Authorities say the victim lived in a backyard unit behind his parents’ home, where a suspicious-person call quickly became a murder case.
LAFAYETTE, Calif. — What happened on Westminster Place on March 21 unfolded within a tight, domestic setting: a parents’ home, a backyard accessory dwelling unit where their adult son lived, a call about someone carrying a hatchet and, within minutes, a homicide investigation centered on one address.
That physical layout has shaped the case from the start. Public reporting identified the victim as 34-year-old Christopher Jaber, who neighbors said lived behind his parents’ house in Lafayette. Prosecutors later charged 35-year-old David Swank Prince with murder and said the attack appeared targeted. The geography matters because it gives the public its clearest early facts: someone was reported in the backyard, someone was said to be trying to get into the unit where Jaber lived, and police soon found Jaber dead on the same property. Before investigators fully explain motive, the property itself remains the clearest map of the crime.
According to the district attorney’s office, the 911 call came at about 11:30 a.m. from a relative of Jaber who reported a suspicious individual with a hatchet in the backyard area. The caller said the person was trying to break into the accessory dwelling unit. Neighbor accounts filled in the atmosphere around that moment. Christina Coleridge told NBC Bay Area that Jaber’s parents were not home at the time. She said neighbors’ surveillance footage captured a man later identified as Prince walking through the area and described him as calm. Another neighbor account cited by ABC7 said residents watched officers descend on the street and saw someone being apprehended not far from the home. Those details placed the event in broad daylight, in a visible residential setting, rather than in an isolated or hidden place.
Police response moved quickly. Prosecutors said officers from the Lafayette Police Department arrived at the property, found Jaber dead and detained Prince a short distance from the accessory dwelling unit. Local outlets first described the case as a stabbing death, while later reporting and the district attorney’s office specified that prosecutors alleged Jaber was killed with a hatchet. That shift did not change the charge, but it sharpened the public picture of the violence. It also gave the case one of its most unsettling facts: the suspected weapon was the same kind of object the relative had reported seeing in the backyard during the 911 call.
Only after the scene had been secured did the story widen beyond Westminster Place. Reports from Law&Crime, KTVU and other outlets said a Facebook account bearing Prince’s name had posted in February about Jaber by full name, listed the Lafayette address and referred to him as “the eye.” A follow-up comment days before the killing said, “Can someone please kill this man.” Those messages were later deleted, and authorities have not publicly confirmed that Prince wrote them. Even so, the posts changed how many people understood the case. What first appeared to be a sudden killing at a residence began to look, at least publicly, like an event that may have been foreshadowed online weeks earlier.
There is still much the public does not know about the human connection behind the address. Officials have said the killing appeared targeted, but they have not publicly explained how Prince and Jaber may have known each other or why Jaber was singled out. Neighbors offered bits of context about Jaber’s daily life, with Coleridge describing him as someone who rode his bike around the area and tried to strike up conversations. Those comments did not answer the central investigative questions, but they did anchor the victim in the place where he lived. In a case now defined by evidence, charging language and a deleted online trail, that small neighborhood portrait has remained one of the few personal descriptions of Jaber in public view.
The procedural track is clearer than the motive. Prince has been charged with murder, and prosecutors said the complaint includes an allegation that he used a deadly weapon. Later reporting said his next expected arraignment date had moved to April 2 after a continuance request. The San Francisco Chronicle also reported that Prince had a prior felony assault conviction that could affect sentencing if there is a conviction in this case. As of the latest reports reviewed, he remained in custody at the Martinez Detention Facility while the investigation continued.
The story began with one family property and still returns to that same spot: a backyard unit, a short emergency call, a victim found inside and a suspect detained nearby. The next public step will come in court, but the basic frame of the case has already been set by the narrow patch of Westminster Place where the homicide was reported.
Author note: Last updated April 18, 2026.