00:00:04
in 1970s California Randy craft was a
00:00:08
man of many Gees military veteran
00:00:11
computer whz party animal and prolific
00:00:14
serial
00:00:16
killer what sets Mr craft apart from
00:00:20
other Killers is the volume of his
00:00:24
victims the young men craft targeted
00:00:27
suffered a cruel and unusual
00:00:30
fate he wanted those young men to really
00:00:35
really suffer and he enjoyed it it would
00:00:39
be
00:00:40
unimaginable to a normal human mind what
00:00:46
occurred with no leads and little
00:00:48
evidence the Spate of horrific murders
00:00:51
continued for 11 long
00:00:54
years these were a bunch of Unsolved
00:00:56
cases bad unsolved cases when craft was
00:01:01
finally caught red-handed the police
00:01:03
realized the extent of his depravity so
00:01:07
the prosecutor found a list in his truck
00:01:09
of his car um that was a quoted
00:01:11
reference to his victims dub the
00:01:13
scorecard killer Randy craft was a
00:01:16
methodical determined sadist and
00:01:19
undoubtedly one of the world's most evil
00:01:22
killers
00:01:26
[Music]
00:01:32
[Music]
00:01:43
shortly after 1:00 a.m. on May the 14th
00:01:47
1983 two Highway Patrol officers pulled
00:01:50
over a car being driven erratically on
00:01:53
the I5 freeway in Mission bejo
00:01:56
California the driver was 38-year-old r
00:02:00
de
00:02:01
craft they test Randy Craft's alcohol
00:02:05
level and announce of course that he is
00:02:08
drunk and then they say what about the
00:02:10
passenger who appears to be asleep the
00:02:14
officer who went around to the passenger
00:02:16
side of the car realized very quickly
00:02:19
this was no ordinary driving
00:02:22
offense and he tried to wake him up
00:02:24
wasn't successful open the
00:02:26
door the young man's pants were pulled
00:02:29
down to his knees and he was dead a
00:02:33
regular traffic stop had just become a
00:02:35
major murder inquiry and the driver of
00:02:38
the car was at the center of
00:02:43
it this killer Story begins on the west
00:02:46
coast of America in Southern
00:02:49
California Randy craft was born in March
00:02:53
of 1945 in Long Beach
00:02:57
California Randy had a very religious
00:03:00
upbringing and his family was pretty
00:03:02
devout craft was the youngest of four
00:03:04
children and his parents only
00:03:08
son he was doted on by his mother and
00:03:12
three Elder sisters a very much the sort
00:03:15
of Mother's
00:03:17
boy when Randy craft was 3 years old his
00:03:21
family moved from Long Beach to Midway
00:03:24
City in neighboring Orange County where
00:03:27
craft was enrolled in a local school
00:03:31
he was a good student he was bright and
00:03:36
academic those on the High School tennis
00:03:38
team played
00:03:40
saxophone pretty good saxophone player
00:03:42
had good
00:03:43
friends went to Claremont College in
00:03:45
California which is rather respectable
00:03:48
very reputable College to study
00:03:50
economics he was talkative
00:03:54
gregarious quite thoughtful he's a very
00:03:57
competitive guy love break cards and
00:03:59
hated to lose one thing about Randy was
00:04:02
nobody ever remembers him sleeping it
00:04:05
was during his time at College in the
00:04:07
mid 1960s that craft started to engage
00:04:10
in highrisk
00:04:12
behavior in spite of this really rather
00:04:15
level childhood and Adolescence sort of
00:04:19
began to go off the rails in his final
00:04:21
year at
00:04:23
clemont he started drinking quite
00:04:27
heavily and taking drugs
00:04:30
and gambling all of those kind of
00:04:33
instant gratification
00:04:35
things it was as if he wanted to throw
00:04:38
off the past and he suddenly wanted to
00:04:40
become oh I'm going to become my own
00:04:42
man since adolescence craft had been
00:04:46
coming to terms with his own
00:04:49
sexuality for a while in high school he
00:04:52
dated women although subsequently came
00:04:54
out as
00:04:55
gay being a gay man it would have been
00:04:58
very very difficult but then a lot of
00:05:01
prejudice and discrimination in those
00:05:03
days as he went into the more liberal
00:05:05
College environment he became more
00:05:10
comfortable craft threw himself into his
00:05:13
new
00:05:15
lifestyle frequented gay bars picked up
00:05:18
male Hustlers he made no secret of it to
00:05:20
those who
00:05:22
knew at that point he was definitely
00:05:27
experimenting with how this was was
00:05:29
going to impact his life in
00:05:32
1966 craft was arrested for lwd conduct
00:05:36
after propositioning an undercover
00:05:38
police officer but was let off with a
00:05:41
warning it was the first of many
00:05:44
incidents that demonstrated to craft
00:05:46
that his sexuality would not be
00:05:48
universally
00:05:51
accepted after he graduated from college
00:05:53
and came out to his parents his father
00:05:55
just had a fit and refused to talk to
