Bonnie Garland

Case background and investigation

Bonnie Joan Garland, whose family lived in Scarsdale, New York, was a student at Yale University. According to the facts set out by a federal judge in Garland v. Herrin, a civil suit later brought by her parents, she met Richard Herrin in the fall of 1974 when both were Yale undergraduates. Herrin graduated in 1975 and began graduate study at Texas Christian University, while Garland remained at Yale. He visited her family's home and came to know her parents.

By the summer of 1977 the relationship was ending. Herrin travelled to Scarsdale in early July and stayed at the Garland house. According to Wikipedia's account of the trial evidence, Garland told him on July 6 that she wanted to end the relationship.

In the early hours of July 7, 1977, after Garland had fallen asleep, Herrin went downstairs to find a weapon. The court's summary of his own trial testimony states that he chose a hammer, wrapped it in a towel so that family members would not notice it, returned to her bedroom and struck her repeatedly on the head. Her parents were in the house at the time. Herrin testified that he had decided to kill both Garland and himself.

Herrin left in the family's car and drove north. He stopped in Coxsackie, about 100 miles away, where he found a church and told a priest what he had done. Police went to the Garland home and found her gravely injured. She died later that day. She was 20 years old.

Herrin was prosecuted in Supreme Court, Westchester County, before Judge Richard Daronco. He was tried on a murder charge. Members of the Catholic community at Yale had supported his release on bail before trial, which drew public criticism. On June 18, 1978, the jury convicted him of first-degree manslaughter rather than second-degree murder. He received the maximum sentence available for that offense, reported as eight and one-third to 25 years.

Garland's parents sued Herrin in federal court. He conceded liability for wrongful death, and after a trial in October 1982 a jury set those damages at $10,000; the court also addressed the parents' claims for emotional distress. Herrin was released from a New York state prison on January 12, 1995, after about 17 years in custody, according to Wikipedia.