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Randy Kraft: The Scorecard Killer (Part 3) | Morbid | Podcast

August 21, 2025 / 01:22:57

This episode covers the case of Randy Craft, known as the scorecard killer, discussing his murders, trial, and the evidence against him. The hosts, Elena and Ash, share personal anecdotes about concerts and their experiences while transitioning into the darker subject matter.

Elena recounts attending a Ghost concert at TD Garden in Boston, where she met fans, and reflects on a Rod Stewart concert she attended with her mother. They discuss the enjoyment of live music and the nostalgia associated with it.

The conversation shifts to the details of Randy Craft's criminal activities, including his methods of luring and murdering young men across multiple states. The hosts describe the brutality of his crimes and the eventual investigation that led to his arrest.

Craft's trial is highlighted, detailing the overwhelming evidence against him, including a scorecard of his victims and personal items found in his possession. The hosts express their disbelief at the extent of Craft's actions and the impact on the victims' families.

The episode concludes with reflections on the case's significance and the ongoing efforts to identify additional victims linked to Craft.

TLDR

Elena and Ash discuss Randy Craft's brutal murders, his trial, and the overwhelming evidence against him as the scorecard killer.

Episode

1:22:57
00:00:06
Hey weirdos. I'm Elena. >> I'm Ash. >> And this is Morbid. [Music] >> Hey, what's up? Hi. How you doing?
00:00:26
>> How you doing? >> How you doing? as Lil Wayne, but you would not know that. I did not know
00:00:30
that. I just thought of Laura Durn. I shortened it a little bit to be more respectful to my listeners.
00:00:35
>> You guys are dumb and old. >> Just kidding. Somebody better get mad at her about
00:00:42
that. >> I'm America's sweetheart. >> Just kidding. >> I'm just kidding. Um, no, we were just
00:00:48
we were just talking happy things because we have lots of happy things happening
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>> and we were saying how we noticed that a lot of people were saying that they've
00:00:57
noticed recently that we're like a little unhinged and like >> like kind of like old morbid. And I got
00:01:03
to tell you, one, I'm really happy that you noticed that. And two, >> I feel like unhinged happy.
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>> It's like Stella got her how Stella got her groove back. It only took a few years.
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>> I'm feeling it. you know, it's it's quick for you to lose your groove. It's very quick to lose your groove. Um, but
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yeah, when you when your when your groove gets punched in the jaw, it's easy to lose it. But
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>> yeah, then you can't shake your groove thing. It's like a lot happens when when
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your groove is affected. >> It's true. >> And you just have to come back from it
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slowly but surely. And here we are. I think we're almost back >> to our groove. >> Yeah, we're almost back.
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>> Um, it's feeling really good, though. >> Seriously. Okay, we were not on the same page
00:01:47
there, but yeah, and it's feeling seriously good >> and groovy. Feeling both of those things.
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>> Our telepathy was uh not fully turned on at that point in time. >> No, it's later in the day
00:02:00
>> and we've been doing some things, so we've been busy. >> It's true. >> So, I don't think I told you guys how
00:02:06
awesome the Boston Ghost show was. It was [ __ ] rad. Hell yeah, brother. >> It was so good. It was at um TD Garden.
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Um, and I'd never been to a show there before. >> You really have never been to a show
00:02:18
there? >> I had been to Taking You to see High School Musical on Ice there. >> [ __ ] yeah, we saw that. So, what do you
00:02:24
mean you never saw a show there? >> What do you mean? >> I guess I have seen a show there.
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>> Was that not an experience for you? >> It was. It was a good experience. But Ghost was also really great.
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>> Yeah, that's a little more up. >> And I met a lot of you at the Boston show. So, I just wanted to make sure you
00:02:37
guys knew that. That was [ __ ] awesome meeting you. In fact, I was right behind
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a couple of people, a couple of listeners. I was right next to a couple of listeners and it was great.
