Man gets life in prison for murder of North Highlands woman dismembered in home
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- A jury found Darnell Erby guilty of first-degree murder, mutilation and burglary.
- A judge sentenced Erby to life in prison without parole for the woman’s death.
- Prosecutors said Erby targeted the isolated 77-year-old woman.
A Sacramento Superior Court judge on Friday sentenced a man to life in prison without parole for the death of a 77-year-old woman whose body was found dismembered three years ago after a break-in at her North Highlands home.
On June 17, a jury found Darnell Erby, 47, of Sacramento guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Pamela Garrett May. Erby also was convicted of committing mutilation of a body and five counts of burglary.
Erby’s conviction included enhancements for having a previous home burglary conviction considered a strike under California’s “Three Strikes” law, using a deadly weapon and committing a burglary in the murder and aggravating factors that he had numerous previous convictions of increasing seriousness, the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office announced Monday in a news release.
May lived alone and was worried about attempted break-ins at her home in the 5200 block of Field Street, her neighbors told The Sacramento Bee several days after she was found dead. May wanted to protect herself, they said, but she wasn’t in favor of violence.
Prosecutors said Erby acquainted himself with May, and he broke into her home in the early morning of July 15, 2022, by crawling through a gap in her backyard fence.
Erby found May inside and used her clothing to bind her face and hands before killing her and stealing items from her home, according to the DA’s Office.
Attempt to steal home
Prosecutors said Erby tried to steal May’s home by transferring it to his name. They said Erby returned to the single-story house over the following few days and dismembered May’s body before placing it in garbage bags.
Before Erby was able to fully dispose of the slain woman’s remains, sheriffs officials were called to the Field Street home, prosecutors said. Deputies found her body on the morning of July 19, 2022.
“It was terrible, and I’m sure it was even more terrible for her family,” Lt. Rodney Grassmann, then a Sacramento County sheriff’s spokesman, said at the time about what deputies discovered at the home.
May’s house had boarded-up windows and a front yard littered with garbage. Neighbors said it could give someone the idea that her home had been abandoned or at least vacant.
Her home stood out among modest homes with green, trimmed lawns. A code enforcement violation sticker had been placed on the home’s front window.
Cindy Gomes, a childhood friend who lived a few houses down at the time of May’s death, told The Bee that she and May grew up in their Field Street homes with her parents. She said May moved away after she married her husband, Thomas May, but returned in the early 1980s to live at the home after her parents died.
About a year before her murder, May’s husband was moved to a care home because he suffered from extensive medical problems. Gomes said May had been living alone ever since.
Gomes’ grandson had been helping May try to clean up her front yard. May wouldn’t let him enter the home. Gomes said May was “a bit of a hoarder,” and she believes May became too overwhelmed with her home’s state of disrepair.
“It’s sickening. When we saw the crime tape going up, I knew it was not good,” Gomes said in July 2022.
John Oliveira, a neighbor who moved to Field Street about a month before the murder, said he hardly ever saw May outside. He said she was polite and “seemed super nice.” He said her home’s appearance might have made it a target for burglary.
“I feel bad for her,” Oliveira said at the time. “This was a heinous psychopathic murder.”
DAs argued against early prison release
Erby was convicted of home burglary in September 1997 in Sacramento County and in August 2017 in Placer County, according to a filed criminal complaint. The convictions are each considered a strike under California’s “Three Strikes” law.
In August 2022, Placer County District Attorney Morgan Gire questioned Erby’s early prison release. He said Erby was convicted and sentenced in August 2017 in both Placer and Amador counties to serve over 12 years in prison. Erby was eligible for early parole in 2018 under the state’s non-violent early parole program.
“Our community wants to know why this man was released after serving less than half of his prison sentence,” Gire said in a news release. “Our office, along with the Amador County District Attorney’s Office, twice opposed the release of this dangerous inmate. These early-release decisions are having deadly impacts on our communities, and our residents need to know how and why these decisions are being made.”
The DA’s Offices in Placer and Amador counties wrote letters, arguing against Erby’s prison release in 2018 and again in 2021, according to Gire. Erby was denied parole in 2018 and again in 2020. Gire said Erby was released from prison in 2021.
Gire wrote in the letter to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation that “it was abundantly clear from inmate Erby’s extensive record and lack of progress while incarcerated that he was unsuitable and undeserving of early release.”
On Monday, Erby remained in custody at the Sacramento County Main Jail as he awaits a transfer to a prison.
