A convicted felon was arrested Thursday in connection with an Oxnard woman’s unsolvedmurder nearly four decades after the 81-year-old victimwas raped and beatenin her home.
DNA evidence is credited as the break in the case, pointing authorities to Lenard Chester, 57, as the suspected killer of Leah Sarah Bullis on Dec. 1, 1980, Oxnard police said. Chester wasbooked into Ventura County jail after his arrest, police said.
The crime occurred at Bullis’ homein the 1800 block of Coronado Place. Police arrived and found her conscious but severely beaten. She died in an ambulance on the way to a hospital, authorities said.
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An initial investigation found she had been raped and beaten in her home, with anautopsyrevealing she died as a result of blunt-force trauma bleeding, according to the Ventura County Medical Examiner’s Office.
Evidence of the sexual assault was collectedduring the autopsy, and several other pieces of evidence were recovered. The first detectives assigned to the case interviewed potential suspects, but no arrests were made.
Oxnard police kept the evidence andit was looked at again in 2018, when the agency dedicated Detective Jeff Kay to investigating and potentially solving the city’s 178 unsolved homicides.
Solving a cold case
The arrest in Bullis’death came less than a year after police announced their efforts to review those cases and in Julylaunched a cold case website to get the public’s help.
That same year, police worked with the Ventura County District Attorney’s Office and the Ventura County sheriff’s crime lab to take another look at Bullis’ case.
In late 2018, the DNA collected in 1980 wasuploaded to theFBI’sCombined DNA Index System, which stores information about those who have been arrested across the country. The DNA was a match to Chester, who was convicted in 1982 for breaking into homes and sexually assaulting four different women in Ventura County.
Chester was back in a Ventura County courtroom on Friday to face charges in Bullis’ slaying.
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According to online court records, prosecutors filed a murder charge against Chester on April 24. He is also accused of two special circ*mstances alleging he murdered Bullis during the course of a rape and burglary, prosecutors announced Friday.
Chester did not enter a plea, but the Ventura County Public Defender’s Office has been appointed in his case.
The special circ*mstances alleged in the complaint mean Chester, who lived in Oxnard,would be eligible for the death penalty. A decision has not yet been made on whether capital punishment will be sought, said Senior Deputy District Attorney Kelly Keenan.
If the death penalty isn’t sought and Chester is convicted of murder and the special circ*mstances, he faces life in prison without the possibility of parole, Keenan said.
The suspect’s past
In his previous conviction, Chester was sentenced “to 44 years in state prison from Ventura County in March 1982 for robbery with a firearm, rape, vehicle theft, and assault,” according toVicky Waters, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“Per the law, he received day-for-day credit earningand was released to parole supervision in December 2008. He was subsequently discharged from parole supervision in December 2011,” Waters wrote in an email to The Star.
Once he was paroled, prosecutors were involved in a civil commitment hearing where the court determined Chestershould be listed as a “sexually violent predator.” The court ordered him to be placed on a civil hold and be sent to a state hospital for treatment, Oxnard police said.
Keenan, the prosecutor, could not provide specifics about the hearing.
In general, he said, people convicted of certain crimes could be looked at to see if they have certain mental or psychological profiles. Prosecutors have a mechanism to seek commitment to a mental hospital for certain offenders who have served their sentence and been deemed by the court a sexually violent predator.
The Department of State Hospitals — Coalinga, located in Fresno County, is a facility known for treating sexually violent predators, Keenan said.
Chester has beentaken from that hospital to county jail, Keenan said. Chester is being held without bail and is due back in court for a continued arraignment hearing at 9 a.m. June 3 in Courtroom 12.
Investigators are still looking at the elderly woman’s case, however, as well as similar ones that may have involved Chester.
Anyone with information about the case is encouraged to call Detective Jeff Kay at 805-385-8174 or email him at coldcase@oxnardpd.org.
For more information on the Oxnard Police Department’s cold cases, visit coldcase.oxnardpd.org.
Jeremy Childs is a breaking news and public safety reporter covering the night shift for the Ventura County Star. He can be reached by calling805-437-0208 or emailing jeremy.childs@vcstar.com.Megan Diskin is a courts and breaking news reporter with The Star. Reach her atmegan.diskin@vcstar.comor805-437-0258.