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>> Yay. I loved it. And again, if you have a chance to go to a ghost ritual, go to
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one. That's Yeah, I like that they call them rituals. >> Yeah, they call them rituals. I There
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was There was So there was a part of me that said, "Jump on a train and go to New York the next day." But I said,
00:03:02
"Responsibilities, Elena." John was like, "Do it. You should go." And I was like, "No,
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>> we're on a we're on a a floating rock in space. If you want to disregard your
00:03:11
responsibilities, you got to do it. probably should have. >> It's your stellium in Capricorn that
00:03:15
won't allow you. But we'll work on it. >> Yeah, we'll work on that. >> You also have a stellium in Sagittarius,
00:03:19
which is very like um >> let's go >> let's go travel, let's go see the world. But I have to see what house it is in
00:03:25
for you. In case you didn't know, I'm taking an astrology class and I'm getting a lot more well-versed in
00:03:30
astrology. I'm learning about the houses now. >> I'm pretty I'm pretty impressed, I got
00:03:35
to say. >> Thank you. But another concert we didn't tell them about, we took Elena's mom, my
00:03:42
grandma. >> Oh my god. Yeah. >> We took Ma to go see Rod Stewart and we didn't know what to expect. Like I like
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a couple Rod Stewart songs, but I don't know a ton of them. >> Yeah. >> And I was just like, what is this going
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to be like? And I grew up with my my mom and my dad, but like my mom my mom loves
00:03:58
Rod Stewart. Like >> she thinks he's sexy. >> Yeah. She she's like Rod Stewart is her
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like Tobias for like it's like so I was like >> adore Harry Styles. >> Exactly. So I I grew up listening to her
00:04:11
to Harry Styles to Ron Stewart a lot. Like I know all the songs. I It's very nostalgic for me. She just loved it. My
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dad loves them too. So it's just a fun thing. >> And yeah, but we didn't really know. I
00:04:23
was like what what do I expect from a Rod Stewart concert? And it's his like farewell tour, too.
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>> So, we we took her to it because, you know, he's it's his farewell tour. >> It was one of the best [ __ ] concerts
00:04:36
I've ever been to. >> Rod Stewart goes hard. >> Puts on a [ __ ] And I hate telling you this now because it's his
00:04:44
farewell tour. >> Well, you know what? He's still >> have a lot of chances to see him again,
00:04:48
but if you can, if he's coming near you, I'm telling you, go. >> What did we learn? What did we learn?
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Anything for Rod. Anything for Ron? That's what we learned that night. >> We learned that right away. That song
00:05:01
where he's like, "Do you think I'm sexy?" or whatever. >> If you want my body and you think I'm
00:05:06
sexy. >> I always forget that the ne next part is I sang it wrong. >> I thought it said something about sugar
00:05:12
babies. You did. >> It doesn't. >> Rod Stewart's not like that. >> No, he's not.
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>> But during that song in like on the side thing, it just said sexy. >> Sexy. And I thought that was the
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funniest [ __ ] thing in the world. He's still moving around. He's grooving. He had five costume changes.
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>> Yeah. Like not even just like like a minimal costume change. Head to toe, new
00:05:37
shoes, soup to nuts. He had new everything, you know, beyond. >> It was crazy. >> He had and his voice sounds phenomenal.
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I know. Like if you're if you're like a Jenzie right now, you're like, "What the
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[ __ ] are you talking about?" >> You better discover Rod Stewart. Go discover Rod Stewart.
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>> Anything for Rod. >> And the other thing is like your that song Do You Think I'm Sexy is going to
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get caught in your head for years to come. >> It's It transcends time and space.
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>> Like we have been It's in John's head now, too. So like the two of us, but like when we're always around the kids,
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so like we can't just be like, "Do I have feel?" So both of us are just being like
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and it's I I wouldn't have it any other way. >> It's a great So that's what we learned
00:06:25
in the last couple weeks is that Rod Stewart [ __ ] puts on a banger of a show and I would do it again in a
00:06:32
second. >> Yeah. I wish I knew sooner. >> Yeah. [ __ ] But at least we got to see
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him. >> I know. And Maggie May Live was the coolest thing I've ever seen cuz I've
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loved that song forever. >> Infatuation. Great song. infatuation. >> Oh yes. So good.
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>> So good. >> It was And yeah, it was I have so much to say about it, but see for yourself.
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>> Go see Rob. >> Go to Abu Dhabi. I think that's where he's ending it in Abu Dhabi.
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>> Um but that man is crazy. He's 80 years old going everywhere and he's just shaking his bum on his butt.
