Todd Chance was murdered by his wife, Leslie Jenea Chance, a Bakersfield elementary school principal who was convicted of first-degree murder in January 2020 and sentenced to 50 years to life in prison. The case against her was built almost entirely on circumstantial evidence over more than six years, from the discovery of Todd’s body in an almond orchard in August 2013 to the jury’s verdict at her second trial.
What the Crime Scene Showed
On August 25, 2013, a farmworker found Todd Chance’s body in an almond orchard outside Bakersfield. He had been shot twice in the chest, with one bullet passing through his hand first, consistent with a defensive wound suggesting he saw the gun and tried to block the shot. His wallet and cellphone were still on him, ruling out robbery as a motive.
Todd’s shoes were clean despite the dusty orchard. He had not walked to that spot. Someone had killed him elsewhere and moved his body to the isolated location, which appeared chosen precisely because no one would be there.
How Investigators Identified Leslie Chance
Leslie told detectives that Todd had left home that morning to attend a gun show with his father. Todd’s father said no such plans existed. That contradiction was the first crack in her account.
Todd’s Ford Mustang was found abandoned at a separate location with the couple’s .38 caliber revolver inside. Ballistics confirmed the revolver was the murder weapon. Surveillance cameras near the abandoned car captured a woman exiting the Mustang, changing her clothes, making a call from a payphone, and leaving in a taxi. The footage was a breakthrough, but the image quality was too poor for a definitive identification, and after an early arrest prosecutors had to release Leslie. The case then went cold for about three years.
The Contact Lens Evidence
When investigators reopened the case in 2016, they found a piece of evidence that cut against Leslie’s core defense. Her attorneys had argued the woman in the surveillance video could not be Leslie because Leslie wore glasses and could not see without them. Prosecutors then discovered she had bought contact lenses from her eye doctor about a month before Todd’s death. On the stand, Leslie denied ever buying the contacts, a claim the prosecution called a lie given the documented purchase.
Motive
Prosecutors pointed to two intertwined reasons. Todd had been exchanging flirtatious and explicit messages with an ex-girlfriend, Carrie Williams, who testified at trial that Todd had initiated the exchange. Prosecutors argued Leslie discovered the messages and was furious.
There was also money. Todd carried a life insurance policy worth more than $770,000, and Leslie filed claims on it after his death. Prosecutors also noted that a divorce would likely have left Leslie owing alimony. Killing Todd removed both problems at once. The jury ultimately rejected the financial-gain theory as a driving motive, even while convicting her of the murder itself.
The CSI Experience
Shortly before the killing, the Chance family had visited the “CSI Experience” in Las Vegas, an interactive forensic exhibit where visitors learn techniques including fingerprint analysis, ballistics comparison, blood spatter interpretation, and trace evidence collection. Prosecutors argued that aspects of the crime scene, particularly the effort to stage the body in a remote location and minimize forensic evidence, mirrored techniques shown at the exhibit. The trial judge allowed the jury to hear the evidence.
Two Trials and a Conviction
Leslie was rearrested in December 2016 and charged with first-degree murder. Her first trial collapsed around June 2019 when a conflict of interest involving her defense attorney surfaced, forcing a mistrial and the appointment of new counsel.
The second trial began in December 2019 and ran 28 days of witness testimony. Prosecutors pieced the case together from circumstantial evidence: the surveillance footage, the abandoned Mustang, the murder weapon belonging to the couple, the contact lens purchase, the fabricated gun show story, and the financial motive. There was no eyewitness and no confession. Leslie took the stand and maintained her innocence; the prosecution used her testimony to draw out further inconsistencies, particularly the contact lens denial.
On January 30, 2020, the jury found Leslie Chance guilty of first-degree murder and found true the sentencing enhancement for personally using a firearm. She received 25 years to life for the murder and a consecutive 25 years to life for the firearm enhancement, totaling 50 years to life. She is incarcerated at the Central California Women’s Facility.
Appeals
California’s Fifth District Court of Appeal upheld Leslie’s conviction on direct appeal. The court acknowledged that law enforcement had made investigative missteps but found those errors did not undermine the sufficiency of the evidence or deprive her of a fair trial. A separate federal proceeding reached the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, which also ruled against her challenge to the conviction.1United States Courts for the Fifth Circuit. Case No. 24-60509