2020 FORMER PRINCIPAL CONVICTED OF FIRST-DEGREE MURDER
The latest legal battle in the city of Bakersfield involves backyard hens, and whether or not residents should be allowed to keep them.
While a large group of supporters successfully petitioned the City Council to pass an ordinance allowing backyard hens, a lawsuit by an anonymous group of citizens put the legalization on hold as its merits are argued in court.
Advocates say hens provide healthy food and companionship, while detractors are concerned over property values and the spread of disease. This issue could be hashed out in 2021. But, as some have pointed out, many Bakersfield residents have already been raising backyard hens, regardless of what it says in the rule books.
PATRICIA ALATORRE
The gruesome death of a 13-year-old Bakersfield girl, alleged to be at the hands of a Los Angeles man she met on social media, gripped the city in July.
At first, Patricia Alatorre, a McKee Middle School student, was reported to be missing by
police. But within a few days, an arrest in her death was made and the man was charged with murder.
The girl described as sweet and spunky met up with Armando Cruz after he drove to her home from Los Angeles, according to
police. After leaving with him in his vehicle, police say Cruz raped the girl and then strangled her when she fought back and screamed. He later dumped her body at a construction site in Los Angeles and lit it on fire, police said.
Cruz, who police say admitted to the crimes, has pleaded not guilty to a slew of related felony charges and is awaiting trial.
In October, Alatorre was memorialized in a mural depicting “Bakersfield’s daughter” in downtown Bakersfield.
Former Fairview Elementary Principal Leslie Jenea Chance was convicted of first-degree murder in January and sentenced to 50 years to life in prison for the 2013 killing of her husband, Todd Chance.
During the 4½-week trial that began in late 2019, the prosecution set out to prove Chance shot her husband because of a texting tryst he had carried on with a former girlfriend. She planned the murder for weeks beforehand, the prosecution said, using information learned at a CSI exhibit in Las Vegas to cover her tracks and make it look like someone else killed Todd Chance.
Chance was first arrested in 2013, days after her husband’s body was found, but was released a few days later when prosecutors requested further inquiry from investigators with the Kern County Sheriff’s Office. She was arrested again in December 2016.
The case was the subject of an episode of NBC’s “Dateline” program, which aired in November.