A man given life without parole for the home invasion rape, kidnap and shot-to-the-head execution of a young Oakland woman has walked out of prison after being paroled at a hearing held thanks to a resentencing masterminded by since-ousted Alameda D.A. Pamela Price.
Sterling Jones, 69, and his accomplice Neil Jones, unrelated, were convicted of first-degree murder, first-degree attempted murder and rape in the aftermath of the July 1980 crime.
The depraved pair broke into the home of 22-year-old hairdresser Charlotte Turner and her husband in the early hours of July 20 1980. They took turns to rape Turner and forced her to perform sex acts while holding her husband at bay with a gun.
They then drove their victims to a deserted road near Oakland Airport where Turner was shot in the head. Her husband survived, with a gunshot wound, after a misfire foiled an attempted coup de grâce.
The predators had come across their prey by chance – after getting into an auto accident with them on East 14th Street, now International Boulevard, in Oakland, and then trailing them home.
Two years before the crime, Sterling Jones was arrested by cops in the Berkeley Hills where he had taken a male hitchhiker and threatened him with sexual violence. Kidnapping charges were dropped.
Governor Gavin Newsom refused either to block Jones’ release outright or ask the parole board to reconsider its decision, both of which he has the authority to do in murder cases.
Jones, granted parole on February 24 2026, left prison today.
The pair were convicted of first-degree murder, attempted murder and rape. Although prosecutors originally sought the death penalty, they were ultimately sentenced to life without parole.
“The court finds the nature of the crime peculiarly offensive,” said trial judge Stanley Golde in 1982. “[Sterling Jones] not only, in this court’s opinion, deliberately and intentionally aided and abetted in a killing but he further aided and abetted in a crime that not only resulted in death but in degradation and humiliation.”
But in 2024, Alameda’s newly installed ‘progressive’ district attorney Pamela Price decided Sterling Jones ought to be resentenced.
The prosecutor she assigned was Chesa Boudin acolyte Andrea Crider, who marched into court and demanded Jones be given a life with parole sentence. Judge Thomas Stevens was only too happy to oblige and inked the new judgment on August 8 2024.
In her motion, Crider falsely told the court that the elected district attorney of San Diego was supportive of resentencing. A spokesman for San Diego’s top prosecutor Summer Stephan rejected the claim and stressed she had never resentenced anyone convicted of kidnapping, rape or special circumstances murder, nor any prisoner serving life without parole.
Crider now works for Boudin at Berkeley Law School.
“We have to get rid of her”
At his first parole hearing on February 24 2026 Jones was granted parole by commissioner Teal Kozel and deputy commissioner Matthew Brueckner.
“It was just impulsive teenager hormones,” said Jones, who was 23 at the time of the crime, when asked by Kozel to explain why he raped the woman.
“I was trying to follow the example of the older guys that I was trying to impress. And show how raw you can be and how disrespectful you can be.”
“I have more respect for women,” Jones assured commissioners of his current attitude.
Jones admitted it was his idea to kill the couple in order to avoid getting caught for the rape.
“We have to get rid of her,” he told his accomplice in front of the terrified woman.
While in prison, the panel was told, Jones has joined a black muslim group and an ex-prisoner member of that group would be Jones’ ‘accountability partner’ when he was back on the streets.
Prosecutor April Smith – in an unenviable position given her office’s advocacy for Jones and his rehabilitation was the sole reason he was before the board – endeavored to persuade commissioners he was too dangerous to release.
She pointed out deficiencies in Jones’ parole and relapse prevention plans and noted that a comprehensive risk assessment predicted a ‘moderate medium’ risk of his being violent in future.
“Domestic violence courses or sex offender treatment, which are both lacking, were directly relevant to his commitment offense,” Smith said of Jones’ limited programming in prison.
“The Alameda county district attorney’s office opposes the release at this time due to the unreasonable current risk to public safety,” she said.
The panel heard that Jones had a mental breakdown last year but was making progress in his recovery.
“You have accepted full responsibility for your behaviors at the time of the crime,” said Kozel. “You seem pretty intent on taking full responsibility, actually, to the point that you push away the notion of substance abuse playing a part because you want others to know that it was your decisions that resulted in sexual assault, murder and attempted murder in this case.”
Kozel noted that Jones’ ‘comprehensive risk assessment’ determined he posed a “moderate” risk of future violence – an elevated risk compared with other long-term offenders. But, she said, Jones had been sober for some time and had had a generally positive disciplinary record in prison.
“You’ve got no history of acting out toward women while incarcerated,” Kozel said.
“So, in fact, your sex offense appears to have been motivated more by antisocial traits, which have also greatly diminished with your age,” she claimed.
After 22 minutes’ deliberation Kozel announced Jones would be freed.
Jones plans to reside at a halfway house in San Francisco run by the Phatt Chance nonprofit. He told commissioners that he has an ‘accountability partner’ – a fellow black muslim who has been released after a prison term – who will help keep him crime-free.
A spokesman for current Alameda D.A. Ursula Jones Dickson reiterated her opposition to the parole grant, stressing Jones had not completed sex offender treatment – which was “directly relevant” to the offense – and that he lacked parole plans, relapse prevention plans and had not written any letters of remorse.
Governor Gavin Newsom did not intervene to reverse the decision, as he did on nine occasions last year, or insist that the parole board consider the case ‘en banc’.
Jones’ release comes amid increasing scrutiny of the state board of parole hearings after recent decisions to spring sex predators David Funston, Gregory Vogelsang and Roberto Detrinidad attracted widespread criticism.
Analysis
Jones’ case is the latest instance of condemned and life without parole prisoners receiving parole hearings after resentencings masterminded by criminal-friendly progressives – such as Price and Chesa Boudin – who secured election as district attorneys.
A slew of the state’s most depraved killers have benefited from, in effect, two defense lawyers arguing for lower sentences before sympathetic California judges content to rubber-stamp the new terms.
Last month the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, angered at Soros-backed Philadelphia D.A. Larry Krasner’s constant attempts to free murderers whose convictions he ought to be defending, gave state law officials the right to intervene in such cases before it rules.
It is highly unlikely California’s Supreme Court will follow suit.
New rules taking effect next year will give California’s parole board the right directly to recommend that ‘life without parole’ killers be sent back to court, given a free attorney, and given a lower sentence.
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