Crime & Safety

Novato Man's Homicidal Rampage a Failure of Criminal System, Says Sonoma County DA

Judge who granted killer probation did not know of history of Thomas Halloran's threats to women.

A Petaluma triggered by a jilted Novato man was the result of an overburdened criminal justice system that didn’t keep close tabs on a man who had a history of violent threats against women and other run-ins with the law, according to an analysis by the Santa Rosa Press Democrat.

According to the article, Sonoma County District Attorney Jill Ravitch said prosecutors did not know that the killer, Thomas Halloran, 28, of Novato, had and numerous restraining orders against him when he appeared in court in May on charges of trying to obtain painkillers with a fake prescription.

Halloran had threatened other women with whom he had been romantically involved, including an ex-wife. However, because the judge wasn’t aware of that, Halloran was given two years of probation this spring after pleading no contest to a single misdemeanor count.

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On July 19, Halloran went to the rural Petaluma home of a former girlfriend, where he killed Petaluma resident and Marin County sheriff's deputy , 49, during a confrontation. Mathiesen, a longtime family friend of the former girlfriend, was off duty at the time and unarmed. Halloran was then shot and killed by the ex-girlfriend's brother.

“This case was an absolute tragedy,” Ravitch told the Press Democrat.  “It was a failure on so many fronts.”

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About 2,000 people attended at the Marin Veterans Memorial Auditorium in San Rafael and a was set up for his family.

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