A police officer wearing a jacket labeled “POLICE” walks alone through a cluttered encampment at night, surrounded by trailers, debris, and abandoned vehicles, illuminated by dim ambient light and flashes of red and blue from emergency lights.
Vallejo Police Det. Sgt. Joshua Caitham walks through the White Slough homeless encampment in Vallejo, Calif., after a gunman killed two men and seriously wounded a third on May 26, 2025. (Geoffrey King / Open Vallejo)

Federal authorities arrested a Vallejo man on Wednesday in connection with a Memorial Day shooting that left two men dead and a third critically wounded, according to Vallejo police.

A team of U.S. Marshals apprehended 45-year-old Eddie Charles Sample on the 50 block of Cravath Street in San Francisco, after Vallejo detectives obtained a no-bail arrest warrant on May 30, police wrote in a statement. Vallejo police requested help locating Sample due to public safety concerns, according to local officials. Court records show that authorities sought to revoke Sample’s parole in another case the day before his arrest.

Sample is suspected of killing 44-year-old Billy Hinkle and 59-year-old Craig Cousins at an encampment on the White Slough, near Sonoma Boulevard and Highway 37. Officers found Hinkle and Cousins mortally wounded inside the camp. First responders rushed an unidentified third shooting victim to a local hospital with a life-threatening injury.

Friends told Open Vallejo that Hinkle and Cousins often acted as “peacekeepers” in the encampment, intervening in conflicts before they turned violent.

Sample is being held at the Solano County Jail, public records show. He faces six felony charges, including two counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, a parole violation, evading police and driving without a license. It is not yet clear whether he has an attorney.

Sample’s arrest caps a tense week and a half in which police twice detained men they later determined were not involved in the shooting. Officers took a person into custody on several outstanding warrants near the encampment on May 26, but soon realized that the person was not involved in the killings, Vallejo police spokesperson Sgt. Rashad Hollis told Open Vallejo. 

Then on Monday, officers pursued an allegedly stolen white Honda CR-V they believed was driven by the homicide suspect, according to dispatch audio. The occupant fled into the encampment, which was soon surrounded by officers and deputies from several agencies. After taking the driver into custody, police determined that he was not the suspected shooter, Hollis said.

Hinkle and Cousins were the fifth and sixth homicide victims in Vallejo this year, according to police.

Geoffrey King is the executive editor of Open Vallejo. Prior to founding Open Vallejo, Geoffrey worked as an attorney and journalist focused on free expression, open government, press freedom and privacy. He is a proud native of Vallejo, California.