The Alameda County District Attorney’s office has charged a 54-year-old Livermore man with murder in the shooting death of his younger brother last week.
Jeffrey Murray, a member of a well-known ranching family in rural Livermore, was arraigned Tuesday for fatally shooting his brother, 50-year-old Todd Murray, following an argument at their property on the 1000 block of Hartman Road Saturday night.
The elder Murray called 911 Saturday, and said he shot his brother. He was arrested by Alameda County Sheriff’s Office deputies around 9:55 p.m.
“It wasn’t a very complicated investigation, as Jeffrey had obviously admitted to his involvement in the death of his brother with a firearm,” Sgt. Ray Kelly, a spokesman with the sheriff’s office said Wednesday.
The elder Murray is being held without bail in Santa Rita Jail and is scheduled for a plea hearing on March 13, court records show.
“It’s just a tragic kind of situation for the Murray family and for the community,” he said.
The two brothers lived on the same property in separate houses, and Kelly said they occasionally had arguments.
“I think they had a feud like a lot of brothers have feuds over different things,” Kelly said of the lead-up to the shooting. “How it escalated to this, I don’t know.”
Todd Murray, the victim of the shooting, was a standout athlete at Livermore High School in the 1980s, excelling at football and rodeo competitions, among other pursuits.
The family has deep roots in the eastern part of Alameda County, especially in the tight-knit ranching world, Kelly said.
“There’s a lot of people in the Livermore community that know this family, and grew up with Jeffrey and Todd, and worked around and worked with them. Definitely a ripple effect as far as the impact it’s had on the community out here in rural Livermore,” Kelly said.
“It’s a very unfortunate situation and our hearts go out to this family that has a compounded tragedy in the fact that they lost a son, and their other son is accused of killing his brother,” Kelly said.
“Sometimes you just can’t make sense of these things.”