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>> But yeah, great. Um and again, we have some really fun stuff coming up with the
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rewatcher. If you're not if you're not on that train yet, I highly recommend you get on that train. Well, we should
00:07:11
probably say too, and don't worry, we're going to get to the case, but this is actually like business. Um, we announced
00:07:16
it on the rewatcher that we are going to be doing True Blood for the next season.
00:07:20
>> Next season. So, we're finishing up Buffy. I think we're probably going to be done with Buffy like around
00:07:25
Octoberish. >> Yeah, in the fall. >> Yeah, like in the fall. >> Um, >> around that time. Don't quote me.
00:07:29
>> Yeah, I don't know. But, >> but then we're going to True Blood. >> True Blood. We're starting it from the
00:07:33
beginning and it's going to be so much fun. >> And I have never seen a single episode
00:07:38
with Buffy. I'd seen like an episode or two. >> Not much. >> Not a single episode of True Blood.
00:07:43
Nothing. >> She has no idea what she's in for. So So Sh. >> Yeah. And you've seen it you've seen it
00:07:49
through once. >> Yeah, I've seen it through once, but I I haven't rewatched. >> But then Mikey, who produces Morbid and
00:07:55
is a co-host on Rewatcher, has seen it like a bunch. So it's it's really staying true to the theme if you're
00:08:00
already a Rewatcher that you know. >> And we have a really cool little surprise that we'll let you know soon
00:08:06
about that. God, literally so exciting. >> Life life has been I just want to like
00:08:10
shout out to the the big you the big universe up there. She's she's bestowing gifts.
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>> Yeah, life is lifing lately. So, I really appreciate that. >> Um but yeah, now that we've just said
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life is lifing and the universe is great and everything's been wonderful. Um >> sorry, I'm about to take you take you
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down. This is going to be a long one. Yeah. Uh, I was going to split this into four parts, but I when I was looking at
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them, it one it didn't feel like there was a natural way to split it that way. Yeah.
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>> Just because they're long. That was the only reason. Um, and it felt like part
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two would have been >> too dark and depressing and not any kind of like forward momentum if I if I had
00:08:54
just split it into like another part. >> Or you mean part three would have been part? Yeah. Or no, part two would have
00:09:00
if I if I had split part two into like another part, it would have two and three would have been abysmal.
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>> A bunch of victims being found in awful awful ways and there wouldn't have been
00:09:11
any kind of light at the end of the tunnel. >> So that's why these are a little longer.
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Hopefully you guys are cool with that. I just didn't want to split it. Split it,
00:09:19
you know. >> Uh I felt better this way. So this is going to be kind of a long episode, but
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>> it's the end. We're going to get to some kind of resolution >> at the end of this. Um, when we last
00:09:32
left you guys, we had tacked on even more victims. They had talked to Randy Craft. They had brought him in for at
00:09:40
least a couple of um victims that they were suspecting him of being involved with, but they didn't have anything to
00:09:46
hold him on. So, they just had to let him go >> and he was free to continue to keep
00:09:50
going. >> And he kept going. >> Yeah. So, while investigators in Los Angeles were just struggling to
00:09:58
determine which victims belonged with which killer at this point because there's so many and they're happening so
00:10:03
fast, uh 1980 was off to kind of a great start for Randy Craft. >> Really, >> he and his new boyfriend Jeff Seelig had
00:10:11
bought a small house in Long Beach and Jeff's small candy business was doing well.
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>> Wait, wasn't his last boyfriend's name Jeff? Does he have a thing for Jeff's?
00:10:19
>> Jeff. Maybe he has a thing for Jeff. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. That's interesting. If I I feel
00:10:23
like it was started with a J for sure. >> So Randy himself had also gotten back on
00:10:28
his feet in, you know, a career sense. He found work as a processor with Lear Seagler Industries. Uh he had even begun
00:10:34
considering enrolling in University of Southern California's MBA program. Wow. >> Uh remember, we're like, whoa, look at
00:10:41
that. And I'm like, wait, he just he's murdered at least 18 people. Yeah. Um that would have allowed him to further
00:10:47
climb up the corporate ladder if he was getting an MBA. So, uh, and he had actually even started getting a little
00:10:52
active in politics again. >> Interesting. >> Yeah. Like speaking out on issues and
00:10:57
all that stuff. One of the perks of Craft's new job with Lear Seagler was that he had like business trips every
00:11:03
once in a while and they would kind of expense them for him. And so that meant he got to explore that interest of his,
00:11:11
which he did want to travel more. Uh, but it was a little limited. In the summer of 1980, Craft was assigned his
00:11:18
first outofstate job on a project with Peerless Trailers, and that was going to be in the neighboring state of Oregon.
