California inmate who spent 45 years on death row for murdering pregnant wife dies

A California prison inmate condemned to death for the 1979 slaying of his pregnant wife, who was killed days before she was expected to give birth, has died after spending more than 45 years on death row.

Jerry T. Bunyard died on July 10 at the California State Prison, Sacramento, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) said. He was 76.

“At 4:44 p.m., Bunyard was pronounced deceased at an outside medical facility by medical staff,” the CDCR said in a news release. “The Sacramento County Coroner will determine his official cause of death.”

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Bunyard was convicted of first-degree murder for the killing of his wife, Elaine Bunyard, and her unborn child. She was found dead on Nov. 1, 1979, in the garage of the San Joaquin County home she shared with her husband and their 7-year-old daughter.

Elaine Bunyard died from a massive shotgun blast to the head, and the fetus died from a lack of oxygen moments later, according to court records. Investigators said Bunyard had hired a childhood friend, Erwin Popham, to commit the murders.

Popham, a drifter, small-time criminal, and frequent drug user, lived with the Bunyard family intermittently. Eventually, Bunyard asked Popham to kill his wife, believing she had gotten pregnant by another man.

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Bunyard had offered his wife a $50,000 settlement for a divorce, but she refused, court records state. He also wanted to clear the way to be with his new girlfriend.

Popham initially declined to commit the murder, but the pair eventually settled on a $1,000 fee to be paid within a week of the slaying, followed by additional money once Bunyard received the proceeds of his wife’s life insurance policy.

The murder was supposed to be staged as a suicide.

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Popham attacked Elaine Bunyard as she was washing dishes in her kitchen, repeatedly striking her on the head with frying pans. He then dragged her unconscious body to the garage and placed her in a chair. Once she was seated, Popham propped Bunyard’s pump shotgun under Elaine’s chin and pulled the trigger.

Half of her face was blown off, prosecutors said. Given the extreme amount of blood at the scene, Popham abandoned the suicide staging and decided to make the killing look like a robbery instead.

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He then drove to Bunyard’s construction job in Patterson and told him “it was done,” according to the California Supreme Court’s review of the evidence.

Currently, 567 California prison inmates are on death row, according to the CDCR. However, in 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order instituting a moratorium on the death penalty in California, granting a temporary reprieve to all individuals sentenced to death.