Sheriffs ID body found in rural Sebastopol and arrest his alleged murderer

The deceased is Mark Sullivan, an elderly man who wandered away from his home in August

The Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office has both offered a tentative ID on the body found in rural Sebastopol last weekend—and arrested his alleged murderer.

According to Public Information Officer Rob Dillion, the deceased has been tentatively identified as Mark Sullivan, the elderly man who was last seen in downtown Sebastopol on August 24.

Sullivan’s badly decayed remains were found on a rural property south of Sebastopol on Saturday, Oct.14.

“Our violent crimes detectives had been working on the case since they were called in,” Dillion said. “As they were working through the investigation, obviously more and more information became available and at some point they were able to determine enough to basically author and have a judge sign an arrest warrant, based on the information that they had found. The official ID is still pending information from the coroner's office, but there was enough information so far to point in that direction to author and effect an arrest warrant.”

The man suspected of killing Sullivan is 27-year-old transient Dylan Ockerman, from Washinton state. With the assistance of the San Rafael Police Department, Violent Crimes detectives located and arrested Ockerman in the city of San Rafael. He was transported back to Sonoma County and booked into the Main Adult Detention Facility for murder. Ockerman is currently being held without bail.

He was arraigned in the courtroom of Judge Karlene Navarro on Thursday, Oct. 19, and charged with murder with an enhancement of “lying in wait.”

Mark Sullivan’s family has started a GoFundMe to pay for cremation and memorial services: https://gofund.me/07517df1