00:11:25
So, he was in Salem, Oregon. And that's when the news broke in California that authorities had arrested William Bonan,
00:11:32
the man they believed to be the freeway killer. >> Oh, >> we've talked about William Bonan before.
00:11:37
>> We sure have. Um, after he was arrested, Bonan confessed to sexually assaulting,
00:11:42
torturing, and strangling 14 young men and boys. Um, but he was suspected of at least seven additional murders.
00:11:50
>> He was even believed to have had an accomplice for the majority of his murders, which fit with what
00:11:55
investigators knew or at least suspected about many of the murders in Southern California.
00:12:00
>> Even his active period matched that of Randy Crafts, which was like 1968 to 1980. The thing was, William Bonan was
00:12:08
the man the press referred to as the freeway killer. But unbeknownst to just about everybody in Southern California,
00:12:14
he was not the only one strangling young men and dumping their bodies alongside the highway.
00:12:19
>> They thought they got him. >> Okay. >> With his many of his crimes temporarily
00:12:23
assigned to William Bonnan. Now, Randy Craft felt less restricted cuz he was like, well, he's getting blamed for him.
00:12:30
>> He's taking the fall. So, and once again, he was free to pursue his really violent fantasies without any hesitation
00:12:37
or restriction. In the early morning hours of July 18th, 1980, a man hauling beans to a canery in Salem, Oregon,
00:12:45
discovered the nude body of 17-year-old Michael Shauno Fallon. At the time of his death, uh Michael had been on a solo
00:12:52
hiking trip before he was going to be starting his first year of college in the fall. Uh-huh.
00:12:57
>> The driver had stopped that morning because he thought he saw a large stuffed animal in the road.
00:13:02
>> But when he got out of the car and approached what he thought was a stuffed animal, he discovered that it was a
00:13:07
body. Um, Ofallen's hands were tied behind his back with shoelaces, which were secured to a second set of laces
00:13:14
that bound his ankles together. So, he was like hog tied. >> Yeah. >> Um, this is very graphic. We said this in
00:13:22
the first two episodes. There's a lot of graphic brutality in this. There was also a shoelace tied around his scrotum
00:13:28
and secured to the bindings around his ankles. >> Oh wow. The medical examiner listed
00:13:34
death as um being caused by strangulation, but also noted that he did have high levels of Valium and
00:13:41
Tylenol in his system at the time of his death >> becoming a thing. >> Yeah. And he had consumed at least one
00:13:47
or two beers. Um, in their interviews with his mother, investigators learned that he had left home a few weeks
00:13:53
earlier and was intent on seeing parts of Canada before starting school in the fall. He had wanted to travel light, so
00:13:58
he brought only like the basic necessities he needed for can camping, like a camera. Um, the camera would be
00:14:05
found among the evidence confiscated from Craft's home a few years later. So, he took the camera.
00:14:11
>> He was also known to have been hitchhiking for a lot of his trip because again, it was that time period
00:14:16
where it was really not a big deal. Mhm. Just one day after Ofallen's body was discovered in Salem, police in the
00:14:22
nearby town of Woodburn found another body. >> Jesus. >> The day after, this was the body of
00:14:28
30-year-old Larry Parks just off the side of the highway. Like many of the other victims, Parks's body was fully
00:14:35
clothed, but he was missing his belt and his shoelaces. His cause of death was listed as ligature strangulation, but
00:14:42
the medical examiner also saw that there was high levels of Valium and over-the-counter pain relievers in his
00:14:47
system at the time of death. At the end of July, Randy, who had been in Oregon, >> Uhhuh.
00:14:54
>> returned to Long Beach. Just one month later, another body was discovered near.
00:15:00
>> Yeah. What this did was it effectively undermined the certainty investigators
00:15:04
felt at having caught the man responsible for strangulation deaths in Southern California, right? Because in
00:15:10
Oregon, they could at least say like maybe this is someone else. Now we're back in Southern California.
