Elderly Woman Was Helped by Stranger — Then He Killed and Dismembered Her at Childhood Home

Pamela May spent much of her life in a home on Field Street in North Highlands, Calif. The 77-year-old grew up in the Sacramento suburb, and after her parents died, she later returned to the house with her husband, Tom.

When Tom moved into a memory care facility, May remained in the home on her own.

Prosecutors say May died there in June 2022, not long after she encountered Darnell Erby.

According to Sacramento Deputy District Attorney James Wax, Erby approached May while she was out walking and offered help getting home.

“She was out walking one day, and Mr. Erby saw her, and he basically asked her, ‘Do you need a ride? Can I help you with something? And she took him up on that and he drove her home to her house,” Wax tells.

Over the next few weeks, Wax says, Erby — a convicted burglar who was living on and off the streets — began assisting May with tasks like carrying groceries and moving heavy items.

“She was reliant on walking with her walker,” Wax says. “So, she did need help.”

Wax also described May as having a severe hoarding disorder that worsened with age, leaving her unable to keep the home clean.

On the morning of June 15, 2022, prosecutors say May’s day began routinely. She spoke with her husband at the memory care facility and read an article online about uses for banana peels.

“Just normal activity, and then it abruptly ceases, and she never has any activity again,” Wax says.

Prosecutors allege that same morning, Erby parked behind May’s property. While a female acquaintance waited in his Jeep, prosecutors say he slipped through a gap in the back fence and entered the home.

Inside, prosecutors claim, he restrained May by using her clothing to bind her face and hands before killing her. They also allege he stole items from the house and later returned at least twice, dismembering her body.

“He took his knife, and he went through the process of trying to decapitate her into a number of different pieces,” Wax says. “He put her body into 11 separate black garbage bags.”

Wax says authorities were alerted before Erby could dispose of the remains, after the woman with him notified law enforcement.

“He actually told the detectives, ‘I went back again, and I saw police, so I did a U-turn,’” Wax says. “He was in the middle of it. It was taking him some time. He described it to some people at a homeless campsite as being more difficult than he thought, this process of dismembering her.”

Wax said investigators reviewing phone records also saw a steady pattern of calls from the memory care facility after May’s death.

“One of the sad things to me was that she talked to [her husband] just about every day,” Wax says. “We were going through the phone records to help determine the time of death, but we also saw that after her death, you could just see the missed calls from that memory facility.”

Erby’s attorney, Reid Kingsbury, disputes that his client killed May.

“It was essentially a burglary of the home that he committed,” he says. “And then in the course of the burglary of the home, according to him, he found the lady as he was making his way through this piled up landfill of a house. He insisted on that always from day one.”

Kingsbury says the coroner was unable to determine May’s cause of death because her body had been dismembered. He also points to May’s health issues, saying she had severe arterial sclerosis and advanced heart disease.

Kingsbury claims Erby didn’t know May beforehand, but told police he did because his fingerprints were found inside the home.

“[Authorities] obviously picked him up and he gave a statement, and he was thinking, according to Mr. Erby, that I need to account for the fact that my fingerprints are on the inside of this home. And so he lied and said that I knew this lady beforehand, and she invited me into her house.”

On June 17, Erby was found guilty of first-degree murder with the special circumstance that the killing was committed during a burglary. He was also convicted of mutilation and five counts of burglary, with an allegation that he was armed with a deadly weapon.

He was sentenced on Nov. 7 to life in prison without the possibility of parole.