Ten years ago this week, a stranger rang the doorbell at a home on the 2900 block of Mabel Street near San Pablo Park, and 22-year-old Alex Goodwin Jr. walked out the back door to see who it was. Moments later, three gunshots rang out, and the aspiring Berkeley rapper known as AyeGee was fatally wounded steps from his grandmother's house. A decade on, no one has been arrested, and Berkeley police are still offering a $50,000 reward for information that could finally break the case open.
Berkeley Police Department officers responded to the San Pablo Park neighborhood just before midnight on August 18, 2016, and found Goodwin unresponsive, according to KRON4. He was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead; the shooting was recorded as Berkeley's first homicide of 2016, as reported by SFGATE. The specific detail of the doorbell ring that drew Goodwin outside comes from Patch, which reported that an unfamiliar person had come to the family home before the shots were fired.
Police believe Goodwin was not the intended target of the gunfire. Homicide detectives and family members have said he was likely caught in a targeted shooting meant for someone else, or possibly mistaken for another person, according to Berkeleyside's coverage of the case's sixth anniversary. That same reporting noted that a lack of cooperative witnesses has hindered investigators from bringing formal charges, even as detectives continued working the case.
Goodwin grew up in South Berkeley, attending Cragmont Elementary, King Middle School, and Berkeley High before pursuing music locally under the stage name AyeGee. After his death, his family started the nonprofit All Things AyeGee, which has since hosted community backpack giveaways, Christmas drives, and youth sports events in his memory, channeling their grief into outreach for the same neighborhood where he was killed.
Family Testimony Changed City Policy
The $50,000 reward now on the table traces directly back to Goodwin's family. Berkeley officials first announced a $15,000 reward in August 2016, just 11 days after Goodwin died at Highland Hospital. But in March 2019, the Berkeley City Council voted unanimously to raise the city's maximum reward cap for unsolved homicides from $15,000 to $50,000, the first such increase since 1998, after Goodwin's sister and mother testified that larger rewards could help frightened witnesses relocate extended family members who feared neighborhood retaliation for cooperating with police. City officials at the time noted more than a dozen unsolved homicides in Berkeley dating back to 2005.
That fear of retaliation has remained a defining obstacle in the case. In January 2017, roughly 200 South Berkeley residents packed the auditorium at San Pablo Park for a public safety meeting where Goodwin's family confronted police directly, demanding stronger witness protection and more aggressive investigation of neighborhood violence. Family members told officials at the time that they worried about retribution simply for speaking to detectives.
The Broader Berkeley Crime Picture
Goodwin's killing happened during a year when violent crime in Berkeley rose 18% and aggravated assaults climbed 35% citywide, driven partly by a surge in shootings; Berkeley police logged approximately 300 gunfire calls in 2016 alone. That backdrop of citywide violence stands in sharp contrast to Berkeley's more recent record. The department's 2025 Annual Report, published by the City of Berkeley in March, found that Berkeley Police achieved a 100% homicide clearance rate every year from 2021 through 2025, compared with California's statewide average clearance rate of 64%, while total crime in Berkeley fell 11% between 2024 and 2025.
Police say even the smallest detail could prove critical to solving Goodwin's case, and detectives maintain the investigation remains active, per KRON4's report. The department believes some people may still hold information that has never been shared with investigators. People with information are asked to contact the Berkeley Police Department Homicide Unit.
San Pablo Park itself has continued to draw police attention in the years since Goodwin's death. An unsanctioned Juneteenth gathering at the park in June drew roughly 500 people and led to multiple brawls, pepper-spray injuries, and about 20 emergency dispatches, including one youth transported to a children's hospital. The park's surrounding blocks have also seen change on the housing front, with a long-blighted lot nearby recently cleared for a four-home development.