00:05:57
him for a while after colleag hcraft
00:06:00
ventured into the world of full-time
00:06:02
employment and at the age of 23 embarked
00:06:06
upon a career in the
00:06:08
military Randy craft was in the United
00:06:11
States Air Force in
00:06:13
1968 as rank was armman first
00:06:19
class he was good at discipline good at
00:06:22
order was quite
00:06:24
successful not a combat role actually
00:06:27
was painting test jets in the at Edwards
00:06:30
Air Force Space at that time gay men
00:06:32
were not permitted to serve in the
00:06:35
military despite this craft revealed his
00:06:38
sexuality to his
00:06:42
superiors on July the 26th 1969 he
00:06:46
received a general discharge from the
00:06:48
service with medical grounds being cited
00:06:51
as the
00:06:53
reason General discharge is different
00:06:57
than an honorable discharge
00:07:00
craft objected to his discharge but was
00:07:03
told he had no grounds so he goes back
00:07:06
to home to live with his parents I
00:07:09
wouldn't have said it was a very happy
00:07:12
return we see that potentially his
00:07:15
sexuality has had a massively
00:07:18
detrimental effect on his future career
00:07:22
and his
00:07:24
aspirations 24-year-old Randy craft got
00:07:27
a job as a bartender at a a local gay
00:07:30
bar known as the mug here at closing
00:07:33
time he would pick up men for late night
00:07:35
sexual liazal heading to one of the many
00:07:39
beaches of the Southern Californian
00:07:42
Coastline and this is the point that his
00:07:46
offending starts he really starts to
00:07:50
escalate in the risks to himself and
00:07:54
other people in March 1970 crafts now
00:07:59
living with a housemate picked up a
00:08:01
13-year-old boy near Huntington
00:08:05
Beach started talking this when he says
00:08:09
hey you want to come back to my car and
00:08:11
have a beer the child told craft that
00:08:14
he'd run away from home that day craft
00:08:17
invited the boy back to his apartment in
00:08:20
Long Beach where events took a
00:08:22
horrifying
00:08:25
turn the boys ped with drugs and alcohol
00:08:29
and once he got him to the home he gave
00:08:31
him U some
00:08:33
Valium Valium is generally used as a
00:08:37
minor tranquilizer in combination with
00:08:39
drugs such as alcohol can so depress the
00:08:43
brain that the person may either lose
00:08:45
Consciousness or at least lose a level
00:08:47
of Consciousness and not be able to act
00:08:50
normally or have normal judgment or
00:08:52
defend
00:08:55
themselves here's very soon
00:08:57
semiconscious un able to to resist any
00:09:00
force that Mr craft would apply while
00:09:03
the boy was powerless Randy craft forced
00:09:06
him to perform a sex act on him craft
00:09:10
then went on to violently sexually
00:09:12
assault the teenager while he was too
00:09:14
sedated to fight
00:09:16
back he sexually assaulted a
00:09:19
13-year-old boy a child who was
00:09:23
incredibly vulnerable this is not an
00:09:27
insignificant crime this is is the first
00:09:30
Insight we get now that this man is
00:09:34
escalating in Risk
00:09:37
significantly after the attack craft
00:09:40
carried on his day as
00:09:42
normal and rra left and went to work the
00:09:45
kid is just mortified and he's scared to
00:09:48
death the boy is traumatized by the
00:09:52
events he escaped and got
00:09:56
help members of the public were quick to
00:09:59
help the clearly intoxicated boy and
00:10:01
call the emergency
00:10:03
services and the police come and they K
00:10:06
him to the hospital and they pump his
00:10:07
stomach they take a story the kid never
00:10:10
told the cops that he had been sexually
00:10:12
molested he just said he' been abducted
00:10:14
and given this alcoh with the police
00:10:17
unaware of exactly what had happened at
00:10:19
the apartment Randy cof got away with
00:10:22
brutally assaulting the
00:10:24
child the attack would come to be
00:10:27
recognized as a practice Run for the the
00:10:29
pattern of sadistic offending that would
00:10:32
come to Define Craft's
00:10:35
crimes an extreme sexual deviant and he
00:10:39
unfortunately gets gratification from
00:10:43
ways that aren't
00:10:46
normal free to roam the streets of
00:10:48
Southern California it was only a matter
00:10:51
of time before craft took the
00:10:53
opportunity to strike again with his
00:10:56
veneer of respectability intact Randy
00:11:00
CRA pursued a career in the newly
00:11:02
emerging computer
00:11:06
industry computers were just into
00:11:09
existence but he was a whiz at computers
00:11:13
already then that was his
00:11:17
Forte he was smart enough guy if you'd
00:11:20
have met him at a party you might think
00:11:21
he was a little high strung but he
00:11:23
seemed like a regular person and he had
00:11:26
a social demeanor about him that would
00:11:28
get him by
00:11:31
so he's developed by 1970 into a a
