned down in Oakland months earlier.
The police investigation was based largely on phone records, which authorities say not only helped tie Lusk to the van used in the shooting, but also provided a trove of evidence that Lusk was traveling the country — including Florida, Ohio, and Illinois — to sell drugs and illegal firearms, sometimes with Bellamy’s assistance.
When authorities searched Bellamy’s phone, they found his most recent conversation had been with a 707 area code, a person purporting to be a woman who told Bellamy she’d been asked to drop something off with him. One of Bellamy’s final texts was asking the person, “Is that you in a van” and receiving an affirmative response, police said.