Woman is fatally shot near Lodi

FLAG CITY, CALIF. —  A Humboldt County woman was shot to death Tuesday, just days after police mistakenly believed she was taken hostage by her boyfriend.

Jennifer Buschell, 30, of Redway was found with several gunshot wounds to her upper body around 1 a.m. at a gas station west of Lodi and was taken to the hospital, where she died, said San Joaquin County sheriff’s spokesman Les Garcia.

Authorities have made no arrests in the shooting but want to question her boyfriend, David Brian Bernal, 27, who was the subject of a seven-hour police standoff Friday after Buschell’s mother called 911 to report that he had kidnapped her daughter. Police believed Bernal was holed up in a Kings County house and waited outside for hours before a SWAT team burst in and found no one inside.

Buschell later walked up to the scene and said the couple simply had an argument and went down to the river nearby to talk.

Authorities never found Bernal for questioning.

The suspect in the shooting Tuesday was described as a white or Hispanic man wearing a brown or red flannel shirt, a baseball cap with a red bandanna beneath it, bluejeans and a black jacket. He fled in a green four-door Honda Accord, Garcia said.