Police say the attack on Leslie Marshall was captured on security video outside the building where she and the suspect lived.

OAKLAND, Calif. — A 44-year-old Oakland man has been charged with murder after police say he beat a 49-year-old woman to death outside a residential hotel on San Pablo Avenue on Feb. 2, then returned to his room in the same building.

Authorities identified the defendant as Jeffrey McMaster Jr. and the victim as Leslie Marshall. Investigators say the killing happened at the Twin Peaks Hotel, a residential property in Oakland’s Hoover-Foster area, and was recorded by a security camera. The case has drawn added attention because McMaster had prior convictions for violent crimes, including a 2009 conviction for assault with intent to commit rape, and because he was reportedly on probation in another case when Marshall was killed.

Police said officers were sent to the 2300 block of San Pablo Avenue at about 11 a.m. on Mon., Feb. 2, after a report of a seriously injured woman outside the hotel. When officers arrived, they found Marshall with major head injuries. She was pronounced dead at the scene. Investigators later said the attack took place outside the building and that both Marshall and McMaster lived there. According to accounts drawn from police records and court reporting, security footage showed a man repeatedly striking Marshall with his hands and feet before walking away. Officers then located McMaster inside the same building and took him into custody. He was arrested the day of the killing. Court records cited in local reporting say he was later charged with murder in Alameda County.

Oakland police have said Marshall was 49. One police statement quoted in later coverage listed the victim’s age as 47, but follow-up reports and other accounts identified her as 49, the age used in charging coverage tied to the case. Police said McMaster was 44 at the time of his arrest. Investigators have described the death as a homicide caused by blunt-force injuries. Reporting based on police accounts said officers found McMaster with blood on his hands after the assault. Law enforcement officials have not publicly described any weapon, and the case as outlined in court and police coverage centers on an alleged beating carried out with the suspect’s hands and feet. Authorities also have not publicly explained what, if any, argument or contact came just before the violence, leaving the immediate motive unclear in the public record. What is clear from the available case accounts is that the victim and defendant lived in the same residential hotel and that police believe the attack happened in open view of a surveillance camera.

The case has also revived scrutiny of McMaster’s earlier criminal record. Court documents cited in Bay Area reporting show that, after a 2008 attack on another woman, he allegedly told police, “I am not fit for society,” and added, “I keep doing things like this.” He was convicted in 2009 of assault with intent to commit rape and sentenced to four years in state prison. State sex offender registry records later listed him as an offender with an above-average Static-99R risk score, a tool California uses to estimate the risk of sexual reoffense. Separate state records cited in recent coverage listed his Level of Service and Case Management Inventory score as high, a label used to estimate risk of reoffending more generally. Those details do not determine guilt in the Oakland homicide case, but they help explain why this killing quickly drew notice beyond the immediate crime scene. The public record showed a long trail of prior violence before prosecutors filed the new murder count.

More recent cases added to that record. In 2023, according to court reporting from Bay Area News Group, McMaster was charged with attacking a roommate at a residential care home in San Lorenzo and fracturing the man’s eye socket. While in jail on that case, he was also accused of biting a cellmate on the ear, stabbing him in the neck with a pencil and trying to suffocate him with a plastic bag, according to the same reporting. In 2024, he pleaded no contest to elder abuse and was placed on probation, with that term reportedly set to run into July 2026. A defense lawyer in that case argued that McMaster had mental health problems, according to the court reporting cited in later stories. Prosecutors have not publicly tied those earlier cases to the facts of Marshall’s killing beyond using them as part of the defendant’s background. Still, the sequence matters in understanding the stakes of the current prosecution, because the homicide charge arrived while he was still under court supervision in another violent case.

The setting has become part of the story as well. The Twin Peaks Hotel is described in reports as a residential hotel, not a short-stay tourist property, meaning residents live there on a more permanent basis. Police said both Marshall and McMaster were staying there when the killing happened. That detail has sharpened the sense of vulnerability around the case, because investigators believe the violence happened where residents lived and moved through common areas each day. Reporting on the case said Marshall’s body was found in a rear area of the property after the assault. Police have not publicly said whether anyone intervened before officers arrived or whether residents witnessed the attack in person, apart from the camera evidence investigators cited. The Hoover-Foster neighborhood, where the hotel stands, is a mixed residential and commercial area west of downtown Oakland. In that setting, a daytime killing outside a residential building quickly became a major local crime scene.

Procedurally, the case moved fast at the start. Police said McMaster was taken into custody the same day as the killing, and subsequent coverage said he was charged with murder and held without bail at Santa Rita Jail. An arraignment was reported to be scheduled for Wednesday, Feb. 18. Publicly available summaries of the case do not spell out every filing made after that date, so the exact posture of later hearings is not fully clear from the material reviewed here. In a murder prosecution, the next steps typically include arraignment, entry of a plea, appointment or appearance of counsel, and later hearings on evidence, readiness and trial scheduling. In this case, the key unresolved public questions include whether prosecutors will present any special circumstances or enhancements, whether defense lawyers will raise mental health issues, and whether the surveillance video will become a central point of dispute or stipulation as the case moves deeper into court. None of those questions changes the current posture: McMaster stands accused in Marshall’s death, and the murder charge keeps the case on a high-stakes track in Alameda County.

For now, much of the public understanding of the case rests on a blunt set of facts. A woman was found gravely injured outside the place where she lived. Police say a camera recorded the beating. The man accused of carrying it out had a documented history of violence stretching back years. Those facts have made the case stand out even in a region where serious assaults and homicides compete for public attention. At the same time, some details remain unsettled in the open record, including the exact sequence of events immediately before the attack and the extent to which anyone at the hotel had prior warning of danger between the two residents. Marshall’s death has left those around the case with a basic question that has not yet been answered in public filings: how a woman living in a residential hotel ended up dead in broad daylight outside her home while a repeat offender was still living under community supervision.

The case remained in the criminal system as of the latest reviewed reports, with McMaster jailed without bail and facing a murder charge in Alameda County. The next major milestone is the court process that follows arraignment, including future hearings that could clarify the evidence, the defense strategy and any trial schedule.