00:11:35
respectable computer scientist B A
00:11:38
gregarious young man and C into a secret
00:11:43
life he still goes to gay bars and he
00:11:45
still picks up male
00:11:48
prostitutes on the 5th of October
00:11:51
1971 around 60 M from Craft's home in
00:11:55
Long Beach a naked body was discovered
00:11:58
close to the the Orga
00:12:01
Highway the body of a young man called
00:12:03
Wayne Ducket is discovered he a
00:12:06
30-year-old gay bartender he worked in a
00:12:09
bar called The Stables the man had been
00:12:12
missing for 2 weeks his body was too
00:12:15
decomposed for police to ascertain Foul
00:12:17
Play and his death was put down to acute
00:12:21
alcohol poisoning but it would turn out
00:12:24
to be the first death in a disturbing
00:12:27
epidemic
00:12:29
from about the early' 70s bodies started
00:12:33
appearing young men who'd been
00:12:37
murdered several of them were found
00:12:40
dumped along the freeway with Road Burns
00:12:42
that looks like they'd been kicked out
00:12:44
of a moving
00:12:46
car in 1972 there was another victim a
00:12:49
20-year-old Marine Edward Moore he was
00:12:52
discovered around Christmas near the
00:12:54
offramp of a freeway he'd been beaten
00:12:58
and strangled 6 weeks later a man in his
00:13:01
late teens or early 20s was found
00:13:04
alongside the terminal Island freeway in
00:13:07
Wilmington he'd been strangled with a
00:13:11
ligature two months after this in April
00:13:15
1973 the body of 17-year-old Kevin Clark
00:13:19
Bailey was found in Huntington
00:13:22
Beach he was the first one to be
00:13:25
mutilated he was suffocated I believe
00:13:28
the genitalia work cut off though each
00:13:30
death was a tragedy and each was
00:13:33
investigated by the police there was no
00:13:35
Panic at this time that a serial killer
00:13:38
was responsible the murders occurring
00:13:41
across Southern California's vast Road
00:13:43
Network were not immediately linked 8
00:13:47
days after Kevin Bailey's murder another
00:13:50
body was found of an unidentified young
00:13:53
man he'd been dismembered 3 months later
00:13:57
in July 197 3 20-year-old Ronald weeb
00:14:01
went missing Ronald left his mother's
00:14:04
house to go to a bar and disappeared he
00:14:08
was found 2 Days Later he's been
00:14:10
strangled and sexually
00:14:13
assaulted over the next 18 months four
00:14:16
more young men were discovered murdered
00:14:19
beside or close to Major roadways in
00:14:22
Southern
00:14:23
California Vincent Cruz MERS Malcolm
00:14:27
Eugene little James Dale Reeves and
00:14:31
Roger Edward
00:14:33
Dickerson it was quite difficult for the
00:14:36
police to link all of these murders
00:14:38
together at the time
00:14:40
because there didn't appear to be any
00:14:44
strict
00:14:45
consistency in the way those people were
00:14:50
killed some had been strangled others
00:14:53
asphyxiated some had been beaten or
00:14:56
tortured more than one victim had had
00:14:59
been restrained or even suspended by
00:15:01
their wrists and
00:15:03
ankles but certainly some of them were
00:15:06
sexually assaulted there was physical
00:15:08
evidence for
00:15:09
that at least two of the bodies maybe
00:15:13
more had socks stuffed up their rectum
00:15:17
some of the victims were sexually
00:15:20
mutilated and uh that was obviously a
00:15:23
striking
00:15:24
finding apart from the fact they were
00:15:26
all young men there was also little to
00:15:29
link the
00:15:31
victims many of the victims were Marines
00:15:33
and they didn't come from orang County
00:15:34
or hitchhikers and there was this great
00:15:40
alarm some of them were gay some of them
00:15:44
were vulnerable in other ways maybe they
00:15:46
were homeless maybe they were
00:15:49
runaways it was the time of the Vietnam
00:15:52
War when thousands of young men would
00:15:54
have been away from home their
00:15:56
whereabouts hard to track for their
00:15:59
loved
00:16:00
ones the fact they didn't come from
00:16:02
orang they come from you know where
00:16:03
they're drafted from in Wisconsin or
00:16:06
Alabama or Colorado wherever they came
00:16:08
from uh it wasn't a local boy all of the
00:16:12
murdered men had been alone when they'd
00:16:14
been picked up by their killer there
00:16:16
were no Witnesses and no clues to link
00:16:19
them to any
00:16:21
suspects these are perfectly innocent
00:16:23
people who have fallen into the hands of
00:16:25
what can only be called a monster
00:16:28
[Music]
00:16:30
and the monster had no intention of
00:16:35
stopping in January
00:16:38
1975 the bodies of high school student
00:16:41
John lus and 21-year-old Craig jitis
00:16:45
were found along the same stretch of
00:16:47
Coastline both had been strangled with
00:16:50
signs of as sadistic sexual motivation
00:16:53
the same modus operand I applied to both
00:16:56
they were young men and they were dumped
