US — Oakland, California. 63-year-old Dana Rivers is a nationally renowned transgender advocate who is charged with the gruesome murders of a female couple and their adopted son.
Born male and once known as David Warfield, the Navy veteran catapulted to fame in 1999 when he was fired from his teaching position at Center High of Antelope, California after writing a letter to colleagues informing them of his plan to undergo gender-affirming cosmetic surgery.
In his eight years of employment at the high school, Mr Rivers had been consistently rated by students as the best teacher they ever had. He received an $80,000 grant and the school’s 1993 Stand and Deliver Award for most inspiring teacher when he developed a program for unmotivated students.
Mr Rivers sued the school board for the dismissal, and the two sides settled out of court for $150,000.
Rise to Fame & Take-Down of Women’s Sex-Specific Spaces
Mr Rivers took the podium at the Millenium March to share his experiences, and became one of the earliest proponents of transgender rights. He was tapped to run for the Democratic Party in 1999, but declined.
Following the expulsion of eight male, transgender-identifying individuals from Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival (MWMF) grounds, the heterosexual male used his star power to join a campaign of over 60 male, transgender-identifying persons and their allies protesting the festival.
The MWMF was a 40-year-old annual feminist gathering. Transgender activists claim MWMF had a policy of permitting only women – “womyn born womyn” – on the land during the festival, although MWMF supporters have denied this.
“Half the women in there are butch, boy, or, or FTM [female-to-male transgender] identified,” one of the male, transgender-identifying protesters had angrily complained.
At trans activists’ urging, artists and organizations boycotted the festival. Under heavy pressure, the MWMF shut down in 2015.
A Family Slaughtered
Computer-prep teacher Patricia Wright, aged 56, and hair salon owner Charlotte Reed, aged 57, were a same-sex couple who married in 2015. They adopted 19-year-old Toto “Benny” Diambu from West Africa. The recent high school graduate aspired to be a nurse.
According to Patricia Wright’s biological son, Khari Campbell-Wright, Mr Rivers was one of the couple’s acquaintances.
Shortly after midnight on November 11, 2016, law enforcement responded to reports of gunfire at the Oakland home that Ms Reed and Ms Wright shared with their adopted teen son. Arriving at the scene, police found the teen outside, bleeding to death from a gunshot wound. His adoptive parents were dead inside the house, each of their bodies riddled with multiple knife and bullet wounds.
First responders who were attending to the dying teen heard a loud bang, and schoolteacher Mr Rivers emerged from the garage, covered in blood. The garage had deliberately been set on fire, police said. Police believe the fire was set in an attempt to cover up evidence of the murders.
According to officers, the suspect tried to escape on Ms Reed’s motorcycle, but they captured him. During the arrest, police found ammunition and knives in Mr Rivers’s pockets. He made “spontaneous” utterances about his “involvement in the murders,” police later reported.
End of the Line
Mr Rivers is charged with three counts of murder, arson of an inhabited structure and possession of metal knuckles. If convicted, he could face life in prison or the death penalty.
The couple is survived by three children.
“I just want to say, Ms Rivers, I don’t know why you would do this to a beautiful family,” said surviving son Khari Campbell-Wright.
Claudia Gonzalez, Diambu-Wright’s teacher, remembered of the teen, “His smile was so big. He smiled with his face.” Ms Gonzalez had words for the accused. “To actually hear that a former teacher did this to a young person,” she remarked in sad shock. “Your job, your passion, your life’s work is to protect young people and to support them on their journey. Not end their journey.”
Correction 2:47 AM Saturday, July 20, 2019 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC): MWMF information modified.
Read more on this story
Shock after beloved teacher and transgender activist, 61, is charged with stabbing and shooting to death lesbian couple and their teenage son before setting their home on fire
Daily Mail
Relatives and friends of a distinguished California teacher and early advocate for LGBT rights are reeling from her arrest in connection to a grisly homicide that wiped out a family of three last week.
Oakland: Woman charged with killing Berkeley teacher, wife, son, then setting home ablaze
East Bay Times
OAKLAND — A San Jose woman on Tuesday made her first court appearance on special circumstance murder charges in the death of an Oakland couple and their son, a triple slaying that has the victims’ family members searching for answers.
She gained fame as an early transgender advocate. Now, she’s charged with triple homicide.
Washington Post
When California police received a call at 12:21 a.m. Nov. 11, reporting gunfire inside a home on Oakland’s Dunbar Drive, they confronted a gruesome scene.
The Michigan Women’s Festival never excluded Trans Identified Males from the festival. This is a persistent propaganda lie. The organizer herself has addressed this issue over and over again. What the organizer did do was make it clear that the festival centered women born women and our issues at the festival but they never excluded Trans Identified Males from attending.
Ok.
Great documentation. Per paragraph 5, “Millennium” is spelled with two t’s. Thank you.
Thank you so much for this and all your work. I linked to your site in a large “Lesbian” organization and was threatened with expulsion for posting “fake news.” But for those of us who care about girls, women, and Lesbians, we know how real this is.
“Fake News”, huh?
I think I know who’ll ultimately go down as having been “On the Right Side of History” and it’s highly unlikely to be those advocating for the chemical sterilization of children and the annihilation of women and lesbian only spaces everywhere.
Thanks for sharing, but yes, that’s why the website is not intended to convert gender identity believers. They will insist everything is made up, despite that the articles contain links to a mainstream news story on the bottom. That is because their beliefs that a human can be “born in the wrong body” and transmute their bodies and become another sex are not grounded in facts, but in a faith no different than any cult indoctrination. This is why presenting facts and logical arguments will do no good.
We had a troll who came to ask (second comment in the screenshot below): “Why do you consistently misgender the murderer?” The troll did not care about the innocent women or child who were killed, just about pronouns. Gender identity activists are absolutely heartless and depraved.