Trans activist convicted of triple homicide transferred to women's prison
A trans activist found guilty of a triple homicide, a crime the presiding judge called "the most depraved crime" he had seen in over 30 years, will serve his life sentence at a California women's prison.
David Chester Warfield, a biological male who identifies as a woman named Dana Rivers, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole on Wednesday.
California Department of Corrections inmate locator portal lists the 68-year-old inmate as having been booked into the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla on Friday.
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Women's rights advocate Kara Dansky tweeted a screenshot Saturday, tagging California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Democratic Sen. Scott Wiener and the Democratic party in the tweet, writing, "We'll never stop fighting."
Last year, Alameda County Superior Court Judge Scott Patton oversaw the trial where Warfield was found guilty of murdering Oakland resident Charlotte Reed, her wife, Patricia Wright, and Wright's 19-year-old son, Benny Toto Diambu-Wright, in November 2016.
"It is a horrible thing to sentence someone to die in prison, and I don't take that lightly," Judge Scott Patton said during the Wednesday court hearing, according to The Mercury News. "But this is the most depraved crime I ever handled in the criminal justice system in 33 years. Frankly, you deserve to spend the rest of your life in prison."
As The Berkeley Scanner reported on June 14, Patton sentenced Warfield to 150 years in prison. At the start of the hearing, the judge denied a motion for a new trial filed by defense attorney Melissa Adams.
In the motion, Adams cited 26 alleged legal errors, including Warfield's inability to get a haircut before the trial and the use of certain crime scene photographs as evidence. Patton dismissed the defense attorney's claims as "trivial matters" that "in no way affected [Warfield's] trial in any meaningful fashion."
According to the evidence, Warfield shot and stabbed Wright and Reed multiple times in the bedroom of their home. In December, a forensic psychologist referred to Warfield's stabbing of Reed 40 times after shooting her as "overkill" during his testimony.
Wright's teenage son managed to make it outside of the house after he was shot in the torso before he collapsed in the street, The Berkeley Scanner reported.
Following his arrest, Warfield entered a not guilty plea before later pleading not guilty by reason of insanity, according to the outlet. However, Patton ruled in January that the trans activist was sane when he committed the three murders.
During the Wednesday hearing, prosecutor Abigail Mulvihill read a statement by Wright's younger brother, Richard Wright, who claimed he could not attend the hearing due to illness and the emotions surrounding the case.
The murder victim's brother described his sister as the "rubberband of our family," declaring, "I miss my sister."
"Dana Rivers chose to execute my family," he stated. "She chose to use every ounce of her entitlement to drag this out for years."
"She chose her entitlement and narcissism over basic human decency," he continued. "Dana Rivers chose violence, cruelty, sadism and entitlement — over and over and over again."
Warfield made national headlines in 1999 after being fired for openly discussing "sexuality and the importance of gender self-determination" with his students at Center High School in Sacramento County, California.
As The New York Times reported, Warfield told his students that he had been sodomized when he was young, that he was a woman trapped in a man's body and that he would be changing into a woman in the fall.
The Center Unified School Board argued that Warfield's dismissal was based on objections from parents who felt the teacher should have obtained their permission before discussing such a topic with children. The board maintained that Warfield's gender identity was not relevant in its decision.
According to The Mercury News, Warfield sued the school district, receiving $150,000 in the settlement.
Warfield's ability to serve his life sentence at a women's prison is due to California's Senate Bill 132, implemented in 2021. The bill allows biological men who identify as female to request a transfer to a women's prison.
During The Christian Post's "Unmasking Gender Ideology" event in March, Amie Ichikawa, who served five years in a California state prison and now heads the Woman II Woman prison advocacy group, argued that the 2021 bill caused conditions at Central California Women's Facility (CCWF) in Chowchilla to deteriorate rapidly.
In a bonus episode of CP's podcast series, "Generation Indoctrination: Inside The Transgender Battle," the former inmate recalled feeling "helpless" during the time she spent imprisoned alongside biological men.
"Just to know that you have absolutely no control of your environment, your own physical wellbeing, your mental health, nothing. And there's really no one you can talk to about it," she said. "It's so unbelievable that I would call home every day crying for weeks, trying to explain to my family that there was a serial rapist housed here. And that this is legal, that the state really did it."
Samantha Kamman is a reporter for The Christian Post. She can be reached at: [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @Samantha_Kamman