00:17:00
by this time with 14 unsolved homicides
00:17:03
across four counties in less than four
00:17:05
years police had come to the horrifying
00:17:09
realization they could all be the work
00:17:11
of one serial killer local law
00:17:14
enforcement called in specialist
00:17:18
investigators a task force has been set
00:17:21
up to see if they can track down
00:17:23
whoever's doing it they have an FBI
00:17:27
profiler the FBI told detectives they
00:17:30
were likely looking for a methodical
00:17:33
organized lust killer of above average
00:17:37
intelligence they thought they might
00:17:39
have had prior convictions or had been
00:17:41
sent to a a mental facility the task
00:17:45
force came up empty-handed but that
00:17:47
spring though they did not realize it
00:17:50
the police came agonizingly close to
00:17:52
catching their killer on the 29th of
00:17:55
March
00:17:57
1975 19-year-old old Keith crotwell and
00:18:00
a 15-year-old friend were part of a
00:18:02
group of teens drinking in a parking lot
00:18:05
in Long
00:18:07
Beach soon they noticed this this weird
00:18:09
guy staring at them across the parking
00:18:11
lot it's 5' 10 about 140 lb short
00:18:15
haircut and very unassuming but but a
00:18:19
great talker hey you guys want some
00:18:21
beer he ended up being able to talk
00:18:25
these individuals to getting in his car
00:18:28
and leaving we don't know why the
00:18:33
friends accepted a ride they also
00:18:35
accepted the valum the man offered them
00:18:37
from a stash in his car quickly becoming
00:18:41
intoxicated sometime later the car
00:18:44
returned to the parking lot he
00:18:47
apparently did not want to deal with two
00:18:48
people drives back to the parking lot
00:18:50
near the Grenada and the Belmont
00:18:53
Shores and the friend is literally
00:18:56
thrown out of the car and
00:18:59
crotwell is
00:19:02
kept Keith cwell never came
00:19:05
home Keith was missing for six weeks
00:19:08
before his terrible fate became clear
00:19:11
what was found of Keith was his head
00:19:17
which is found in Long Beach
00:19:19
marina Keith cell's devastated friends
00:19:22
turned detective tracking down the
00:19:24
stranger distinctive vehicle
00:19:30
some friends who'd seen katwell and his
00:19:33
buddy get into the car identified it and
00:19:36
the police for the first time
00:19:39
interviewed Randy craft 30-year-old
00:19:43
craft told officers he and crotwell had
00:19:46
driven around for a while until the car
00:19:49
got stuck in mud on a dirt road once he
00:19:52
got the car stuck Crowell had just gone
00:19:55
and he was left with the car to
00:19:57
investigate officers craft story was far
00:20:01
from
00:20:03
watertight maybe this guy killed Keith
00:20:05
cwell so the cops take the case to the
00:20:08
Los Angeles County DA's office and says
00:20:10
we want to file a murder charge against
00:20:11
rcraft the prosecutor refused the police
00:20:15
had no physical evidence and no murder
00:20:18
weapon Keith cell's death was filed as a
00:20:22
potential drowning and Randy craft
00:20:25
remained free to haunt the streets of
00:20:27
Southern California
00:20:29
there was
00:20:31
nobody there was no
00:20:33
evidence When a
00:20:36
Killer is able to keep killing and
00:20:40
nobody seems to notice and nobody comes
00:20:42
knocking on his door and they're not
00:20:45
arrested then of course they're going to
00:20:48
become
00:20:49
emboldened he just kept getting away
00:20:51
with it and when you get away with
00:20:53
something you become bullet proof in
00:20:56
your own head both investigators and
00:20:59
Keith cell's friends were sure that
00:21:01
craft had killed and decapitated the
00:21:04
teenager a month later in June
00:21:07
1975 Randy craft was arrested for loot
00:21:11
conduct and spent 5 days in jail in
00:21:14
October
00:21:16
1975 skeletal remains were found close
00:21:19
to where craft said he'd last seen Keith
00:21:22
crotwell but they would not be
00:21:24
identified as the teens until 1983
00:21:28
after a 7-month Hiatus in the Spate of
00:21:31
violent sexual murders that had plagued
00:21:34
the area another young man
00:21:39
disappeared the next victim was a man
00:21:41
called Mark Hall it was New Year's Eve
00:21:44
1975 he'd been to a number of
00:21:47
parties and they were drinking and his
00:21:49
friend was continuing to party and he
00:21:50
noticed Mark Howard hall pass out on the
00:21:53
couch when 22-year-old Mark's body was
00:21:56
found 3 days later and almost 60 M away
00:22:00
it was clear that Randy craft had
00:22:02
escalated in his horrendous
00:22:05
brutality he had been tortured and
00:22:07
sexually molested over an extended
00:22:10
period of time his genitals had been
00:22:13
emasculated and a lot of sand and mud
00:22:17
was found in his mouth and in his
00:22:21
throat the victim had been traumatized
00:22:23
while still alive was called anti morm
