Wilbur Lee Jennings was convicted by a Fresno County jury in 1986 of murdering four women between August 1983 and September 1984. He was found guilty of the first-degree murders of Linda Johnson, Olga Cannon and Jacqueline Frazier and the second-degree murder of Karen Robinson, along with a list of other felonies against those women and three more victims who survived. The same jury fixed his penalty at death. The California Supreme Court upheld the judgment in April 1991, with one change to the special-circumstance findings.
Investigators in Fresno County called him the "ditchbank killer," a name that, according to sheriff's officials quoted by KFSN-TV in 2008, deputies gave him in 1984. Years later DNA testing linked him to two older killings, one in Sacramento County in 1981 and one near Easton in Fresno County in 1983. Neither reached a trial. He died in custody on February 11, 2014, at 73, while still awaiting trial on the Sacramento charge.
Jennings was born in Shreveport, Louisiana, in 1940, according to his mother's testimony at the penalty phase of his trial, as summarized by the California Supreme Court. His parents separated, and his mother moved to California, leaving him and three siblings with her parents in Shreveport. The family came together again in Los Angeles in 1948 and moved to Selma, in Fresno County, in 1950. He went to high school in Selma and graduated there.
At the penalty phase, relatives and employers described another side of him. A stepbrother testified that he helped neighbors and gave money to their mother. His mother said he had caused no trouble while in custody and had been trusted with responsibility in the county jail. A longtime employer and the employer's wife told the jury he had been a good and reliable worker.
His criminal record ran back more than two decades before the Fresno killings. The supreme court's opinion lists a guilty plea in 1962 in a case involving a teenage girl, a guilty plea in 1966 to assault with a deadly weapon, with other charges, and a later guilty plea to assault with a deadly weapon on a man. A conviction for false imprisonment involving a woman was also part of the record put before the penalty jury. The court said he had spent much of his adult life in prison, and it noted that a newspaper article submitted with his motion to move the trial reported he had been in prison for most of the previous 22 years.
The California Supreme Court's opinion describes the four women through the people who knew them and testified about their last days.
Karen Robinson had a young daughter, and both the girl and Robinson's father gave evidence at the trial. She was last seen around August 22, 1983, in Fresno, and was found dead the next day. She had been beaten and drowned, according to the opinion.
Jacqueline Frazier was last seen late on July 21, 1984, in the Fresno area. Her brother and a friend were among the witnesses at the trial. She was found dead a few days later. The opinion says she drowned after being beaten.
Olga Cannon was also known by the nicknames Wendy and Nene. Her husband reported her missing. She was last seen with Jennings around August 14, 1984, in Fresno, and she was found outside Fresno on December 8, 1984. The cause of her death could not be determined.
Linda Johnson had lived with her mother next door to the Jennings family in Selma. She had moved to Long Beach to be with her boyfriend and had come back to the Selma area by September 12, 1984. She was found dead outside Fresno on September 13, 1984. She had been beaten to death, according to the opinion. Her brother was among the witnesses at the trial.
Linda Johnson's death brought the investigation to Jennings's door. Police interviewed him the day after the fire at her home, the opinion says, and on September 15, 1984, a detective arrested him for her killing.
The case against him on the four murder counts was built from several kinds of evidence, as the supreme court later summarized it: physical evidence linking him and his car to the cases, property of two of the women traced to him, and witnesses who placed him with the women before they disappeared. In the Johnson case, her brother described Jennings's questions about her, and acquaintances and a co-worker testified to threats he had made toward her.
In the Robinson case, witnesses placed her with him shortly before she disappeared, and her young daughter recognized his photograph.
Some of the most damaging evidence came from his own family and from a jail cell. His half brother told police that Jennings had admitted killing Linda Johnson and had said he killed three other women. A cellmate testified that Jennings described the killings of Johnson and Cannon to him. Other acquaintances testified to things he had said about the women. Jennings, for his part, took the stand, denied killing any of the four, and denied making the statements the witnesses attributed to him.
Before the trial, Jennings's lawyers asked for it to be moved out of Fresno County because of press coverage. A defense expert surveyed residents and reported that 72 percent remembered the case, about a quarter recalled details of it, 51 percent thought they might be influenced by what they had heard, and 31 percent believed the district attorney had a very strong case. Sixty-four percent believed an impartial jury could still be found. The defense put six Fresno Bee articles before the court. They reported, among other things, that a witness said Jennings had admitted one killing, that he was suspected in an uncharged killing, that he had spent most of the previous 22 years in prison, and that belongings of the victims had been found at his home.