00:15:15
>> On the morning of September 3rd, 1980, a group of boys playing near the El Toro
00:15:20
Air Base found the body of 19-year-old Marine Robert Logins Jr. He was wrapped in a plastic bag and dumped at the end
00:15:28
of a dead end street. Um he had been found in the fetal position and was bound at the wrists and ankles which
00:15:34
feels a little this is like a newer kind of thing. >> Um the only article of clothing found
00:15:39
with his body was a single sock. Um and the medical examiner did theorize that it had been inserted into the victim at
00:15:47
one point and be had become dislodged due to advanced decomposition. >> Okay. >> Yeah. The medical examiner estimated
00:15:56
that the body had been in the location for nearly a week. >> Wow. which made identifying the exact
00:16:00
cause of death pretty impossible. >> Yeah, remember this is California. Exactly.
00:16:04
>> Yeah. As best as he could tell, the pathologist figured the most likely cause of death was asphixxia by
00:16:10
strangulation, but indicated that smothering could also have been the cause. >> Oh, wow.
00:16:14
>> Um, at the time of death, Logan's blood alcohol level was quite high. It was 0.25. Um, there was also high levels of
00:16:21
antihistamines in his system, which that was with another victim. antihistamines
00:16:26
were a thing. >> Although it seemed less likely than strangulation, the Emmy acknowledged
00:16:30
that the combination of alcohol and drugs could have contributed to the death. >> Um, but again, he wasn't sure. Robert
00:16:39
was last seen on the night of August 22nd. Uh, he and three friends had left the base. They were just going out for a
00:16:44
night of drinking. According to the three men he was with that evening, they had found a spot near the beach where
00:16:49
they passed around a bottle of Soo. >> Mhm. >> Um, Southern Comfort. When that was
00:16:54
gone, the group visited a liquor store near the Huntington Beach pier. And at that point, Logan said he wanted to
00:17:00
sleep on the beach and walked off. >> Yeah. >> His friends tried to get him back to the
00:17:04
car to return to the base, but they were unsuccessful. He just wasn't going to go.
00:17:08
>> Yeah. >> The following morning, when Logans failed to show up for work, they went
00:17:11
out looking for him, but they couldn't find any evidence of him anywhere. A few months later, in the spring of 1981,
00:17:18
Craft was sent back to Oregon. On the morning of April 10th, police in Gan, Oregon, received a report about a body
00:17:26
that was discovered alongside Interstate 5. When they got to the scene, investigators were shocked at the level
00:17:33
of violence that this victim suffered. The victim was 17-year-old Michael Cluck. 17, just a baby.
00:17:40
>> When he was discovered, Clark's body was still warm, indicating that this had
00:17:45
happened pretty recently. >> That's happening a lot more recently. >> So scary. Yeah, like recently in the
00:17:49
case, >> he was nude from the waist down and he had been sexually assaulted. Um, this is
00:17:55
just like graphic. According to the autopsy, his death resulted, quote, from 16 blunt forced wounds to the back of
00:18:03
the head which had caved in the victim's skull. >> Oh my god. >> When the result of toxicology came back,
00:18:09
they showed large amounts of antihistamines, painkillers, and tranquilizers in his system, and he had
00:18:14
a blood alcohol level of 009. According to his mother, Michael had left home in Kent, Washington the day before with the
00:18:23
intention of hitchhiking to Bakersfield, California to get a job. Oh. >> Under the circumstances, investigators
00:18:29
theorized that he had been picked up by his killer while hitchhiking, and the man gave him a beer, drugged him,
00:18:34
assaulted him, and murdered him. >> Yeah. >> At the same time that investigators were
00:18:38
searching the scene um for evidence, Randy Craft visited the emergency room in Tolatin, Oregon. Uh, he was looking
00:18:45
to get treatment for a badly bruised foot. >> Huh. >> He told the emergency room doctor that
00:18:50
he had badly injured his foot around 3:00 a.m. while moving around his hotel room barefoot in the dark, trying to
00:18:56
reach the television so he could watch the space shuttle launch. >> I feel like you wouldn't injure your
00:19:01
foot that badly in that scenario. It would take several more years, but eventually Craft would be connected to
00:19:08
the victim when investigators found Kluck's shaving kit under some clothes in a dresser at Craft's home. Wow. He
00:19:14
kept a lot. Yeah, he did. Now, in keeping with his new pattern, the killings in and around Long Beach
00:19:21
stopped when Craft was in Oregon, and they started again once he returned to California.
