Authorities say the newest charge links a 2024 San Gabriel shooting to the 2025 killings of a Walnut Creek woman and her mother.

MARTINEZ, Calif. — A Walnut Creek man already charged with killing his wife and mother-in-law now faces a third murder charge in a separate Southern California shooting, as prosecutors argue all three deaths grew out of one personal relationship and should be tried together in Contra Costa County.

Howard Wang, 43, was charged in the June 8, 2024, killing of Chengli Li in San Gabriel, the Contra Costa County District Attorney’s Office announced March 30. Prosecutors say the case is tied to the Sept. 18, 2025, killings of Wang’s wife, Linlin Guo, and her mother, Beimin Cheng, in Walnut Creek. The new filing matters because it turns what had been a double-murder prosecution into a broader case built around planning, motive, accomplices and a timeline that now stretches across nearly two years.

According to prosecutors, the earliest killing in the case happened in Los Angeles County, where Li, 41, was shot to death outside his apartment in San Gabriel. Authorities say Wang and Demarques James Pearl, 33, planned the killing in Contra Costa County, then traveled from the Bay Area to Southern California on June 7, 2024. The next day, Li was gunned down outside the apartment building. Prosecutors allege Pearl was the shooter and Wang drove the getaway car. In announcing the charge, the district attorney’s office said Li had been the romantic partner of Yan Wang, who prosecutors describe as Howard Wang’s girlfriend. Yan Wang is not related to Howard Wang.

The case then moved back to Walnut Creek more than a year later. Prosecutors say Howard Wang killed Guo and Cheng on Sept. 18, 2025, inside the family home on the 100 block of Kelobra Court. Authorities have said he slit both women’s throats, then fired shots and blamed a fleeing intruder. Police responding to a 911 call reporting a disturbance and possible gunfire arrived about 11:45 p.m. and found the two women dead inside the residence. Another adult and two children were in the home at the time, according to reporting on the case, but were not physically hurt. Wang was taken into custody after the initial investigation and has remained jailed since then.

Prosecutors have also described earlier warning signs inside the marriage. Court filings in the Walnut Creek case accuse Wang of making criminal threats against Guo around Aug. 31, 2024, and of preventing her from reporting a crime to police on Jan. 7, 2023. Local reporting has said he was arrested that day on domestic violence-related allegations. Records cited by local media also show Wang filed for divorce in January 2024 and later sought to dismiss the case. Those details do not answer every question about motive, and prosecutors have not laid out a full public narrative of why Guo and Cheng were killed when they were. But the filings show investigators are treating the 2025 killings not as an isolated eruption, but as part of a longer pattern.

The prosecution has widened beyond Howard Wang alone. Yan Wang, 45, of Oakland was charged in September 2025 with accessory after the fact, first-degree residential burglary and misdemeanor destruction of evidence. Prosecutors say she helped Howard Wang avoid arrest, entered the home on Sept. 19, 2025, with intent to commit larceny, and destroyed cellphones to keep evidence from being produced. Pearl, meanwhile, now faces a murder charge in Li’s death. Contra Costa County said the San Gabriel homicide will be joined with the Walnut Creek double-murder case because the alleged planning happened in Contra Costa County. Pearl’s arraignment was reset to April 1, while Howard Wang’s was reset to April 14 at 1:30 p.m. at the A.F. Bray Courthouse annex in Martinez after defense lawyers asked for more time.

The emotional force of the case has also spilled into court and the wider community. KTVU reported there was a physical altercation at one early hearing after Yan Wang appeared and members of Guo’s family were present. District Attorney Diana Becton, announcing charges in the cases, said the deaths were a reminder of the reach of domestic violence and its effect on families and communities. Guo’s killing drew particular attention because she was a mother of twin daughters who were in the home when the violence unfolded. The triple-homicide theory now being advanced by prosecutors gives the case a different shape: not three separate tragedies, but one prosecution built on the claim that private relationships, jealousy, secrecy and violence were tightly connected from the start.

Wang’s case now stands at a charging stage, with prosecutors seeking to move the joined homicide counts forward in Martinez. The next major dates are Pearl’s April 1 arraignment and Howard Wang’s April 14 hearing, when the court is expected to take up the latest charges and set the next procedural steps.

Author note: Last updated April 20, 2026.