00:22:25
before death the victim was horribly
00:22:27
tortured including
00:22:29
the cigarette was punched in the
00:22:30
cigarette ladder and heated up and
00:22:32
burned him on several parts of his body
00:22:34
on left nipple and upper torso on on his
00:22:36
face on his eyes so the victim could
00:22:40
close his eyes to what was happening to
00:22:41
him the torch was happening to
00:22:43
him when people kill
00:22:46
serially they are inevitably going to
00:22:50
develop their technique some people may
00:22:53
use torture or sadism they want that
00:22:57
person to really suffer and they may
00:22:59
experiment as they find sadism actually
00:23:02
pleases
00:23:03
them who knows how when horror these
00:23:06
young men went through before they were
00:23:09
killed it's a tragedy nobody knew how he
00:23:11
disappeared he was simply at a party and
00:23:13
then he wasn't there
00:23:15
anymore toxicology tests revealed Mark
00:23:18
Hall's blood alcohol level was fatally
00:23:21
high at
00:23:23
0.67% Valium was also found in his
00:23:27
system
00:23:28
I don't think anybody could drink that
00:23:30
much that sounds like somebody pouring
00:23:32
alcohol down his
00:23:34
throat a level of drug such as alcohol
00:23:38
could render a person unconscious when
00:23:41
combined with Valium could be lethal
00:23:45
many aspects of the murder were familiar
00:23:47
to investigators the intoxication
00:23:50
torture and extreme sexual violence but
00:23:54
Mark Hall's murder bore a novel feature
00:23:57
craft had tied him to a small tree posed
00:24:00
for whoever would find him he got some
00:24:03
sort of a thrill out of advertising it
00:24:07
he wanted to shock people who saw the
00:24:09
bodies why would you pose it they was
00:24:12
proud of what he was doing the 1970s
00:24:16
would be seen in hindsight as a risky
00:24:19
time to be a young man in Southern
00:24:21
California as well as the many victims
00:24:24
found castrated sodomized and tortured
00:24:27
there were dozens of other unsolved
00:24:29
murders of young men and teenage boys
00:24:32
who'd been picked up on the network of
00:24:36
freeways in
00:24:38
1977 a man named Patrick Kerney handed
00:24:41
himself in to police in Riverside
00:24:45
California and he was known as the trash
00:24:47
bag killer cuz his bodies were mainly
00:24:49
dumped in trash
00:24:51
bags Kerney admitted to killing 35 men
00:24:55
the following year he was given 21 life
00:24:58
sentences and imprisoned at San Quentin
00:25:01
detectives hoped that young men would
00:25:03
now be safe from attack but in reality
00:25:07
they were far from certain that Kerney
00:25:09
was responsible for all of the unsolved
00:25:12
murders on their books for a start his
00:25:15
method of killing was always a gunshot
00:25:18
to the
00:25:19
temple the police will be heavily
00:25:21
reliant on their linkage analysis so
00:25:24
they have to find consistencies across
00:25:29
all of these bodies that were
00:25:32
appearing Patrick hery did not torture
00:25:35
or name the victims Patrick Cy said I'm
00:25:38
not the sake in the butt kind of guy I'm
00:25:40
not him I'm not the worst of the worst
00:25:42
this other guy is the other guy Kerney
00:25:45
was more than likely referring to was
00:25:47
Randy craft Kerney claimed to be
00:25:50
disgusted by the macabra nature of many
00:25:53
of the unsolved killings and refused to
00:25:56
take responsibility for them
00:25:59
and very soon more mutilated bodies
00:26:02
started turning up with features that
00:26:04
were disturbingly
00:26:07
familiar victims they were molested they
00:26:09
were injured kept alive while I was
00:26:11
torturing them hard to describe and it
00:26:13
makes me just sick to think about
00:26:15
him one of the things he did was he put
00:26:19
ballpoint pins in their penises who in
00:26:22
Heaven's name would even think of doing
00:26:25
that maybe this is about
00:26:29
sexuality his own potential internalized
00:26:33
homophobia where he has a
00:26:36
hatred for the men that he finds
00:26:39
attractive maybe he hates them because
00:26:42
they have this power over him that he
00:26:45
can find them attractive and it and he
00:26:47
doesn't like that in himself the bodies
00:26:50
of the mutilated young male victims
00:26:53
continued to pile up nine more through
00:26:56
1978 and 197
00:26:59
79 in the summer of 1980 the police once
00:27:03
again believed they had caught the
00:27:05
culprit William Bonin who confessed to
00:27:08
21 murders gaining the Monica the
00:27:11
freeway
00:27:13
Strangler but just two months later the
00:27:16
nightmare for victims and detectives
00:27:19
began
00:27:21
again boning was caught but the killings
00:27:24
went on so it couldn't have been
00:27:25
boning for a while there we thought that
00:27:28
the F killing St over and they got the
00:27:29
free killer but then the body started to