00:19:26
Then, following the murder of Michael Cluck and Gan, they seem to stop again without explanation. Eventually, these
00:19:33
breaks in the frequency of the murders would be attributed to his domestic routines and successes. Apparently, like
00:19:40
when things were going well in his life and he was experiencing less stress, there were fewer murders. And when
00:19:45
things in his romantic life were positive, there appeared to be less of an impulse to commit murders.
00:19:50
>> Yep. For instance, like the large break in activity following the murder of Mark
00:19:54
Hall in December 1975 was attributed uh eventually to Craft having begun his relationship with Jeff Seelig. You were
00:20:02
correct. I was >> around that time. >> While his personal successes were definitely a factor, the opposite was
00:20:08
unfortunately also true. >> Yeah. >> Throughout the latter half of 1981, things between Craft and Seague appeared
00:20:15
to have been going well. But by early 1982, they had hit a rough patch in their relationship and began seeing a
00:20:21
therapist in late June. That's when the murders began again. >> Yep. >> So, as soon as it starts going downhill,
00:20:27
he's mad. Yeah. On July 29th, 1982, an employee from the California Department of Transportation was sent to
00:20:34
investigate reports of a strong, very unpleasant odor near the Hollywood Freeway in Echo Park. When they got to
00:20:41
the location, they did discover a body. That of 13year-old Raymond Davis. >> Oh my god. 13.
00:20:50
>> That's his youngest victim so far, right? >> Yeah. Yeah. >> Raymond Davis was laying just off the
00:20:55
road by the Rampart Boulevard exit ramp. His wrists and ankles were tied behind his back with a shoelace similar to that
00:21:02
of the other victims, and he had been strangled. Raymond Davis was from Pittsburgh,
00:21:07
California, nearly 400 miles north of Los Angeles, and had come to the area to visit his mother for the summer months.
00:21:14
On the night of June 17th, he had left his house. He told his mom he was going to visit a friend and then was never
00:21:20
seen or heard from again. Davis told reporter his mother told reporters he had a new friend. He was always playing
00:21:26
with him. I told him I wanted to know where he lived and a phone number, but her son never gave her the information.
00:21:31
For reasons that remain unclear, there were also reports that Davis had gone out that evening to look for a lost dog.
00:21:38
Okay, >> so I'm not sure what that's about. To the absolute horror of the person who
00:21:44
found this body, the transit worker, about 100 ft from where Davis's body was lying, there was a second body. The
00:21:52
second body was 16-year-old Robert Aila Jr. He had been reported missing about a
00:21:57
week earlier. >> They're like little kids. What the [ __ ] >> Children. Robert had been strangled to
00:22:03
death with a length of wire. And while Davis's body had been in that location for more than a month and was in an
00:22:09
advanced state of decomposition, uh, Robert was believed to have been there since July 21st. Although there
00:22:15
was no evidence that the two boys knew one another, it seemed pretty unlikely that they had been placed in the same
00:22:20
location by coincidence. Yeah. >> And investigators acknowledged that they quote believed one suspect killed both
00:22:26
youths. >> Yeah. Now, in late November 1982, Craft was sent back to Oregon to continue
00:22:32
working on the project, and the killing continued once he got there. In the early morning hours of November 24th,
00:22:38
the body of 26-year-old Bryant Witcher was discovered alongside a residential road um that was kind of parallel to
00:22:45
Interstate 5 in Wilsonville. Um this was a town that was like just outside of Salem where he was hunting before. Yeah.
00:22:52
Witcher was dressed in a pair of pants um and he only pants and he was missing his belt. It was clear from the scrapes
00:22:59
on his body he had been thrown from a slowmoving vehicle and there was obvious liature marks around his neck.
00:23:05
>> His cause of death was listed asphyxiation but he also had a pretty high blood alcohol level and there was a
00:23:11
large amount of say it with me now volume in his system. >> I didn't know if it was going to be
00:23:17
antihistamines volume Tylenol all over the place. According to his friend Earl Davis, Brian was last seen
00:23:24
on November 23rd, the day before, wearing distinctive clothing that Davis had given him, including a velour
00:23:30
pullover jacket. At the time of Witcher's disappearance and death, Randy Craft was known to be working in nearby
00:23:36
Towalitin, Oregon. And when investigators searched Craft's home after he was arrested later, Witcher's
00:23:42
velour jacket was discovered in the garage. >> Jeez, it's really insane how much he
00:23:47
kept from these victims. like something from everybody. On the night of December
00:23:51
9th, just two weeks after Witcher's murder, the body of 19-year-old Lance Tags was discovered on the side of
00:23:57
Interstate 5 in Tiger, Oregon. That's less than a quarter mile from the spot where Brian Witcher's body was found.
