Charges against a Cal Fire captain indicate the alleged motive for a double murder: He killed his girlfriend and her young son because they were potential witnesses against him, prosecutors say.

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Darin McFarlin, 47, was arrested shortly after midnight Friday, Aug. 22, near Bridgeport. Three hours earlier, El Dorado County sheriff’s deputies had been called to his Cameron Park home, where they found a woman and a child who had been shot.

The woman, pronounced dead at the scene, was identified as McFarlin’s girlfriend, Marissa Herzog, 29. The child, who died at a hospital, was her son, a second-grader.

Nobody else was in the house, but a “second juvenile” who resided there was found safe, the sheriff’s office said.

McFarlin was 150 miles from the home when he was found a

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