Darnell Erby Case: Pamela May Murder, Conviction, and Parole Fallout

The Darnell Erby case is a Sacramento County murder prosecution in which a 51-year-old man with a long burglary record was convicted of killing and dismembering 77-year-old Pamela May inside her North Highlands home in July 2022, roughly 15 months after California released him early from a 12-year prison sentence. A jury convicted Erby of first-degree murder with special circumstances on June 17, 2025, and Judge Laurel White sentenced him on November 7, 2025, to life in prison without the possibility of parole.¹

Who Pamela May Was

Pamela Garrett May, 77, lived alone on Field Street in North Highlands. Her husband, Thomas, had been placed in a memory care facility, and by 2022 she had been on her own for about a year. She used a walker and spoke with Thomas by phone nearly every day, a routine that would later help investigators fix the time of her death.²³

How Erby Met and Killed Her

Erby first approached May in June 2022, offering her a ride while she was walking. Over the following weeks he helped her carry groceries and move heavy items, building a rapport with a woman who lived alone.³

In the early morning of July 15, 2022, he crawled through a gap in the back fence, bound May’s face and hands with her own clothing, and killed her inside the house. He then stole property from the home and tried to fraudulently transfer the deed of the house into his own name.⁴

Over the following days Erby returned repeatedly to dismember the body and bag the remains. Prosecutors said he described the dismemberment to people at a homeless encampment as “more difficult than he thought.” Investigators eventually recovered 11 garbage bags containing May’s remains.³

Arrest and Evidence

A female acquaintance who had been waiting in Erby’s vehicle during one of his trips to the house contacted police. Erby reportedly told officers he abandoned the scene after spotting law enforcement. Sacramento County sheriff’s deputies arrested him on July 19, 2022, and he was held without bond.³⁵

At trial, Deputy District Attorney James Wax used phone records to establish the time of death by tracking when May’s daily calls with her husband’s care facility stopped. The prosecution also relied on statements Erby made to acquaintances and to police, testimony from the acquaintance who alerted authorities, and physical evidence recovered from the home.³

Conviction and Sentence

On June 17, 2025, the jury convicted Erby on every count: first-degree murder with the special circumstance that the killing occurred during a burglary, mutilation of a corpse, and five counts of burglary with an armed-with-a-deadly-weapon allegation found true on each. The special circumstance made him eligible for life without parole.⁴

At sentencing on November 7, 2025, Judge White imposed life without parole. The court found true that Erby had prior strike convictions for residential burglary and that his prior convictions were “numerous or of increasing seriousness,” an aggravating factor under California law.¹ He remained in custody at the Sacramento County Main Jail awaiting transfer to state prison as of November 10, 2025.⁶

The Early Release That Preceded the Murder

Erby’s criminal record stretched back more than two decades, with prior convictions for burglary and possession of a controlled substance and prison admissions between 1999 and 2017. He was convicted of home burglary in Sacramento County in 1997 and again in Placer County in 2017, and in 2017 he was sentenced in Placer and Amador counties to more than 12 years for residential burglary and identity theft or forgery.⁷⁶

A commissioner approved his release on February 8, 2021, through the Non-Violent Parole Process created under Proposition 57, without a public hearing. He walked out of prison on April 9, 2021, after serving roughly one-third of the 12-year term.⁸

Placer and Amador County prosecutors had both opposed the release. Their letters cited 20 arrests and eight convictions over 20 years, a pattern of reoffending within two years of each prior release, and a 2020 parole denial packet describing “criminal activity while in prison” and a lack of rehabilitative progress. His rehabilitation programming had been rated “unsatisfactory” as recently as March 2020. Erby had been denied parole in 2018 and 2020 before approval in early 2021.⁹¹⁰

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation later acknowledged that it failed to notify the Placer County District Attorney of Erby’s release, as required under Proposition 57 procedures. It attributed the failure to “human error” and apologized.⁸

Policy Response

Placer County District Attorney Morgan Gire wrote CDCR Secretary Kathleen Allison on August 8, 2022, asking what rule authorized the release, why two counties’ opposition was overridden, and whether Erby’s prison conduct had been weighed. CDCR did not publicly respond to the substance of the letter.¹⁰ Amador County DA Todd Riebe called Proposition 57 “the biggest culprit” behind the case.¹¹

In February 2023, Assemblyman Joe Patterson introduced AB 1260, which would require CDCR to notify local district attorneys in advance about sentence credit calculations, including the original sentence length, each category of credit awarded or denied, and the percentage of the sentence actually served.¹²

1
Sacramento County District Attorney. Defendant Sentenced for Murdering, Dismembering 77-Year-Old Victim
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The Sacramento Bee. North Highlands Murder Victim Pamela May
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People. Stranger Helped Old Lady Then Killed Her
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Sacramento County District Attorney. Defendant Convicted of Murdering, Dismembering 77-Year-Old Victim
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KCRA. Man Charged in Woman’s Murder Could Face Death Penalty
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The Sacramento Bee. Darnell Erby Sentenced in North Highlands Murder
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CBS News Sacramento. Darnell Erby Convicted in North Highlands Murder
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CBS News Sacramento. CBS13 Getting Answers for the DA
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Placer County. Placer County District Attorney’s Office Statement
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The Sacramento Bee. Placer County DA Letter to CDCR
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Sacramento News & Review. Nightmare on Field Street
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Assemblyman Joe Patterson. Assemblyman Joe Patterson Introduces Bill to Bring Transparency and Accountability to Secret Early Release Credit System