00:27:31
come again and and we realized there was
00:27:33
somebody else out there uh and the cops
00:27:36
admitted it too in the meantime
00:27:39
35-year-old Long Beach computer
00:27:41
programmer Randy craft had got a new job
00:27:44
for an aerospace firm and had begun
00:27:47
traveling around the US on business
00:27:50
Michigan and Oregon were places he
00:27:53
frequently visited in December 1982 in
00:27:57
Grand Rapids m michig detective Ed
00:27:59
rusticus from the Kent County Sheriff's
00:28:02
Office was alerted to the discovery of
00:28:05
two male
00:28:06
bodies I was sent as an
00:28:10
investigator to kind of a remote
00:28:13
location it was December 7 we did have a
00:28:17
lot of frost and snow the bodies were
00:28:22
quite frosted over in fact when they
00:28:25
were taken in they had to be
00:28:28
unthought before work could be done on
00:28:33
them police were quick to identify the
00:28:36
two victims who disappeared two days
00:28:40
earlier they were called Dennis Al and
00:28:42
Christopher shernan they were cousins
00:28:45
and they were both going to
00:28:46
Horticultural
00:28:48
show there happened to be a huge
00:28:51
convention in Grand Rapids at the Amway
00:28:55
Grand and this huge convention f focused
00:28:58
in on the Apple industry that's why
00:29:00
these young fellas were at that
00:29:02
convention it just so happened that
00:29:05
Randy craft was also at that
00:29:09
hotel and they were never seen alive
00:29:12
again the double murder was an unusual
00:29:16
crime in the agricultural Heartland of
00:29:19
Michigan these cases had a profound
00:29:22
effect on community of Grand Rapids
00:29:25
because the victims were from well known
00:29:28
well-respected Farm families they
00:29:30
themselves had no criminal behavior and
00:29:33
this was totally
00:29:35
incomprehensible when chief medical
00:29:37
examiner Steven Cole inspected the
00:29:40
bodies he found that both young men had
00:29:42
been strangled to death no easy feat for
00:29:46
a single attacker how did he get these
00:29:49
two young men into a situation where he
00:29:51
was able to strangle them without a
00:29:54
great
00:29:55
struggle the one fellow was a very
00:29:58
popular wrestler at West Catholic High
00:30:02
School the fact that he could subdue two
00:30:05
means he must have got him drunk or
00:30:07
under the influence or some way to have
00:30:10
control over him Toxicology test
00:30:13
discovered both men's blood alcohol
00:30:15
levels were twice the legal driving
00:30:18
limit not enough to probably render them
00:30:22
unconscious however combined with the
00:30:25
Valium they certainly could have been
00:30:27
unconscious or at least lethargic and
00:30:30
not able to vigorously defend themselves
00:30:33
from being
00:30:34
strangled one of the victims had been
00:30:37
left nuded the other had his pants
00:30:40
pulled
00:30:41
down I found that a pen from the mway
00:30:44
Grand Hotel had been inserted up the
00:30:47
urethro I haven't uh seen anything like
00:30:50
that before or after detectives in Grand
00:30:54
Rapids had little to go on to solve this
00:30:57
brutal and unusual
00:30:59
crime we basically had no evidence no
00:31:03
knowledge of
00:31:05
individuals and we researched a lot of
00:31:08
things with a lot of people to try to
00:31:13
ascertain who might be
00:31:15
responsible we did some things that I
00:31:18
would never in my life do is watch
00:31:20
horrific movies involving sex crimes to
00:31:23
try and get into somebody's mind who who
00:31:26
is this guy we didn't know what we were
00:31:30
even dealing with rusticus and his team
00:31:33
followed every line of inquiry
00:31:36
contacting police forces across the
00:31:38
United States in pursuit of similar
00:31:41
cases 5 months later they heard about a
00:31:44
traffic stop in Southern California that
00:31:47
stopped investigators in their
00:31:50
tracks at 1:10 in the morning of May the
00:31:54
14th
00:31:55
1983 two California Highway Patrol
00:31:58
officers spot a Toyota Celica weaving
00:32:03
down the
00:32:04
road as the officers approached the car
00:32:07
they saw two men in the front the driver
00:32:10
was identified as 38-year-old Randy
00:32:14
cof the officer
00:32:17
noticed a young man looked unconscious
00:32:20
in a passenger seat and he tried to wake
00:32:23
him up wasn't
00:32:24
successful but of course he's not asleep
00:32:27
he's dead
00:32:28
the patrol officers on the I5 freeway in
00:32:31
Mission beo had been expecting a routine
00:32:34
traffic stop with a suspected drug
00:32:36
driver instead they encountered a
00:32:38
suspicious death that would launch a
00:32:40
murder inquiry his passenger was
00:32:43
25-year-old Marine Terry gambell he was
00:32:46
dead Li at your marks around his throat
00:32:49
as if somebody were behind him with
00:32:50
maybe a belt the young man's pants were
00:32:53
