Transgender activist and former teacher found guilty of triple murder
The former teacher of two young women accused of killing their classmates also allegedly tried to kill the children’s mother.
A former educator found guilty for the murders of a transgender woman and eight other classmates of a female-to-male student stabbed a transgender woman with a bread knife before fatally stabbing eight other people, including a mother, at a California middle school in a triple murder spree that ended with one of the victims’ children dying while being held hostage inside.
Maj. Richard Wulff, 40, stabbed transgender college student Lauren Haddock in the head and neck, neck and back several times at Cesar Chavez Middle School in the affluent suburb of La Mirada in March 2016, according to court records.
Wulff, a Marine who had served in Iraq in 2003 and then received a bachelor’s degree from Colorado State University after working as a science teacher, was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of Haddock, 20, and her best friend, Sydney Linn, 19, along with eight other people, including the female victim’s mother. It was announced Friday that Wulff was convicted of one murder and four other counts. The jury also found that he had committed the murders after receiving the death penalty, but the jury recommended life without the possibility of parole.
“The defendant’s actions led to senseless deaths, and he is going to spend the rest of his life in prison,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Mark Farnan told the victims’ families after the verdicts were read.
A tearful Haddock addressed the court after sentencing. “It was not just me, my community, my family, my friends. What was I doing to these children?”
Authorities say Wulff, a self-professed military-veteran who taught and coached at the school where Haddock and Linn
