Oakland murder suspect and victim were friends, tied by illicit business and drug cartel connection, police say

William Lusk, 53, allegedly used a cellphone app to disguise his phone number and lure Delondo Bellamy, 57, to his death.

OAKLAND — Last May, when 53-year-old Elk Grove resident was arrested in Jacksonville, 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.

Police in Florida didn’t know it at the time, but back on the west coast, authorities were still investigating the homicide of 57-year-old Delondo Bellamy, and Lusk was the prime suspect. They believed that Lusk had used a cellphone app to hide his number and disguise himself as a woman, then lure Bellamy to a location where he could safely gun him down.

Now, after a police investigation that spanned four months, prosecutors have charged Lusk with murdering Bellamy in the March 29 Oakland shooting. He was booked into Santa Rita Jail in Dublin on July 27 and remains there on a no-bail hold, court records show.

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.

“We finally found our lane! Tired of struggling,” Lusk allegedly texted Bellamy on March 12, just 17 days before the homicide, after he and Bellamy discussed selling a firearm to a person named “Spice,” authorities said.

Bellamy was shot and killed a little after 10 p.m. on March 29, on the 300 block of Van Buren Avenue in Oakland. Police say he initially survived the shooting and got on Interstate 580, making it as far as the Park Boulevard exit before succumbing to his multiple gunshot wounds.

A GoFundMe page by Bellamy’s son, intended to raise $30,000 for a reward, had garnered just $250 at the time of publishing. In it, Bellamy’s son lamented how Oakland police had failed to arrest a perpetrator and says his dad deserved justice.

“My father was meant the world to me and all of his children and family and now someone has taken him away and we don’t even know why,” the post says.

When authorities searched Bellamy’s phone, they found his most recent conversation had been with a 707 area code, and 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.

An eyewitness provided a description of the van, and authorities say they were able to trace it back to a car rental shop in Elk Grove and confirm Lusk rented the car before heading off to Oakland on March 29. GPS records tied to one of Lusk’s cellphones confirmed he made the drive, and after the shooting, Lusk allegedly called Bellamy repeatedly and texted him, “Damn Brah (sic), hit me and say you’re ok,” authorities allege.

Police believe the calls and text were a ruse to confirm that Bellamy had died in the shooting. In Bellamy’s phone, Lusk was listed as “Big Whack,” authorities say. The two allegedly planned family vacations and other excursions together, but many of their conversations also allegedly involved drug or gun sales and the acquisition of fraudulent ID cards, according to police.

A loaded pistol was reportedly found in Bellamy’s burgundy van, and authorities later found seven guns more guns during a search of a rental unit believed to be his, police say.

In early May, after Lusk was arrested on suspicion of trafficking fentanyl and cocaine in Florida, he allegedly told Jacksonville detectives that his friend, Bellamy, had been murdered in Oakland and that he relied on Bellamy’s “cartel” connection for the importation of cocaine. Police say that Jacksonville investigators had no idea that Lusk was a suspect in Bellamy’s killing and didn’t press him for details on the homicide.

But court records say Lusk was charged with three felonies in Duvall County, Florida, related to alleged drug trafficking and unlawful use of a telephone.