Third man identified in River murder case

GUERNEVILLE – Sonoma County Sheriff’s investigators made a third
arrest last week in the murder of Michael Van Tillman, the
Guerneville resident found fatally strangled and stabbed last month
in his Vacation Beach apartment.
Deputies last Friday arrested Victor Costandi Dada, 68, at his
residence on the 900 block of Renee Court in Santa Rosa. Dada was
identified as the father of Andrew Brian Sharkey, also known as
Andrew Dada, 35, one of two men who had been identified as suspects
in the Guerneville killing.
Victor Dada was taken into custody without incident, said Sgt.
Tim Duke of the sheriff’s violent crimes investigations unit in a
media announcement of the arrest.
A search of Dada’s residence “netted the seizure of additional
evidence pertaining to the case,” said Duke.
Tillman, 67, was found dead in his residence on June 27 after
Sharkey showed up at the lobby of the Sonoma County Sheriff’s
Department to report a dead body in a house on Orchard Avenue in
Guerneville.
Deputies responding to the address in the 17000 block reported
“a deceased subject” in a downstairs converted garage of the yellow
two-story building on Orchard Ave.
An autopsy report said Tillman had suffered “ligature
strangulation” and a stab wound to the back of his neck.
Final cause of death will be determined once toxicology tests
are completed, which may take several weeks, said Sgt. Clint Shubel
of the Sonoma County Coroner’s Office.
When Sharkey went to the Sheriff’s Department’s main office in
Santa Rosa on June 27 he told a deputy that he had witnessed a
murder, which had occurred three days prior, said a report.
After interviews were conducted and physical evidence was
collected from the scene, investigative leads identified Sharkey as
one of the suspects, said Sgt. Duke.
A second suspect, Gary Allen Scott, 56, fled Guerneville and was
later taken into custody in Arizona by the Yavapai County Sheriff’s
Department.
Andrew Sharkey, from Blackburn, England, remained in custody in
Sonoma County Jail this week where he’s scheduled to appear in
Sonoma County Superior Court next Tuesday on charges of murder and
elder abuse.