Dana Rivers

Police mugshot of Dana Rivers by Alameda County Sheriff, California, 11 November 2016. Dana Rivers (born 1954 or 1955)

Rivers was a labor leader in Orange County for the American Federation of Teachers, and in the 1980s was twice elected to the board of the Huntington Beach Union High School District. She was also a baseball coach and a white-water rafting instructor.

Rivers had problems with alcoholism and three failed marriages. She was diagnosed with gender dysphoria after moving to Antelope and becoming a teacher in 1990. She subsequently moved to the Bay Area to resume her teaching career. In 2004, Rivers appeared on the news magazine program 20/20. She discussed her discrimination case, as well as the gender confirming surgeries she received in 2000.

Murders and trial On November 11, 2016, married couple Patricia Wright and Charlotte Reed and their nineteen-year-old son, Benny Toto Diambu-Wright, were killed at their house in Oakland, California. When police arrived at the scene following 911 calls, they found Rivers running from the house, which was on fire, while covered in blood. She was in possession of knives, ammunition, and metal knuckles; when arrested, she "began to make spontaneous statements about her involvement in the murders", according to police.

Rivers was formally charged with three counts of murder, arson, and possession of metal knuckles on November 14, 2016. in 2018 she was ordered to stand trial on the murder charges. After years of delay, Rivers' jury trial on charges of murder began in late October 2022. The prosecution alleged that, motivated by Reed's exit from the women's motorcycle club they had both been members of, Rivers had gained Reed's trust in order to be allowed to spend the night in her and Wright's home. Rivers then shot the couple to death in their sleep, stabbing the corpses afterwards; she set fire to the garage in an attempt to remove evidence of the crime. On November 16, 2022, a jury found Rivers guilty on all charges.