On November 20, 1997, 40-year-old Cheryl DeLeon, a resident of Port Arthur, Texas, was brutally murdered as she arrived home from her job at Luby's Cafeteria. She was ambushed in her driveway by a man who had been stalking her, a former co-worker named Elroy Chester. He viciously beat her with his gun before shooting her in the throat, ending her life. The apparent motive for this violent attack was robbery.
This tragic event was not an isolated incident but part of a terrifying crime spree that held the city of Port Arthur in a grip of fear for six months.
The investigation into Cheryl DeLeon's death and the other violent crimes plaguing the area eventually led police to Elroy Chester. Chester was a serial killer, rapist, and burglar responsible for a string of heinous offenses between August 1997 and February 1998. During this period, he committed at least five murders, numerous burglaries, and sexual assaults. After his arrest in February 1998, which was initially for a city ordinance violation, Chester began to confess to his horrific crimes. He admitted to stalking and killing Cheryl DeLeon, as well as the murders of John Henry Sepeda, Etta Mae Stallings, and his own brother-in-law, Albert Bolden Jr. The gun used in the slayings, a. 380 pistol, was recovered and ballistics tests matched it to the bullets found at the various crime scenes, including the one where Cheryl DeLeon was killed.
While Elroy Chester confessed to the murder of Cheryl DeLeon, he was ultimately tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for the murder of a Port Arthur firefighter, Willie Ryman III, whom he killed during a home invasion where he also sexually assaulted Ryman's two nieces. During his trial, Chester made shocking statements, expressing a desire to kill "white folks" and showing no remorse for his actions. It took the jury a mere 11 and a half minutes to return a death sentence. On June 12, 2013, Elroy Chester was executed by lethal injection in Texas. Before his execution, he acknowledged his guilt in the murders. The case of Cheryl DeLeon's murder was officially closed with the confession and subsequent execution of her killer, bringing a final, albeit somber, end to a chapter of terror in Port Arthur.
