John Albert Gardner: Crimes, Plea Deal, and Chelsea’s Law

John Albert Gardner III is a convicted rapist and murderer serving life in prison without the possibility of parole in California for the 2009 killing of 14-year-old Amber Dubois and the 2010 killing of 17-year-old Chelsea King, both in the San Diego area. A registered sex offender released early from a prior prison term for molesting a child, Gardner committed the murders while state parole authorities repeatedly failed to act on evidence of his violations. His case prompted Chelsea’s Law, which stiffened California’s sentences and monitoring rules for sex offenders.¹

The Crimes

Amber Dubois

On February 13, 2009, 14-year-old Amber Dubois was last seen shortly after 7:00 a.m. walking near Escondido High School.² At the time, Gardner was living with his mother roughly two miles from the school. Door-to-door searches, candlelight vigils, organized search parties, and an “America’s Most Wanted” segment produced no answers, and her disappearance remained unsolved for more than a year.

Candice Moncayo

On December 27, 2009, 22-year-old Candice Moncayo was jogging on a trail near Lake Hodges when Gardner tackled her, straddled her, and pinned her to the ground. When she screamed and told him he would have to kill her, Gardner replied, “That can be arranged.” Moncayo elbowed him in the nose hard enough to feel the cartilage give way, broke free, sprinted to nearby houses, and called 911.³ Gardner was not immediately identified as the attacker.

Chelsea King

On February 25, 2010, 17-year-old Chelsea King, a senior at Poway High School, went for a run at Rancho Bernardo Community Park near Lake Hodges and never returned. Her car was found that evening with her cell phone and iPod still inside.⁴ More than 800 volunteers joined the FBI, the San Diego Sheriff’s Department, and other agencies in the search.⁵

On February 28, 2010, the San Diego Sheriff’s Department Fugitive Task Force arrested Gardner, then 30, outside a restaurant in Escondido. Authorities said evidence linked him to Chelsea King and that he was also a suspect in the Moncayo assault.⁵ On March 2, 2010, Chelsea’s body was found in a shallow grave on the south shore of Lake Hodges.⁴ Days later, under a plea arrangement, Gardner led investigators to Amber Dubois’s buried remains in a remote area near the Pala Indian Reservation in northern San Diego County, where she was identified through dental records.²

The 2000 Conviction and Early Release

On March 16, 2000, Gardner sexually assaulted a 13-year-old girl in San Diego. He pleaded guilty to two counts of lewd and lascivious acts with a child under 14 and one count of false imprisonment. The San Diego Superior Court sentenced him to six years in state prison.¹

A psychiatrist who evaluated Gardner before sentencing, Dr. Matthew Carroll, found him “unrepentant” and possessing “significant predatory traits,” called him “simply a bad guy” and a “danger to the community,” and recommended the maximum possible sentence of up to 11 years.⁶ The probation officer and prosecutor recommended six years, citing his limited prior criminal history. The judge followed the lower recommendation.

Gardner entered state prison on September 18, 2000, and was released on parole in September 2005 after serving five years. He was placed under high-control parole supervision in San Diego County and lived with his mother.¹

Parole Failures That Let Gardner Stay Free

Gardner’s three-year parole term, from September 2005 to September 2008, was marked by chronic violations that went unenforced. In September 2007, officials learned he was living near a college day-care center, violating the condition that he not reside within half a mile of a school. Rather than start a revocation hearing, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation let him stay on parole after he relocated within two weeks.⁷

That same month, Gardner was enrolled in CDCR’s passive GPS monitoring program. Under the department’s informal policy, parole agents were not required to review GPS data for parolees below “high-risk” classification unless the system issued an automated alert. Gardner was not classified as high-risk, and his assigned agent never reviewed his tracks.¹

The consequences were severe. On July 12, 2008, Gardner drove onto the grounds of Richard J. Donovan State Prison, an act that constitutes a felony under California Penal Code Section 4571 for a previously convicted felon. CDCR never detected it. The San Diego District Attorney later said that had the felony been reported, she would have prosecuted it as a “third-strike” offense carrying a possible sentence of 25 years to life, which would have kept Gardner in prison when the murders occurred.⁸

The GPS record also showed Gardner entering areas within 100 yards of places where children congregate, violating his nightly curfew, and maintaining access to a storage facility. CDCR records showed that officials considered revoking his parole on seven separate occasions and allowed him to continue each time.¹ A department spokesman later argued that returning every parolee with such infractions to custody would overwhelm the system.⁷ Gardner’s parole ended on September 26, 2008, five months before Amber Dubois disappeared. From that point the state had no further supervision over him.

