HAYWARD — Retired homicide detective Joe Kenda was going through the motions, describing for his TV audience how murders are solved through a meticulous, step-by-step review of physical evidence.
It was Dec. 9, 2019, the year that Kenda’s show, Homicide Hunter, aired its ninth and final season. Over in Hayward, one viewer allegedly rocked back and forth in his seat, nervously. His name was Emmanuel Padilla-Maciel, and at the time he was a 19-year-old known to the woman alone in her living room with him as a “laid back, chill type of person.”
She asked him what was causing him to behave so uncharacteristically. What followed, according to her court testimony, was a chilling confession to a homicide that occurred just two days earlier in the same city where they were watching TV. By coincidence, the victim happened to be her childhood friend: John “JJ” Creech Jr., whose killing would go unsolved for years, despite the alleged confession, and lead to the proliferation of familiar “Justice for JJ” banners and online flyers being shared by loved ones.
The woman shared the information, not with police but instead with one of Creech’s loved ones, who turned it over to investigators. Padilla-Maciel was a suspect but stayed out of jail until 2023, after police spoke to eyewitnesses and matched a spent shell casing in Padilla-Maciel’s bedroom to the homicide scene. That year, Padilla-Maciel was arrested at the southern border, while returning to the United States from Mexico, according to police.
Finally, at Padilla-Maciel’s preliminary hearing in June, the woman took the witness stand, publicly sharing her story for the first time. Her full name was sealed by an order by Alameda County Judge Amy Sekany, due to fear of reprisals. She recalled how Padilla-Maciel would regularly stop by her Hayward home to watch TV with her or hang out with her husband. The two were alone, watching a true crime show featuring Kenda, when he began to act “nervous and fidgety” as Kenda described police evidence gathering techniques, the woman testified.
“He was asking me, ‘Is this really what happens?’” she said on the stand. When she pressed him, he allegedly told her the story of how he shot and killed Creech simply because Creech was wearing a red beanie on that cold winter day. Padilla-Maciel was with two women and a man, all but one of whom would refuse to speak to police, according to court records.
“They seen him walking out of a house that they were next to. And they went up to him. And he wouldn’t take off his beanie. They asked him to take off his beanie,” she testified. “And he didn’t. So they shot him.”
Authorities allege that Padilla-Maciel, 23, was associated with a gang that uses the color blue as an identifier, and rivals with a gang that uses red. Prosecutors offered no evidence that Creech was actually an associate or member of a gang, simply that Padilla-Maciel was offended by the article of clothing’s color and took action.
Padilla-Maciel is now awaiting trial, with his next court date set for January. He is being held at Santa Rita Jail in Dublin without bail, records show.
Creech, 20, was shot and killed around 4:45 p.m. on Dec. 7, 2019, near Santa Clara Way and Yolo Street in Hayward, leaving behind seven sisters and a fiancee. The two were planning a wedding when he was killed. A campaign, led in part by Creech’s mother, kept the case fresh in peoples’ minds for years.
Court papers say that detectives learned of Padilla-Maciel’s possible involvement as early as Dec. 27, 2019, when they received a tip that he’d confessed to a friend. Police later learned that there were three other eyewitnesses, one of whom flat out refused to discuss the shooting, according to court records.
The investigation was further complicated when the lead detective went on sick leave with a terminal illness, passing it off to a new investigator, according to testimony. With no public resolution, Creech’s loved ones continued to reach out to the public for answers.
“As we approach JJs two-years (anniversary) I’m still searching for answers on why my son isn’t here anymore,” a Facebook post by Creech’s mother says. “One-hundred-and-four weeks of going back and forth in my head nothing makes sense! What I do know is JJ was robbed of living and left to die all alone! Someone knows who murdered JJ that day everyone talks!”
Turns out mom was right, according to police testimony.
First, Padilla-Maciel allegedly confessed to his friend. Then, in 2022, the two other alleged eyewitnesses were arrested in an unrelated case. One of them agreed to talk and later took the stand — like the other woman, with her full name sealed by a court order — and described just enough to implicate Padilla-Maciel in the shooting.
She said the day started with tacos in Oakland. When they got back to Hayward, Padilla-Maciel told the driver he wanted to talk to someone they’d driven past. The car stopped, he got out, and “I heard shots,” she testified. She denied seeing the shooting or remembering how many shots were fired.
Another local resident, a retired mailman, testified he also heard shots that day, then saw a man aged 18-24 running down his street. He said he wouldn’t be able to recognize the person now that several years had gone by. But what he remembered is that the young man was holding a gun — and looked scared.
“He got to the corner, he crossed like he was heading towards the underpass. He got halfway off the street and he stopped and I seen him panic,” the retired mailman testified. “He jumped in the air.”
Then a car pulled up and a woman got out.
“I could just see her silhouette, her long hair … And I heard her. She was screaming,” he testified. “She screamed to the guy who was running, ‘Get in the car.’”