A California death row prisoner sentenced for the 1979 murder of his pregnant wife, who was killed just days before her due date, has died after more than four and a half decades awaiting execution.
Jerry T. Bunyard died July 10 at California State Prison, Sacramento, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). He was 76.
“At 4:44 p.m., Bunyard was pronounced deceased at an outside medical facility by medical staff,” the CDCR said in a news release. “The Sacramento County Coroner will determine his official cause of death.”
Jerry T. Bunyard died while awaiting execution in California for the 1979 killing of his pregnant wife. (Getty Images; California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation)
Bunyard had been found guilty of first-degree murder in the deaths of his wife, Elaine Bunyard, and their unborn child. Elaine was discovered dead on Nov. 1, 1979, inside the garage of the San Joaquin County home she shared with Bunyard and their 7-year-old daughter.
Court records say Elaine Bunyard was killed by a devastating shotgun wound to the head, while the fetus died moments afterward from oxygen deprivation. Authorities alleged Bunyard arranged the killings by hiring Erwin Popham, a childhood friend.
Popham, described in court records as a transient, low-level offender and regular drug user, had stayed with the Bunyard family from time to time. Investigators said Bunyard later enlisted him to kill Elaine because he believed she was carrying another man’s child.
According to court records, Bunyard had proposed a $50,000 divorce settlement to his wife, but she turned it down. Prosecutors also said he wanted to remove an obstacle to a relationship with his new girlfriend.
Popham initially declined to commit the murder, but the pair eventually settled on a $1,000 fee to be paid within a week of the slaying, followed by additional money once Bunyard received the proceeds of his wife’s life insurance policy.
The murder was supposed to be staged as a suicide.
Lt. Sam Robinson calls to open a door at San Quentin State Prison’s death row in San Quentin, Calif., on Aug. 15, 2016. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)
Popham attacked Elaine Bunyard as she was washing dishes in her kitchen, repeatedly striking her on the head with frying pans. He then dragged her unconscious body to the garage and placed her in a chair. Once she was seated, Popham propped Bunyard’s pump shotgun under Elaine’s chin and pulled the trigger.
Half of her face was blown off, prosecutors said. Given the extreme amount of blood at the scene, Popham abandoned the suicide staging and decided to make the killing look like a robbery instead.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a press conference at San Lorenzo High School on March 18, 2026. (Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu via Getty Images)
He then drove to Bunyard’s construction job in Patterson and told him “it was done,” according to the California Supreme Court’s review of the evidence.
Currently, 567 California prison inmates are on death row, according to the CDCR. However, in 2019, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order instituting a moratorium on the death penalty in California, granting a temporary reprieve to all individuals sentenced to death.