The trial judge denied the motion without prejudice, and the defense did not renew it. Of 423 people called for jury selection, 269 had seen or heard some coverage of the case. On appeal the supreme court called the articles troubling but held that they were largely factual, that about 11 months had passed between the last of them and jury selection, and that nothing showed a fair jury could not be seated in Fresno.
The defense also chose, as a matter of strategy, to withdraw a motion that would have split the charges into separate trials, so all of the counts went before one jury. The supreme court later found that choice to be a reasoned tactical decision.
The trial was held in 1986 in Fresno County Superior Court before Judge Mario G. Olmos. The defense case rested largely on the credibility of the prosecution's witnesses. In his opening statement, defense counsel told the jury that many of those witnesses were not telling the truth, were repeating what they had earlier told police, or were afraid. The central theory, as the supreme court described it, was that the bulk of the People's case depended on the statements of women who worked as prostitutes, whom the defense portrayed as untrustworthy. The trial judge refused to let the defense question some of those witnesses about whether they had reported their earnings on welfare applications, reasoning that the inquiry would take time, confuse the issues and lead witnesses to invoke the Fifth Amendment. The jury had already heard about the witnesses' histories, and the supreme court upheld that ruling.
The jury began deliberating in June 1986. On June 10 the foreman raised a question about a possible deadlock on one count, and the judge answered it without first calling in the lawyers; he told the jurors that a deadlock on one count would not affect the other 23. The jury then deliberated for almost five more days. On appeal the court held that the defense had waived any objection to the judge's answer and that the answer stated the law correctly.
The jury found Jennings guilty of the first-degree murders of Linda Johnson, Olga Cannon and Jacqueline Frazier and the second-degree murder of Karen Robinson. It also convicted him of other felonies against those four women and three other victims, including robberies, arsons and kidnapping for robbery, with other charges. It acquitted him of the charges concerning one other woman and could not agree on the charges concerning two more.
The jury sustained eight special-circumstance allegations. They included findings that Johnson, Cannon and Frazier were killed in the course of robberies, further felony-murder findings, and findings that he had committed multiple murders.
At the penalty phase the prosecution presented evidence of his earlier violent crimes against several women and a man, including the testimony of a woman he had assaulted years before. His family and employers spoke for him. The jury returned a verdict of death. The court added a term of life imprisonment for the kidnapping for robbery, a consecutive term of 15 years to life for the second-degree murder of Karen Robinson, and an unstayed determinate term of 49 years and 8 months for the remaining felonies. Under California law the appeal to the state supreme court was automatic.
The California Supreme Court appointed Hugh Anthony Levine to represent Jennings on appeal; the docket records the appointment in January 1987. The court decided the case, People v. Jennings, No. S004754, on April 11, 1991. It is reported at 53 Cal.3d 334.
Chief Justice Lucas wrote for the majority, joined by Justices Panelli, Arabian and Baxter. The court rejected a long list of claims. It held that the defense had waived its complaint about the "on or about" dates in the charges by failing to object before trial, and that counsel had not been ineffective for failing to do so. It upheld the refusal to move the trial. It held that the evidence was sufficient, apart from Jennings's own admissions, to support the convictions it reviewed, including the Frazier murder, and it relied on independent evidence of Olga Cannon's death in weighing the cellmate's account. It found no ineffective assistance in defense counsel's opening statement, in the withdrawal of the severance motion or in other choices. It found no reversible error in the jury instructions or in the judge's unshared answer to the jury.
Several smaller claims failed as well. The court rejected the argument that defense counsel's brief opening statement had signaled a weak case to the jury, reasoning that the defense theory attacked the reliability of the prosecution's witnesses and that the acquittal and the deadlocks on related counts showed it had some force. References to Jennings's criminal history that came into the trial unprompted were not grounds for reversal, because defense counsel neither objected nor asked for a remedy. The defense argued that the trial court could order witnesses to appear only in court, not at the district attorney's office, but the court found that Jennings had not shown how the missing objection had harmed him. And the standard instruction on jurors' note-taking, the court held, already covered the cautions the defense said were lacking, so no further instruction was required without a request.
On the penalty phase, the court held that the jury could properly hear about an old assault for which the time to prosecute had run out, and about an assault on a woman that her own testimony supported. It held that the jury should not have been allowed to consider the crimes of which Jennings had been acquitted, but found the error harmless; the crimes on which the jury had deadlocked could be considered. It also vacated two of the multiple-murder special-circumstance findings and held that the jury's consideration of them was harmless.
