The murder of Bonnie Garland at the hands of Richard Herrin took place on July 7, 1977, in Scarsdale, New York. She was 20 years old.

Details of the crime

In the early-morning hours of July 7, 1977, around 2 a.m. Yale graduate Richard Herrin bludgeoned his ex-girlfriend, Yale college senior Bonnie Garland, to death with a hammer as she lay sleeping in her parents' Scarsdale, New York, home because she wanted to end their relationship. The two college students had been dating for approximately two years at the time that Herrin graduated and moved to Texas to attend a graduate program. Over the next year Garland and Herrin grew apart. Garland wanted to date other people. Judge Richard J. Daronco presided over the highly publicized trial at the Westchester County Courthouse in White Plains. Richard Herrin was convicted of first-degree manslaughter, rather than second degree murder and was sentenced to the maximum penalty under the law. He served 17 years in state prison at the Wende Correctional Facility in Alden, New York, and was released on January 12, 1995.

Herrin was born to an Irish father and a Mexican mother in an ethnic minority community in Los Angeles. It was assumed that he was admitted to Yale through affirmative action, leading to the media designation of his trial as the "affirmative action murder trial".

Critics charged that the sentence was the result of the Yale community and, in particular, the Catholic chaplaincy uniting to support Herrin by portraying him as the victim of his upbringing in a minority neighborhood barrio in Los Angeles.

Aftermath

After his release, Herrin moved to Socorro, New Mexico, where he was hired by a mental health foundation.

This was the last murder case in Scarsdale until the murder of 58-year-old pediatric doctor Robin Goldman on January 20, 2016.

References

Sources

  • The Yale Murder: The Compelling True Narrative of the Fatal Romance of Bonnie Garland and Richard Herrin, Peter Meyer
  • The Killing of Bonnie Garland: A Question of Justice, Willard Gaylin
  • True Stories of Law & Order by Kevin Dwyer and Juré Fiorillo
  • A review of The Yale Murder