Comment: And the victims were a married lesbian couple and their 19-year-old son. The kicker is that their killer is most likely going to a WOMEN's prison...
"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 court hearing held today. "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."
The sentencing comes months after Rivers, 68, had been found guilty of the murders in November of last year. Rivers was denied a motion for a new trial, though his attorney had attempted to argue prosecutorial misconduct. Judge Patton dismissed the issues raised, labeling them "trivial" and "frankly quite ridiculous," while noting that the evidence for Rivers' guilt was "overwhelming."
© Alameda County Sheriff’s DepartmentWarfield/Rivers' mugshot
When discovered by police, Rivers had been heading towards his black Harley Davidson motorcycle, which was parked outside of the home with the keys left in the ignition. When police searched the Harley, which Rivers affectionately referred to as "Barbie," they found blood on the bike and a bloody knife in its saddlebag.
A further search of Rivers' person revealed that he was in possession of a bloody screwdriver, a knife, brass knuckles, bullets, pepper spray and Benny Diambu-Wright's iPod, according to court documents.
© danarivers.netRivers at the 2002 San Francisco Pride Parade.
According to police reports, Rivers "began to make spontaneous statements about [his] involvement in the murders" while being arrested. Rivers ultimately confessed to killing the two women and their son, but entered a plea of not guilty on charges of triple homicide in 2017.
The case had first been set for trial in 2019, but was repeatedly delayed in order to accommodate an investigation into Rivers' mental health.
The trial finally began on October 31, 2022.
Victims Patricia Wright [L], Benny Diambu-Wright [C], and Charlotte Reed [R]
Comment: Appropriate choice of gang name.
In February of 2016, Charlotte Reed began spending time with The Deviants, but she decided to leave after three months because it "became too political for her," according to court records.
After she left the club, Reed began to experience threats against her safety. The trial brief presented by Mulvihill claims that "there was backlash from the club for her departure," and a friend of Reed's recalled seeing Rivers "just sitting and staring at Ms. Reed" on one occasion at the Menlo Park.
Mulvihill's trial brief also states that Reed's daughter told police that she had become afraid that Rivers "wanted to hurt her mother."
Prior to the slayings, Rivers was a prominent trans activist known for fighting against "gender discrimination."
Rivers gained notoriety in 1999 after he was fired from Center High School in Sacramento County, California, for openly discussing his "sexuality and the importance of gender self-determination" in class with students.
According to a 1999 article in The New York Times, one parent stated that Rivers had told the children he had been "sodomized as a youth and that he always felt he was a woman trapped in a man's body and that he was going to be changing into a woman in the fall. He should have gotten permission from the parents to say this."
Following the administration's decision not to renew his employment, Rivers subsequently initiated a widely-publicized discrimination lawsuit that launched his career as a trans activist and resulted in a compensatory award of $150,000. He appeared on the Today Show and Good Morning America, and had even been profiled in the New York Times, quickly elevating his profile as a respected LGBT advocate.
Rivers was a keynote speaker for the National Center for Lesbian Rights as well as for The Tiffany Club, an organization founded to promote the political interests of those with "gender confusion."
Rivers also spoke as a guest lecturer at several universities, including Stanford and UC Davis, and served as a Board Member for the International Foundation for Gender Education (IFGE).
© Emilie Raguso/The Berkeley ScannerTriple murderer David Warfield AKA 'Dana Rivers' leaves court in a wheelchair after being sentenced to life in prison without parole, June 14, 2023.
Dansky noted reports that the mood in the courtroom had been "intense and dramatic," and that the judge had allegedly sent Rivers to San Quentin, a men's prison, for processing.
But under current California law, Rivers will likely find his way into a women's correctional institution due to his legal sex being "female."
Comment: ...which came about because of political activism by people like Warfield/Rivers. Neat trick, huh?
California has one of the most liberal gender self-identification policies in the country, something that has become a point of contention for women's rights advocates.
S.B-132, also known as the Transgender Respect, Agency, and Dignity Act, was signed into effect in January of 2021 by California Governor Gavin Newsom. The law provides inmates housing based on their self-declared gender identity status.
Almost immediately after the legal guideline went into effect, California correctional centers were hit with hundreds of transfer requests from male inmates seeking movement into women's facilities.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has previously confirmed to Reduxx that prison transfer requests are based entirely off of a Gender Identity Questionnaire that could be issued during reception or requested by the inmate at any time during their incarceration.
The CDCR Gender Identity Questionnaire. Source: CDCR Press Room
Male inmates do not need to identify as transgender to request transfer, and can simply identify gender non-conforming, or non-binary.
Last year, Reduxx reported that a pedophile who had molested a 4-year-old girl had been moved to the California Institution for Women despite having been denied a gender and name change, and still legally being a male.
Comment: When news that Warfield/Rivers was the chief suspect in a triple homicide broke in 2016, The Washington Post reported on his 1999 dismissal from his teaching job: Bender voted in Warfield's favor, so he recalls this dismissal as being motivated by straight-up 'unfair bias', but if you review the account provided above by a parent of one of the schoolchildren, their problem with Warfield was that he was telling his pupils specific details about his sex life that are inappropriate for any adult to tell any children, much less a teacher to his students.
In any event, Bender's recollection that the school board members "said they didn't want to create confusion for the students" is probably accurate. What a difference 20 years makes, eh? Nowadays, deviant hypersexuality is mainlined into pupils' brains the moment they enter school. Or anywhere in the public realm, for that matter.
Here is more background on the killer, from a sympathetic New York Times piece in 1999: "Happier and better..."
How is 'she' feeling now, we wonder, having been in prison since 2016 for committing a triple murder that stunned even an experienced California judge?
Obviously, not all or even most 'people who identify as T' are going to commit murder, much less minor crimes. But HALF of them will attempt suicide at least once. This is a peculiar mental illness, and those diagnosed with it should be treated accordingly - NOT put in charge of classrooms, elevated into the media spotlight by politicians, and encouraged to flaunt their peculiar condition as something 'worthy of aspiring to'.
Here is the speech Warfield/Rivers gave at the 'Millennium March on Washington' on 30 April 2000, the first time a gay rights demonstration included the 'T' in LGBT. The fiery, revolutionary rhetoric will be all-too-familiar to you...