00:24:04
>> Right. The previous evening, Tags had been seen leaving his house carrying a nylon tote bag with um a town in
00:24:10
Hawaii's name printed on the side. >> Okay. >> Uh but when he was found, the bag was
00:24:15
nowhere to be seen. Huh? At the time, he was dressed in a shirt and swim shorts,
00:24:19
but he was missing his shoes and socks. It also appeared like he had been redressed. According to the autopsy,
00:24:26
Tags' cause of death was asphixxiation with which was the result of an orange gym sock having been shoved down his
00:24:34
throat. >> Jesus. >> While he was alive, he shoved an orange gym sock down his throat and he is
00:24:40
fixiated. At the time of death, his blood blood alcohol level was 0.07 and there was a
00:24:46
large amount of value in his system. >> During this period, Craft was known to have been in the area working for Lear
00:24:54
Seagler. And based on an expense report he submitted to the company for reimbursement, they were able to confirm
00:25:00
that. >> Boom. >> Also, when a detective searchcraft's home the following year after he was
00:25:05
arrested, Tag's nylon gym bag was discovered among his belongings. Again, another one.
00:25:10
>> Jesus. A week later on December 18th, another body was discovered on the side
00:25:17
of a residential road adjacent to I-5. It was that of 29-year-old an Anthony Syl Vera. According to Syla's wife,
00:25:25
Anthony, who was in the National Guard, had left home on December 4th to travel to Medford for guard duty. The couple
00:25:32
didn't have a car, so Anthony decided to hitchhike. Because the body was in an advanced state of decomposition, the ME
00:25:38
was unable to give a definitive cause of death, but the ME was confident that the
00:25:44
most likely cause of death was asphyxiation because that was supported by the very obvious liature mark around
00:25:49
his neck. >> Yeah, >> he couldn't deduce it, >> right? >> The victim had also been sexually
00:25:53
assaulted and was subjected to various other forms of torture before being killed.
00:25:58
>> The results of this toxicology report showed a blood alcohol level of 23 and there was a lot of volume in his system.
00:26:05
Yeah. How is he getting all this volume as well? I'm like, >> do you know what I was thinking
00:26:09
actually? And I almost said it, but I wonder if when he cuz you've also said that there were like antihistamines
00:26:15
present in a lot of people's systems. Isn't benadryil an antihistamine? >> I think so.
00:26:19
>> And benadryil like really has like drowsy calming effects. I wonder if when he was running low on volume,
00:26:25
>> he would use the antihistamines. >> He'd give people large doses of that. Yeah,
00:26:28
>> I think that's a valid uh theory cuz I think it definitely has similar effects
00:26:33
at the very least. >> Yeah. Large amount. >> That's the thing. I think in large amounts.
00:26:38
>> So the same day that Anthony went missing, Randy Craft drove from Oregon to Seattle to visit his friend Gary
00:26:44
Newell. The next year, in interviews with investigators, Gary Newell recalled that non not long after arriving at his
00:26:51
house, Craft went out to the rental car. And when he returned, he was wearing an
00:26:55
army style jacket. >> Huh. >> The type that Anthony Syla was reported to have been wearing on the day he left
00:27:02
his house. He put this man's jacket on >> after brutally murdering and torturing
00:27:08
him. >> Because it had been more than a year, Newell couldn't be certain, but he told
00:27:12
the detectives that the name on the jacket began with S and was a quote unquote Hispanic sounding name.
