Danny Ray Horning


Summary of Offense:

Sentenced to death in San Joaquin County on January 26, 1995 for the murder of Sammy McCullough, a marijuana dealer and fish farmer who lived in a geodesic dome house in a rural area of Stockton. Police, called after a fisherman reported finding a bag containing a human leg in the San Joaquin River Delta on September 20, 1999, found McCullough’s torso and other body parts. He had been shot in the head at close range.

Police found McCullough’s Jeep in Stockton a day later. Fingerprints on a document in the vehicle were determined to belong to Horning; a search of Horning’s home revealed human blood in the bathroom and a piece of human tissue on the bathroom mirror, along with other physical evidence linking him to the murder. Friends told police that several items were missing from McCullough’s residence, including his handgun and a planter and a coffee can in which he kept a large amount of change. Horning’s parole officer tried to locate him, could not, and listed him as having “absconded supervision.”

Prosecutors filed a complaint charging Horning with murder in December 1990, three months after he disappeared. In March 1991, he was arrested in Winslow, Arizona attempting to flee with $25,000 and a hostage after a bank robbery. He was carrying McCullough’s gun.