CASE OF INTEREST
Date: March 5, 2003
Case: People v. Norman Whitehorn
Contact: Anne Marie Schubert, Deputy District Attorney, Homicide Unit,
(916) 874-7017
On March 4, 2003, the Sacramento District
Attorney's Office prepared an arrest warrant and complaint charging
Norman Whitehorn with the 1978 murder of twenty-one year old Donna Jean
Hooker. Special circumstances are also alleged, specifically, that her
murder involved kidnap, rape, sodomy and oral copulation. It is additionally
alleged that Mr. Whitehorn suffers from a prior murder conviction.
Mr. Whitehorn was arrested on March
5, 2003 at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, where he is currently incarcerated.
This arrest and complaint comes as a result of a joint investigation
by Sacramento County District Attorney's Office and the Sacramento Police
Department. The arrest is due to recent forensic DNA evidence developed
by the Sacramento County District Attorney's Crime Laboratory. This
DNA evidence was thereafter entered into the California Department of
Justice convicted felon databank and a "cold hit" was made to Mr. Whitehorn.
Donna Hooker was working the early
morning hours on November 8, 1978, at Technicolor Photo Lab on Rio Linda
Boulevard. She was last seen in her car in the photo lab parking lot
while she was taking a work break. Two fellow employees reported seeing
Ms. Hooker being approached by a man and being pulled into his car.
Her body was found approximately four hours later just off of the roadway
a few miles from the photo lab.
Mr. Whitehorn has an extensive criminal
history. In particular, in 1962, he and an accomplice kidnapped, raped
and murdered a Los Angeles woman.Mr. Whitehorn was convicted and sentenced
to death in 1962. In 1963, then Governor Edmund G. "Pat" Brown commuted
Whitehorn's death sentence to life in prison without parole, reportedly,
just 12 hours prior to his scheduled execution. In 1974, that sentence
was modified to allow parole. Norman Whitehorn was paroled to Sacramento
County in July of 1978, just four months before this murder.
Donna Hooker was the daughter of Gene
and Barbara Hooker. She was the sister of Randy and Teresa Hooker.
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