Former Inglewood teacher linked by DNA to cold-case killing is convicted of murder, kidnapping
A former Inglewood teacher has been convicted of murdering one woman and kidnapping, then sexually assaulting, another nearly two decades ago, prosecutors said.
Charles Wright, 58, is expected to be sentenced to 50 years to life in state prison, according to the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.
“I am pleased that this day has finally come for the victims of this horrendous crime,” Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. George Gascón said in a statement. “It is particularly egregious that these crimes were committed by someone who was in a position of trust and authority. This conviction sends a clear message that we will not tolerate violence in our community.”
Pertina Epps, 21, was strangled in April 2005, authorities said.
Wright, then a middle school teacher in the Inglewood Unified School District, was arrested in early 2022 after DNA and fingerprint evidence linked him to the killing of Pertina Epps. The 21-year-old was found strangled in a carport in Gardena on the afternoon of April 26, 2005.
Her killing remained unsolved for years, until homicide investigators with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reviewed the case in 2021 and resubmitted some of the evidence for forensic testing.
When the newer technology came back with a match to Wright, the Sheriff’s Department got a warrant to arrest the Hawthorne man.
Afterward, Wright denied any involvement, telling The Times in 2022 that his fingerprints were only on the woman’s purse because he’d been selling purses and other clothes from the trunk of his car.
“I didn’t do this,” he said, without explaining the DNA allegations. He said he had resigned from his teaching job to fight the case.
Joette Smith was found dead in a Santa Cruz County river in 1983. The suspect killed himself as deputies prepared to arrest him, authorities said Thursday.
By the time his case went to trial, Wright was also facing charges in the 2006 kidnapping and sexual assault of an 18-year-old woman whom the district attorney’s office did not identify in a statement Friday.
On Wednesday, he was convicted of first-degree murder, kidnapping for oral copulation and forced oral copulation, prosecutors said. His sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 10.
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