Nearly two decades after a woman was found dead in a carport, a former teacher has been convicted in her killing, California officials say.
A jury found Charles Wright, a former Inglewood middle school teacher , guilty of one count of first-degree murder in the death of Pertina Epps, 21, in 2005, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said in a July 12 news release.
The jury also found Wright guilty in relation to the 2006 kidnapping and sexual assault of an 18-year-old woman, prosecutors said.
The district attorney’s office did not immediately respond to McClatchy News’ request for information about Wright’s legal representation.
As a driver was backing out of one of four carports on April 26, 2005, they found Epps’ “ lifeless body in the only empty parking stall,” the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said in a January 2022 news release.
She had been strangled to death, deputies said.
The case went cold, but Wright was identified as a suspect in 2021 after DNA and fingerprint evidence linked him to the crime, the sheriff’s department said.
Wright and Epps did not know one another, deputies said.
Wright was arrested in relation to Epps’ death in January 2022, according to the sheriff’s department, but he was released from jail after posting $1 million bail.
After his arrest, Wright maintained his innocence, telling the Los Angeles Times, “ I didn’t do this .”
He told the newspaper investigators found his fingerprints on Epps’ purse.
“The thing is, everybody that knows me knows that I used to sell bags and clothes out of my car,” Wright told the newspaper. “That’s the only possible way it could happen.”
He did not offer the Los Angeles Times an explanation for the DNA allegation, adding he resigned from his teaching position with the “Inglewood Unified School District to fight the case.”
The district did not immediately return McClatchy News’ request for comment on July 15.
At the time of his arrest, Wright worked at Woodworth-Monroe K-8 Academy and had been employed by the district since 1999, Jalel Braden, a spokeswoman for the district told Southern California News Group.
Wright was arrested again in June 2022 after his DNA was a match in a separate kidnapping and sexual assault case from 2006, deputies said, Southern California News Group reported.
“I am pleased that this day has finally come for the victims of this horrendous crime,” District Attorney George Gascón said in the release.
Wright is scheduled to appear in court for sentencing on Sept. 10, when “he is expected to be sentenced to 50 years to life in state prison,” according to prosecutors.
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