pulled down to his
00:32:55
knees the weaving and erratic
00:32:59
driving occurred is because he was
00:33:02
actually literally cutting off his
00:33:06
penis as he was driving it was clear to
00:33:09
patrol officers that they'd happened
00:33:11
upon something highly unusual and the
00:33:14
mutilated Marine was just the
00:33:17
beginning when the police searched
00:33:21
crafts vehicle they found a lot of drugs
00:33:24
they found photographs of unconscious or
00:33:29
deceased
00:33:31
males even more significantly in the
00:33:35
boot there is discovered a ring
00:33:38
binder with
00:33:41
61 notes the sheet of line paper was a
00:33:45
handwritten list in two neat columns
00:33:48
beginning with stable and ending with
00:33:51
what you got when homicide detectives
00:33:54
examined the list and the dozens of
00:33:56
pornographic photos it dawned on them
00:33:59
that they'd stumbled on the killer
00:34:01
they'd been hunting for over 10
00:34:04
years craft is simply charged with the
00:34:07
murder of Terry
00:34:11
gambell the police of course get a
00:34:13
search War for his house and discover
00:34:16
all manner of trophies things he's taken
00:34:19
from people littering the house it's a
00:34:22
sort of Treasure Trove of forensic
00:34:25
evidence in the garage was a collect
00:34:27
ction of mismatched shoes belts clothing
00:34:30
a razor and a backpack none of which
00:34:33
appeared to belong to Randy craft
00:34:35
Michigan detective Ed rusticus was
00:34:38
alerted to Craft's capture by
00:34:40
Californian investigators who recognized
00:34:43
the similarity between their unsolved
00:34:45
cases and the murders of cousins Dennis
00:34:48
Al and Christopher shorn the young men
00:34:52
had fallen into Craft's clutches while
00:34:54
he was on a business trip in the Grand
00:34:56
Rapids area
00:34:59
I was part of the search warrant at his
00:35:02
home in Long Beach and we actually found
00:35:06
our victim's personal items in Randy
00:35:10
Craft's house he kept a souvenir from
00:35:14
each victim at least one
00:35:18
souvenir when details of Craft's reign
00:35:20
of terror were shared police in Oregon
00:35:23
also came forward with at least six
00:35:25
similar unsolved murders it appeared
00:35:28
that every business trip had been an
00:35:30
opportunity to
00:35:33
kill by studying the Polaroid photos of
00:35:36
dead young men detectives from across
00:35:39
three states were able to link a number
00:35:41
of their Cold Case victims with craft
00:35:44
but the killer refused to
00:35:47
confess I don't think craft talked at
00:35:49
all I know several of the detectives
00:35:51
that I dealt with out in LA and they
00:35:54
said he never talked never said nothing
00:35:57
no didn't acknowledge anything there was
00:36:00
no information gathered other
00:36:04
than physical
00:36:07
evidence which tied him to so many
00:36:10
different
00:36:11
scenes there was a beer bottle on one of
00:36:14
the victims it was broken and his thumb
00:36:18
print was identified as being at the
00:36:20
bottom of that
00:36:21
bottle in May 1983 craft was charged
00:36:25
with four more California murders from
00:36:28
earlier that year including victims
00:36:31
Jeffrey Nelson Robert Loggins Roger
00:36:34
Deval and Eric
00:36:37
Church The Following month craft was
00:36:39
charged with the 1975 torture killing of
00:36:43
Mark
00:36:44
Hall meanwhile investigators set to work
00:36:48
to decipher Craft's coded list from the
00:36:51
boot of his car the list was very
00:36:53
convincing to me that that was a list of
00:36:55
people he' killed
00:36:57
was 60 or 70 names on but they weren't
00:37:00
names it was
00:37:02
shorthand like uh
00:37:06
Marine the law enforce able to interpret
00:37:09
the list and come up with the names of
00:37:11
victims that fit the description on the
00:37:13
quoted
00:37:14
list for example it would be jail out
00:37:17
and the victim was abducted after his
00:37:19
release from jail or airplane hill was a
00:37:21
location where this one victim was
00:37:24
abducted it's thought by the police the
00:37:27
acronym him for Ducket was stable
00:37:30
because he worked in a bar called The
00:37:32
Stables parking lot referred to Keith
00:37:35
crotwell the victim he'd got away with
00:37:38
killing in
00:37:39
1975 the coded item two in one hitch was
00:37:43
believed to reference two young men he
00:37:46
picked up hitchhiking together in
00:37:48
February
00:37:50
1983 photos of both deceased victims
00:37:53
were also found in his home
00:37:58
[Music]
00:38:01
in many ways he killed so many times it
00:38:05
was a way to itemize it because he
00:38:10
really would want to relive these
00:38:14
murders by September
00:38:16
1983 craft had acred 39 criminal charges
00:38:21
for murder robbery sodomy and Mayhem
00:38:24
committed in California between 197 2
00:38:28
and
00:38:29
1983 5 years later in 1988 he stood
