FRESNO, Calif. — Fresno police announced on Wednesday the arrest of a suspect they believe fatally stabbed his pregnant sister and her unborn child before dragging the body in a trash bin four blocks away and setting it on fire.
Police arrested 41-year-old Aaron Dudley on Tuesday as he ran from the west Fresno home he shared with his 26-year-old sister, N-Kya Rebecca Logan, who, at the time of her death, was 36 weeks pregnant with a baby she planned to name Noah. Logan just had her baby shower the Sunday before she was found dead.
Fresno Police Chief Paco Balderrama announced the arrest during a news conference at Police Department headquarters in downtown Fresno alongside District Attorney Lisa Smittcamp. The county prosecutor said she anticipates filing two murder charges against Dudley since the baby likely would’ve survived outside the womb.
If Dudley is charged with two counts of first-degree homicide with special circumstances, he would be eligible for the death penalty.
Balderrama said police have yet to confirm a possible motive, but in his opinion, it’s irrelevant.
“It takes an awful lot of evil, hate and planning to stab your own sister multiple times. She died of stab wounds, we believe, but that’s also the case for the baby,” he said. “Keep in mind this was a baby at 36 weeks. This is not an embryo. This is not a fetus. This is a baby could’ve survive outside of this. She intended to have the baby, and now obviously, all that is done. They’re both dead.”
The case, which police are treating as a double homicide, rounds out a year in which Fresno police investigated five cases involving homicides of children.
“It’s a very, very troubling situation. As a police chief, I find this horrific,” Balderrama said. “The fact that we’ve had five babies murdered in this fashion in the last year is something that keeps me up at night — something that I think about all the time. Since I was informed about this incident yesterday, I haven’t stopped thinking about it.”
Although Dudley didn’t share much with police when they interviewed him, police gathered physical evidence from the scene. Police also collected surveillance video of the suspect, including a photo from a witness of what appears to be Dudley standing over the body, Balderrama said.
Police don’t know much about the relationship between Dudley and Logan. They were called to the house in July 2021, and Dudley was placed on a 72-hour hold for being a threat to himself and others.
Whether or not Dudley suffered from mental health challenges, Balderrama said that is different from not being competent to stand trial.
“This is a person who who had the wherewithal to try to clean up the evidence, to dispose of the body, and ran when police came to knock on the door to see what was going on,” he said. “So this this is not somebody who does not know what he’s doing.”
Child homicides
Fresno police said Logan and her baby’s death were the 57th and 58th homicides in the city this year, and the third homicide case this year involving arson and children.
Filimon Robert Hurtado currently is scheduled to stand trial for the May deaths of his niece and nephew after authorities said he set their home on fire. The children’s mother also was seriously injured.
Another 7-year-old child died in a July house fire investigators believe was arson. Police have very little information in that case, Balderrama said, despite raising the Crime Stoppers reward amount twice.
Police last month made an arrest in the September double homicide of Yanelly Solorio Rivera, 18, and her 3-week-old girl, Celine Solorio Rivera.
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