From Bill Lindelof:
A man who police say killed the mother of his child in Novato was taken into custody in Citrus Heights this morning. The child also was recovered safely.
James Raphael Mitchell, 27, is in Novato police custody and will be booked into Marin County Jail, said Sgt. Oliver Collins of the Novato Police Department.
Collins said that at about 7 p.m. Sunday police received a report of a woman screaming at a home on Diablo Court in Novato. When police arrived a few minutes later, they found in the back yard a woman who had been beaten with a baseball bat. She died at the scene.
Police say they immediately suspected Mitchell of killing the woman and taking the couple's 1-year-old daughter when he fled. An Amber Alert bulletin to locate the child was issued, and about midnight Mitchell and the girl were located in Citrus Heights.
"The child was there, unharmed and taken into protective custody," Collins said.
Authorities provided no other details of the killing.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that Mitchell is the son of the late Jim Mitchell, the pioneering pornographer who was convicted of killing his brother, Artie, with whom he built the Mitchell Brothers porn business. The brothers produced "Behind the Green Door" and other porn films during the 1970s.
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