Chelsea King

Case background and investigation

Chelsea King was a 17-year-old senior at Poway High School in San Diego County, California. An honor student, cross-country runner, and French horn player, she went for an afternoon run on February 25, 2010, at the Rancho Bernardo Community Park near Lake Hodges. When she did not return home, her family reported her missing that evening. Searchers located her parked car near the trailhead, and a large-scale search of the rugged terrain around the lake began, drawing hundreds of volunteers alongside law enforcement.

Investigators recovered items of King's discarded clothing near the reservoir. DNA collected from that clothing was matched to John Albert Gardner III, a 30-year-old registered sex offender who had been convicted in 2000 of molesting a 13-year-old girl. Gardner was arrested on February 28, 2010. On March 2, 2010, five days after she disappeared, search teams found King's body buried in a shallow grave near Lake Hodges. Authorities determined that Gardner had raped and strangled her.

Gardner's arrest reopened questions about the unsolved disappearance of 14-year-old Amber Dubois of Escondido, who had vanished on February 13, 2009, while walking to Escondido High School. Gardner ultimately admitted responsibility for that killing as well, and on March 6, 2010, Amber Dubois's remains were recovered in a remote area near the Pala Indian Reservation in northern San Diego County, after Gardner provided information about the location.

Facing a possible death sentence, Gardner reached a plea agreement with the San Diego County District Attorney's office. On April 16, 2010, he pleaded guilty to the first-degree murder and rape of Chelsea King, the first-degree murder of Amber Dubois, and an assault with intent to commit rape against another female jogger in the same Rancho Bernardo area in December 2009. In exchange, prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty. District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis said the office had strong evidence in King's case but that Amber Dubois's family had sought answers and the recovery of her remains.

On May 14, 2010, San Diego Superior Court Judge David Danielsen sentenced Gardner to multiple terms of life in prison without the possibility of parole for the two murders, plus additional years for the assault and prior convictions. King's family and Dubois's family delivered victim impact statements at the hearing. Gardner has remained incarcerated in the California prison system since his sentencing.

The case prompted a significant change in California law. Chelsea King's parents, Brent and Kelly King, campaigned for tougher measures against violent sex offenders. The resulting legislation, known as Chelsea's Law, was authored by Assemblyman Nathan Fletcher and signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on September 9, 2010. The law created a one-strike life-without-parole sentence for certain aggravated sex crimes against children, increased penalties and parole supervision for other offenders, and imposed restrictions such as barring some paroled offenders from parks where children gather. The murders of Chelsea King and Amber Dubois remain among the most closely followed criminal cases in San Diego County history, and Gardner's convictions are settled matters of record.