A former Inglewood teacher has been convicted of murdering one woman and kidnapping and sexually assaulting another nearly two decades ago, prosecutors said.
Charles Wright, 58, is expected to face a sentence of 50 years to life in 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 horrific crime,” Los Angeles District Attorney George Gascón said in a statement. “It is particularly outrageous that these crimes were committed by someone in a position of trust and authority. This conviction sends a clear message that we will not tolerate violence in our community.”
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 murder of Pertina Epps. The 21-year-old was found strangled in a carport in Gardena on the afternoon of April 26, 2005.
Her murder remained unsolved for years, until homicide investigators from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department reviewed the case in 2021 and resubmitted some evidence for forensic testing.
When the new technology came back with a match to Wright, the sheriff’s department obtained an arrest warrant for the Hawthorne man.
Wright later denied any involvement, telling The Times in 2022 that his fingerprints were only on the woman’s purse because he sold handbags and other clothing out of the trunk of his car.
“I didn’t do this,” he said, without explaining the DNA allegations. He added that he resigned from his teaching job to fight the case.
At the time his case went to trial, Wright was also charged with 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 found guilty of first-degree murder, kidnapping for the purpose of oral copulation and forcible oral copulation, prosecutors said. His sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 10.
