So which jail will it go to? Spoiler aleart, it was in the Navy…because you know…-mo
A Sacramento area teacher who made national news nearly two decades ago when she tried to retain her job at a Sacramento high school while undergoing a sex change, has been charged in an Oakland triple homicide.
Dana Rivers, 61, of San Jose was arrested in Oakland on Friday on suspicion of killing Patricia Wright, 57, Charlotte Reed, 56, and 19-year-old Toto Diambu. Police said that the three suffered fatal gunshot and stab wounds.
Police said Rivers was arrested by officers in the early morning hours Friday. She was booked into Alameda County Jail on three counts of murder, arson and possession of metal knuckles.
Police believe that Rivers set the house on fire where the three were found on the 9400 block of Dunbar Drive about 12:30 a.m. Friday. Oakland Fire Department firefighters quickly extinguished the blaze.
Rivers was identified by the East Bay Times and other media outlets as the former David Warfield, a teacher at Center High School in Antelope in the 1990s. Warfield, who taught American history and broadcast journalism, was suspended in 1999 after disclosing plans to undergo a sex change. He eventually resigned.
In 1993, she won the school’s “Stand and Deliver” award given to the teacher who best demonstrates the standards of the late, famed math teacher Jaime Escalante.
Warfield grew up in the south Bay Area. He served as an acolyte, or altar boy, in the Lutheran church and was occasionally the target of bullies in school.
“From as far back as I can remember, I felt different,” Rivers said in a Sacramento Bee profile in 1999. “I got Tonka trucks for Christmas and it didn’t feel right. I was socialized as a boy, but I didn’t feel as though I belonged. One of our neighbors had a play house in the yard and I remember very clearly wanting to be the mother.”
He rebelled as a teen, skipping classes, experimenting with drugs and moving out of his family home. He joined the Navy and lasted three years, as the internal struggle with his gender intensified.
After leaving the Navy, he moved to Orange County, where he earned a college degree and developed an interest in teaching. He served on a school board in Huntington Beach and worked in an administrative post for the American Federation of Teachers.
Along the way, he maintained a close relationship with his daughter.
In 1990, after moving back to Northern California and earning a teaching credential, he got a job at Center High School. In 1999, he was suspended after revealing information about a planned sex change.