Celeste Carrington is a woman from California who was sentenced to death for murdering two people during separate robberies.
Celeste Carrington was an active armed robber and during three separate robberies she would shoot three people. Two of the people shot during the robberies would die from their injuries
Celeste Carrington would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death for the murders
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Celeste Carrington FAQ
Where Is Celeste Carrington Now
Celeste Carrington is currently incarcerated at Central California Women’s Facility
Celeste Carrington Death Sentence Upheld
The state Supreme Court upheld the death sentence Monday of an East Palo Alto woman who killed two people execution-style and wounded a third in 1992 robberies of buildings where she had worked as a janitor.
Celeste Carrington, 47, is one of only 15 women among 683 condemned prisoners in California.
The justices unanimously rejected defense arguments that police had illegally searched her apartment and had extracted her confession with false promises of leniency. Her lawyers have another appeal pending, claiming that Celeste Carrington’s trial defense was incompetent.
Carrington was raised in poverty in Philadelphia and was abused by both parents and impregnated by her father at age 14, according to defense testimony. She eventually attended a community college in Southern California and starred in track and field, competing internationally in the shot put.
Carrington had no criminal record before the murders but had been fired from her job as a janitor in December 1991 for stealing checks. Witnesses at her trial said she had been providing financial support for her partner and the woman’s three children
Carrington admitted fatally shooting Victor Esparza, 34, a janitor at a shoe factory in San Carlos, in January 1992, and Caroline Gleason, 36, a property manager at a real estate office in Palo Alto, in another robbery two months later, police said. Five days after killing Gleason, she shot and wounded Allan Marks, a Redwood City pediatrician, during a robbery of his office, authorities said.
Carrington told police she had gone to all three offices with a stolen gun and keys she had kept from her work as a janitor.
Gleason was on her knees before Carrington when she was shot, and Esparza was either kneeling or standing, with no evidence that he was resisting, medical examiners found.
In her appeal, Celeste Carrington’s lawyers argued that Palo Alto police had illegally searched her apartment and obtained evidence that led to her confessions.
Officers from Palo Alto accompanied Los Altos police, who had a warrant to look for evidence of two burglaries. When Palo Alto police saw a key and a pager connected to Gleason’s killing in plain view, the court said, they stopped the search, went back to court and got a warrant to look for evidence of the murder.
Even if the Palo Alto police were there on a pretext, Chief Justice Ronald George said in Monday’s ruling, they were entitled to be present at a legitimate burglary search and acted properly by not touching anything until they obtained another warrant.
George also said the police interrogation, in which one detective told Celeste Carrington that Gleason’s shooting was “probably an accident” and another officer suggested that Carrington had nothing to lose by admitting to Esparza’s murder, did not amount to promises of leniency that would make the confessions involuntary.
Celeste Carrington News
The California Supreme Court Monday upheld a death penalty ruling for an East Palo Alto woman who fatally shot two people while burglarizing offices where she had worked as a janitor.
Celeste Carrington, 47, was sentenced to death in San Mateo County Superior Court in 1994 for the murders of Victor Esparza, a janitor at a San Carlos shoe factory, and Carolyn Gleason, a property manager at a Palo Alto real estate firm, in two separate incidents in 1992.
Both victims were shot in the head at close range.
Carrington was also found guilty of the attempted murder of pediatrician Allan Marks in his Redwood City office. Marks was wounded but survived and testified at her trial.
Carrington had worked as a janitor at all three offices. She is now one of 15 women among 683 inmates on death row in California.
The state high court, in a ruling issued in San Francisco, unanimously rejected a series of appeal arguments, including Carrington’s challenges to a search of her home and to a confession she made to police after giving up her right to a have a lawyer present.
Carrington’s lawyers said at her trial that she was under pressure to support her lover and her lover’s three children. They argued she should be spared the death penalty because she was abused as a child.
Carrington’s automatic appeal to the California Supreme Court is the first step in the state’s death penalty appeal process.
She has a separate habeas corpus petition pending before the state high court and also has the right to file a petition in federal court.
