San Diego restaurant workers react to longtime co-worker being fugitive from the law

SAN DIEGO (NBC, KYMA) - Restaurant workers in San Deigo said were shocked to learn their longtime co-worker was also a fugitive from the law.

Video captured shows 50-year-old Brian Anthony Williams being arrested Tuesday morning at Miss B's Coconut Club, where he worked as head chef.

According to the U.S. Marshals Service, he was wanted for evading prosecution for a 2012 kidnapping and assault case in Iowa.

Investigators said Williams and others kidnapped, assaulted and shot a woman before leaving her in a field in Davenport, Iowa.

Eddie Jurado is the general manager of Miss B's Coconut Club.

He said a friend called him to inform him of Williams' arrest at work Tuesday morning.

When Jurado talked on the phone with an investigator to find out what was happening, "He's like 'Troy is not coming back.' I'm like, 'What?' He's like, 'Google Brian Anthony Williams.' I'm like...he couldn't say anything. So I'm like, 'Okay.'"

He says he knew him really well, or at least he thought he did.

When he looked the name "Brian Anthony Williams," this mugshot of his head chef came up whom he had known to be "Troy" all this time.

"This is crazy, like we've been through it here like been through it. I've been here 10.5 years, he's been here 10.5 years, he's been running that kitchen for about, I don't know, [eight or nine years], once our first chef left he took it over, we've been through COVID, I was his roommate for a while like and he's not even Troy," Jurado shared.

Jurado said he and his colleagues still can't wrap their minds around how Williams managed to live under a different identity for as long as he did.

"It's actually kind of scary," Jurado expressed.

Jurado said they feel very sorry for the victim and what she went through, and said they are still trying to understand how Williams managed to get away with an alias for so long.