U.S. Marshals arrested Brian Anthony Williams in San Diego, where he had worked as a chef named Troy Williams.

An arrest on a 14-year-old warrant puts Williams in federal custody. It is not a Scott County verdict, and the Marshals Service has not announced an extradition date. NBC San Diego identified the business as Miss B's Coconut Club, where the general manager said Williams had run the kitchen for years under the name the Marshals say was an alias.

The U.S. Marshals Service said Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, that deputies arrested Brian Anthony Williams, 50, in the Mission Beach area of San Diego. The Southern District of Iowa said San Diego marshals went to the 3700 block of Mission Boulevard, found him inside the business, and took him into custody without incident. He will remain in Marshals custody pending extradition to Iowa. U.S. Marshal Ted Kamatchus, the marshal for the Southern District of Iowa, said, "This arrest is a perfect example of those who think they have bested law enforcement and evaded arrest," and that "Deputy U.S. Marshals remain resolute in their relentless pursuit of the most dangerous offenders in our society." NBC News, NBC San Diego, and Fox News identified the business as Miss B's Coconut Club. The Marshals release named the block and the arrest. It did not name the restaurant.

The Marshals Service said that in 2013 Williams was charged in the Southern District of Iowa with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution, tied to a 2012 Davenport kidnapping case. It said Scott County charged him on Oct. 26, 2012, with first-degree kidnapping, assault willful injury causing serious injury, conspiracy to commit a felony, and first-degree arson. The release says those counts concern his alleged role in an Oct. 8, 2012 assault in which Williams and other coconspirators are alleged to have kidnapped, assaulted, and shot a woman before leaving her in a field in northwest Davenport. The Davenport Police Department asked the Southern Iowa Fugitive Task Force to find him. The service said he had been a fugitive for nearly 14 years, had appeared on Quad Cities newscasts as a most-wanted fugitive, and had been posted on the Southern District of Iowa's website. Those are the charges and the government's account of the 2012 assault. The woman is not named in the release.

The Marshals Service said that in September 2026 it developed information that Williams was living in San Diego under the assumed identity Troy Williams and working as a chef, and that the person believed to be Williams had appeared in local publications and television news reports under that name. NBC San Diego reported he had been head chef at Miss B's Coconut Club for about 10 years. The station quoted general manager Eddie Jurado, who said an investigator told him, "Troy is not coming back," and told him to search the name Brian Anthony Williams. Jurado said a mug shot of his head chef came up. He told the station, "This is crazy, we've been through it. I've been here 10½ years, he's been here 10½ years. He's been running that kitchen for about eight or nine, once our first chef left and he took it over. We've been through Covid. I was his roommate for a while and he's not even Troy." Jurado also said employees feel sorry for the victim. That is a manager's account of a phone call and of the years he thought he knew the chef. It is not testimony in the Iowa case.

NBC San Diego reported that as of Wednesday it was not yet known when Williams would be extradited. Fox News reported Friday that he remains in federal custody pending extradition to Iowa. The counts the Marshals Service listed are the Scott County charges from Oct. 26, 2012, and the 2013 unlawful-flight charge. An extradition hold is how he gets to the courthouse that issued the warrant. It is not a plea, and it is not a finding that he kidnapped, shot, or set a fire. All defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty in a court of law.