A California Office of the Inspector General report issued in June 2010 identified “systemic problems that transcended the John Gardner case and jeopardized public safety.”⁹ Investigators also found that CDCR had shredded Gardner’s parole supervision file, making it impossible to confirm whether his agent performed required duties such as home visits.¹ On March 9, 2010, days after that destruction became public, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger ordered CDCR to retain all sex offender parole records indefinitely; the prior policy destroyed those files a year after a parolee’s discharge.¹⁰

Plea Deal and Sentence

San Diego County District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis personally helped negotiate the plea agreement. Gardner would plead guilty to all charges and lead investigators to Amber Dubois’s remains, and the prosecution would not seek the death penalty.¹¹ Dumanis said the deal “saved both families the pain of two long, public trials.” Chelsea King’s parents supported it as a way to help the Dubois family find closure.

On April 16, 2010, Gardner pleaded guilty to the rape and murder of Amber Dubois on February 13, 2009, the assault on Candice Moncayo with intent to commit rape on December 27, 2009, and the rape and murder of Chelsea King on February 25, 2010.¹

On May 14, 2010, Superior Court Judge David Danielsen sentenced Gardner to two consecutive life terms without parole for the murders, plus a third life term with a 25-year minimum for the attempted rape of Moncayo.¹² At the hearing, Moncayo told the court she was there “to stand as a witness for Chelsea and Amber” and asked Gardner directly, “How’s your nose?” Gardner reacted visibly, telling his attorney she was a “liar” who “did that for the publicity.”¹³ Amber Dubois’s father, Moe DuBois, told the court, “It’s obvious the legal system failed us here,” criticizing the original six-year sentence from 2000.¹⁴

Chelsea’s Law

In the months after sentencing, Chelsea King’s parents, Brent and Kelly King, worked with California Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher to draft the Chelsea King Child Predator Prevention Act of 2010, known as Chelsea’s Law. Assembly Bill 1844 passed the Assembly 71-0 on June 3, 2010, cleared the Senate committees unanimously, and was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger on September 9, 2010.¹⁵¹⁶

The law’s major provisions include:

Life without parole for certain sex crimes against children under 14 committed during a kidnapping, first-degree burglary, or resulting in great bodily injury.¹⁷
Higher prison terms across a range of sex offenses involving minors, including assaults with intent to commit rape, lewd acts committed by force, and offenses committed “in concert” with others.¹⁸
Lifetime parole and GPS monitoring for habitual sex offenders and those convicted of certain crimes against children under 14, with no possibility of discharge.¹⁷
A containment model combining supervision, treatment, polygraph testing, and victim advocacy.¹⁶
Public online posting of sex offenders’ risk-assessment scores by the Department of Justice.¹⁸

The only organized opposition came from the American Civil Liberties Union, which argued that existing sentencing laws were already severe and that the new provisions would worsen prison overcrowding.¹⁵

Where Gardner Is Now

In June 2010, Gardner was transferred to California State Prison in Corcoran, where he is housed in the Protective Housing Unit, a segregated facility for high-profile inmates.¹⁹ Because his sentence is life without the possibility of parole, he will never be eligible for release.

1
California Office of the Inspector General. Special Report on CDCR’s Supervision of John Gardner
2
NBC San Diego. Major Development in Amber Dubois Case
3
Voice of San Diego. A Robbery That Was Really an Attempted Rape
4
CBS News. Chelsea King Vigil
5
ABC News. Search for Missing Girl Chelsea King Draws Hundreds
6
San Diego Union-Tribune. Old Report Offers Peek Into Gardner’s Past
7
Los Angeles Times. Gardner’s Parole Violations and CDCR Response
8
NBC San Diego. Agents Missed Chances to Stop Gardner
9
California Office of the Inspector General. 2010 OIG Annual Report
10
Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. California Governor Stops Destruction of Sex Crime Parolee Records
11
La Prensa San Diego. Bonnie Dumanis – County Board of Supervisors
12
CBS News. Girl’s Killer Cries After Scolding in Court
13
San Diego Union-Tribune. John Gardner Sentencing Filled With Emotion
14
Orange County Register. State: No Compensation for Murdered Teens’ Parents
15
California Legislative Information. AB 1844 Senate Floor Analysis
16
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. Sex Offender Facts
17
CNN. California’s Chelsea’s Law
18
California Legislative Information. AB 1844 Chaptered Text
19
NBC San Diego. John Gardner Prison Life