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Murder of Irene “Melanie” May.

Kerry Lyn Dalton was born in Van Nuys, California, on April 1st, 1953. As a teen, she started to experiment with illegal substances.

By the time she was 35 in 1988, she was a hardcore drug user who spent most of her time with other users.

One of Dalton’s friends was 23-year-old Irene “Melanie” May. The two had once lived together.

May had three kids, but the pull of drugs was too strong, and she would often leave her children alone. One day, she left and never came back.

On June 26th, 1988, Kerry Lyn Dalton, along with three others, participated in the torture and murder of May at a mobile home park in Live Oak Springs, California.

They reportedly used a cast-iron frying pan, a knife, and a syringe filled with battery acid. After she was dead, her body was disposed of.

The crime occurred because Dalton thought May had stolen her jewelry.

Over the next couple of years, Dalton and the others ran their mouths about their involvement in the case. The rumors made their way to detectives, who arrested Dalton along with 29-year-old Mark Lee Thompkins and 28-year-old Sheryl Ann Baker in 1992.

Since there were no weapons, DNA, witnesses, or a body, the trio might have beaten the case if they had stuck together. However, in July 1993, their cases were severed. A year later, Thompkins pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, and Baker pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

Dalton was offered a plea deal, but she turned it down.

Legal Proceedings

When she went to trial, Baker testified against her.

The defense strategy primarily focused on the lack of physical evidence, especially the absence of a body. May’s husband testified that he saw her in July, a month after she was reportedly killed. He said he conversed with her as she stood outside a Hotel.

Even the presiding judge, Thomas J. Whelan, noted it was unclear whether a homicide had even occurred, leaving it to the jury to decide if May was genuinely deceased.

The jury was persuaded by the testimonies of witnesses. Dalton was convicted of first-degree murder in February 1995. Three months later, on May 23rd, 1995, she was sentenced to death by lethal injection.

It’s unclear what sentence her accomplices, Thompkins and Baker, received for their roles in the crime. A fourth perpetrator, “George,” was never identified or prosecuted.

Ever since her sentencing, Dalton has remained on death row at the Central California Women’s Facility in Chowchilla. She is now 71, having spent nearly 30 years awaiting her execution.