Olga Cannon, a 23-year-old African American woman, was murdered on August 15, 1984, in Fresno County, California. Her body was discovered on December 8, 1984, in an irrigation ditch near Easton, California. The cause of death was determined to be bludgeoning, with evidence indicating she suffered multiple blows to the head with a blunt object.
Wilbur Lee Jennings, an African American man born in 1940, was arrested on September 13, 1984, and later convicted for the murder of Olga
Cannon, along with the murders of Linda Johnson and Jacqueline Frazier in 1984, and Karen Robinson in 1983. He was also convicted of numerous other felonies, including forcible sexual assaults, robberies, arsons, and kidnapping for robbery. The jury found special circumstances in the murders, determining that Johnson, Cannon, and Frazier were killed during the commission of a robbery, and that Johnson and Cannon were killed during the commission of a rape. Jennings was sentenced to death by a Fresno County jury on November 20, 1986.
Jennings earned the moniker "The Ditchbank Murderer" due to his pattern of disposing of victims' bodies in irrigation ditches and canals. After his conviction, he was incarcerated on death row at San Quentin State Prison. In 2005, he was transferred to Sacramento County to stand trial for the 1981 rape and murder of 17-year-old Debra Chandler, after DNA evidence linked him to the crime. Jennings died of natural causes on February 11, 2014, at the age of 73, while in custody at the Sacramento County Jail.