00:38:33
trial at the Orange County Courthouse
00:38:36
accused of 16 murders two counts of
00:38:39
sodomy and one of
00:38:42
emasculation prosecutors felt confident
00:38:45
they could prove to a jury Beyond
00:38:47
reasonable
00:38:48
doubt he had the Michigan cases in the
00:38:51
Oregon cases they were brought into
00:38:53
trial but he wasn't charged with them in
00:38:55
California
00:38:58
it was an extraordinary Affair more than
00:39:00
160
00:39:02
Witnesses thousand
00:39:05
exhibits 16 victims Frederick McBride
00:39:09
was a criminal defense lawyer assigned
00:39:11
to the case for the preliminary
00:39:14
hearing craft pleaded not guilty
00:39:17
refusing to accept his lawyer's
00:39:19
advice the evidence was absolutely
00:39:22
overwhelmed they found a dead body in
00:39:24
his car with him they found momentos at
00:39:26
his house he found his fingerprints of
00:39:28
the scene nobody was ever ever going to
00:39:31
convince a jury he didn't do it he
00:39:34
wanted to get on the stand and convince
00:39:37
everybody he wasn't that kind of
00:39:39
person he was getting a kick out of
00:39:42
being in trial and M be the center of
00:39:45
attention the trial went on for 13
00:39:48
months becoming one of the most
00:39:50
expensive trials ever held in California
00:39:53
$10 million in those days a great deal
00:39:56
of money
00:39:58
the prosecution painted a picture of a
00:40:00
Relentless sadist who prayed on innocent
00:40:03
young men Randy
00:40:06
craft is like a shark a killer shark
00:40:11
always circulating at night always
00:40:14
looking to kill somebody to eat somebody
00:40:17
his eyes never shut he just kept on
00:40:18
driving always looking always on the
00:40:20
hunt Randy craft had a way of dealing
00:40:24
with people and he ended up being able
00:40:27
to talk these individuals to getting in
00:40:30
his car and
00:40:34
leaving the defense allegation was that
00:40:38
he was an upright Citizen and he had
00:40:40
done none of these things they were all
00:40:43
the victims of William boning and
00:40:45
Patrick
00:40:46
Kenney nothing to do with Randy craft
00:40:49
it's an outrage to suggest they
00:40:52
were in the face of overwhelming
00:40:55
evidence the jury did not believe
00:40:57
44-year-old Randy cra's
00:41:01
protestations finally in May 1989 Randy
00:41:06
craft is convicted of all the murders
00:41:08
and of one count of sodomy and one of
00:41:10
emasculation it took the jury 11 whole
00:41:14
days to come to that
00:41:16
conclusion you feel grateful that you've
00:41:20
been able to ascertain who the Killer
00:41:24
is but your most gratifying thing is for
00:41:29
the family members that may have some
00:41:32
closure but how can family members even
00:41:35
have closure when they have their loved
00:41:37
ones killed craft was also accused of
00:41:41
other crimes during the penalty phase
00:41:43
including the molestation of the
00:41:45
13-year-old boy in
00:41:47
1970 the murder of six young men in
00:41:50
Oregon and Dennis alt and Christopher
00:41:53
shanborne the two cousins in Michigan
00:41:57
on the 29th of November 1989 Randy cof
00:42:01
was sentenced to death and sent to San
00:42:04
Quentin prison in
00:42:07
California he got to death penalty I
00:42:10
don't think anybody struggled with it
00:42:12
too hard despite Craft's convictions for
00:42:15
16 murders a chilling Theory persists
00:42:18
that this was merely the tip of the
00:42:21
iceberg if as detectives believe the
00:42:24
scorecard was a tally of victims his
00:42:27
Killing Spree could have been over four
00:42:29
times that with scores of unidentified
00:42:32
bodies that remain unrecovered to this
00:42:36
day for those involved in the case it's
00:42:39
one that will stay with them
00:42:42
forever I've investigated a lot of
00:42:44
murders in my career and these murders
00:42:47
were
00:42:50
extensive brutal killings that involved
00:42:54
mutilation of body parts these are more
00:42:57
than evil
00:43:00
Killers never had I ever had anything to
00:43:02
do with anybody like Mr craft or his
00:43:06
crimes
00:43:07
and the truth of it it changed the way I
00:43:12
looked at the world it comes into my
00:43:14
head frequently you did what how is that
00:43:17
possible you would do such a thing it's
00:43:20
like he's not a human being between 1972
00:43:24
and 1983 Randy craft hunted for for
00:43:27
innocent victims across Southern
00:43:29
California he drugged raped mutilated
00:43:32
and murdered at least 16 young men but
00:43:36
the list that earned him the nickname
00:43:38
the scorecard killer suggests that more
00:43:40
than 60 innocent people suffered
00:43:43
agonizing deaths at his hands for the
00:43:46
brutality of his murders and the sheer
00:43:49
number of victims Randy craft will
00:43:51
forever be known as one of the world's
00:43:54
most evil killers
00:43:58
[Music]
00:44:19
[Music]
00:44:27
for
