In the predawn quiet of September 27, 2025, Clifford Ransom II, age 54 and male, was found unresponsive on the sidewalk beneath the Interstate 5 overpass along West 8th Street in National City, California. Officers were called just before 6 a.m., and what began as a welfare check quickly hardened into a homicide investigation as detectives documented the scene under the rumble of early traffic. Initial reports noted no suspects on the morning of the discovery, and the corridor beneath the freeway—concrete, shadowed, and usually anonymous—became the center of a careful search for evidence and witnesses.
By day’s end, the name of the victim—Clifford Ransom II, age 54 and male—circulated among gun-violence trackers who logged the death and fixed it to that time and place in National City. Those entries, spare but specific, underscored how quickly the case moved from a mysterious death to a confirmed killing. The listing for September 27 placed Clifford Ransom II, age 54 and male, among those lost to gunfire that day, marking the date and location while the investigation continued.
Within days, detectives announced a break. A 21-year-old man, Francisco Cervantes, was taken into custody in connection with the killing of Clifford Ransom II, age 54 and male. Records show the arrest occurred on October 1, 2025, with a booking on suspicion of murder under Penal Code 187. A national gun-violence database likewise recorded Francisco Cervantes as the subject-suspect, listing him as arrested and unharmed at the time of apprehension. Media summaries described how investigators linked the arrest to the fatal shooting beneath the freeway overpass, drawing a line from that early-morning discovery to a named suspect.
As the case advanced, the portrait of the crime remained stark: Clifford Ransom II, age 54 and male, killed in the shadows of a major interstate in National City, the investigation swiftly yielding a suspect and an arrest. Public appeals and brief official updates stitched together the chronology—discovery, identification, and arrest—while leaving the deeper questions to the courts and the slow work of corroboration. What endures in the record is the timeline and the charge, anchoring the final hours of Clifford Ransom II, age 54 and male, to a place the city’s commuters pass each day and to a name now captured in both police logs and the grim ledgers that count the toll of gun violence.