The disposition read: "The two multiple-murder special-circumstance findings (§ 190.2, subd. (a)(3)) are vacated. The guilt and penalty judgments are otherwise affirmed in their entirety."
Justice Mosk, joined by Justices Broussard and Kennard, concurred in most of the judgment but dissented in part. He would have set aside one of the non-murder convictions concerning Olga Cannon and the special-circumstance finding that rested on it, because in his view the prosecution had not proved that offense by evidence independent of Jennings's own statements. The evidence allowed only speculation, he wrote. His view did not carry the majority.
Jennings remained under sentence of death. Years after his trial, DNA testing led investigators back to him in two older cases. Neither was ever tried, and neither is part of his convictions.
In May 2008 the Fresno County sheriff, Margaret Mims, announced that DNA had connected Jennings and another man to the 1983 killing of an elderly woman near Easton, a rural community in Fresno County. KFSN-TV and KMPH-TV reported the announcement. The other man was then in a Utah prison, serving a sentence for murder, and was due for release the next year. Murder charges with special circumstances had been filed against him, and charges against Jennings were expected to follow, KFSN reported. Both men were already behind bars for other crimes, the sheriff said, according to KMPH. Investigators would not say how the two men knew the woman or each other. The district attorney, Elizabeth Egan, said: "There was nothing cold about this case for the surviving family members." No trial of Jennings in that case was reported.
The second case came from Sacramento County. By early 2014 Jennings was awaiting trial there on a charge of murdering a 17-year-old in 1981, a killing that DNA evidence had linked to him, according to an Associated Press report carried by CBS Sacramento. He had been held in the Sacramento County Main Jail since January 2005, CBS Sacramento reported.
Jennings died at a hospital at about 10:30 a.m. on February 11, 2014. He was 73. A spokeswoman for the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department, Sergeant Lisa Bowman, told CBS Sacramento that the death did not appear to be suspicious, and the department said it would carry out the investigation it conducts after any in-custody death. CBS Sacramento described him as having a long medical history.
The next day the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation announced that he had died of natural causes, according to the Associated Press. The department's announcement said investigators had nicknamed him the "ditch-bank killer". He died with the Sacramento charge still pending. He was not executed.
Two killings outside his convictions have been tied to Jennings. In one, the 1983 Easton case, the Fresno County sheriff announced a DNA connection in 2008 and charges against him were expected; no charge or trial of Jennings in that case was reported. In the other, the 1981 Sacramento County case, he was charged but died before trial. Both remain unproven against him in law.
Reports of the Easton case differ on details. KFSN-TV gave the woman's age as 76 and KMPH-TV gave it as 83. KMPH also said Jennings was on death row in Utah, which does not match the other reports: the man held in Utah was the second suspect, and Jennings was in California custody.
At his trial Jennings denied killing any of the four women and denied making the admissions that his half brother, his cellmate and others described. The jury rejected his account on the four murder counts but acquitted him on one woman's charges and could not agree on two others.
1940: Wilbur Lee Jennings is born in Shreveport, Louisiana.
1948: the family reunites in Los Angeles.
1950: the family moves to Selma, Fresno County.
1962: guilty plea in a case involving a teenage girl.
1966: guilty plea to assault with a deadly weapon, with other charges.
1981: a 17-year-old is killed in Sacramento County; DNA later links Jennings to the case.
1983: a woman is killed near Easton, Fresno County; DNA later links Jennings and another man to the case.
Around August 22, 1983: Karen Robinson is last seen; she is found dead the next day.
July 21, 1984: Jacqueline Frazier is last seen; she is found dead a few days later.
Around August 14, 1984: Olga Cannon is last seen.
September 13, 1984: Linda Johnson is found dead outside Fresno.
September 15, 1984: Jennings is arrested for the Johnson killing.
December 8, 1984: Olga Cannon is found dead outside Fresno.
June 1986: jury deliberations in Fresno County Superior Court; guilty verdicts on four murder counts and other charges.
1986: the same jury returns a death verdict; Judge Mario G. Olmos imposes sentence.
January 1987: the California Supreme Court appoints appellate counsel.
April 11, 1991: People v. Jennings, 53 Cal.3d 334: two multiple-murder findings vacated; judgment otherwise affirmed; Justice Mosk dissents in part.
January 2005: Jennings is moved to the Sacramento County Main Jail.
May 2008: the Fresno County sheriff announces the DNA connection in the 1983 Easton case.
February 11, 2014: Jennings dies in a hospital while in Sacramento County custody, aged 73, before trial on the 1981 charge.
February 12, 2014: the state corrections department announces he died of natural causes.