An 18-year-old former football player is accused of fatally beating an 86-year-old woman in California this week in a sexually-motivated assault after she tried to stop him from allegedly attacking her friend, authorities tell PEOPLE.

Investigators claim Fusako Petrus and her 61-year-old friend were attacked by Neven Glen Butler about 6 a.m. Wednesday as they were walking on the track at Highlands High School outside Sacramento, California.

The “stranger attack” was sexually motivated, Sacramento County sheriff’s Sgt. Tony Turnbull tells PEOPLE.

The friend managed to escape but Petrus was killed, he says.

“There was no rhyme nor reason for this,” he says. “This was an innocent woman going about her day. This guy was just very brazen.”

Butler, the alleged assailant, is a Twin Rivers Unified School District dropout who last attended classes at Highlands High in December, a district spokesperson tells PEOPLE. He was a member of the varsity football team from 2015 to 2016.



He is being held without bail in the Sacramento County Jail after being booked Friday on a murder charge and two counts of assault with attempt to commit rape.

He was already in custody for an unrelated but similar assault on Wednesday of a 92-year-old woman at a local elderly care home, authorities say.
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He was arraigned Friday afternoon on those charges. He is scheduled to be arraigned in Petrus’ death and her friend’s assault on Monday, when he will also be formally charged in that case.

It was unclear if he has entered a plea or retained an attorney.