00:27:18
>> Huh? >> Like, what the [ __ ] >> Yeah. >> During the visit, Craft also mentioned
00:27:24
to Newell that after he was done in Oregon, the company was sending him to Grand Rapids, Michigan. So he was going
00:27:30
to be starting a whole new place killing people. Craft arrived in Grand Rapids on
00:27:34
December 5th to attend a seminar. >> Um he arrived at the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel. And at the time there was also a
00:27:42
large agricultural conference being held at the hotel and going to that conference was a 20year-old man named
00:27:49
Christopher Shonburn and his 24year-old cousin Dennis Alt. When craft seminar ended on December 7th, he and a co-orker
00:27:58
had dinner together and then visited the hotel bar. That's where they met and then spent about an hour talking to
00:28:04
Christopher and Dennis. Then Craft's coworker left after midnight and he was alone with the two of them. Also in
00:28:12
attendance at the agricultural conference was Dennis Alt's cousin Thomas, who was in the bar with them
00:28:17
that evening. According to Thomas, Dennis had been drinking heavily and asked if Thomas would drive him around
00:28:24
11 p.m. back to where he needed to go. Thomas agreed, but wanted to talk with some friends and buy a round of drinks
00:28:30
before they left. So, he stepped away and so he left Christopher and Dennis at the bar with Randy.
00:28:37
>> Yeah. >> When he returned a short time later, there were nowhere to be seen. >> Everyone was gone.
00:28:41
>> So, Thomas assumed they'd gone back to their hotel room. >> Yeah. Craft checked out of the hotel the
00:28:46
following morning and returned to Oregon. The next day, December 9th, the bodies of Dennis Alt and Christopher
00:28:53
were discovered about 5 ft from a rural road about 9 miles from the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel.
00:28:59
>> And remember, these are two full grown men. >> Yeah. >> Like what? That's >> accomplice potentially.
00:29:07
>> Who is it? >> Like all was fully dressed but his pants were unbuttoned. Um, and he was exposed
00:29:14
and his boots were missing. When the autopsy was conducted, the medical examiner found high levels of volume in
00:29:20
his blood and a blood alcohol level of twice the legal limit. Um, Alt's cause of death was listed as a asphixia by
00:29:27
choking, which was supported by linear pressure marks discovered on his neck. Jeez. Christopher was nude with no signs
00:29:34
of his clothing anywhere. Like Alt, he had also been strangled leading to asphixxiation. He had a lot of volume in
00:29:40
his system and a blood alcohol level of.116. There was also evidence that at least
00:29:46
Christopher had been tortured uh including having an Amway grand branded ballpoint pen inserted into his urethra
00:29:55
which caused quote extensive hemorrhaging. I would think as with many of the other victims clothing and
00:30:01
personal belongings belonging to both of these victims would later be found in Craft's home. You also, and I don't know
00:30:08
why I just thought of it, but you also wonder where he did all of these things to people because he's doing these
00:30:13
things while they're still alive. >> Exactly. >> So, you would think that there would be
00:30:18
>> do it too. >> That's a like where is he doing this where nobody's hearing something, but
00:30:22
then I guess he's getting people near sedation sort of. So, >> so maybe I think that's the key.
00:30:28
>> Yeah. >> Is this >> But you still think that like people must hear something and like see
00:30:34
something weird. Where is he taking them to do this? >> It he must take them like deep into the
00:30:38
woods and then cuz he obviously moves a lot of the bodies. >> It's so >> But then there's been a couple bodies
00:30:44
that have been discovered in the woods. So I wonder if maybe >> he just couldn't move them or he didn't
00:30:48
have his accomplice during those left. >> That's what that's usually what he does.
00:30:53
Maybe bring them out to the woods and goes from there. >> It's horrific. >> It is.
00:30:58
>> Now once he was back in Oregon, Craft killed Lance Tags. Then he returned to California shortly after. assuming he'd
00:31:05
gotten away with yet another murder. Yeah. So, he was just on a little spree, just going home. Now, while it was true
00:31:12
that he had at least temporarily gotten away with it, investigators in Oregon had started to see connections between
00:31:17
the victims found along the side of the road. So, they were putting them together now.
00:31:21
>> Yeah. Obviously, >> um given the pattern with which the m murders occurred and the fact that the
00:31:26
bodies were found again alongside the road, they theorized their killer was some kind of salesman or other
00:31:32
professional who traveled to the state with some kind of consistency. >> Yeah. >> Since the trip seemed to be more
00:31:38
frequent, they further theorized that the killer was probably coming from a nearby state like Washington or
00:31:44
California. So, we're starting to close in a little. Operating on that assumption, detectives in Oregon put out
00:31:50
a call to the law enforcement agencies in those states and quickly received a response from detectives in Los Angeles.
00:31:56
>> Wouldn't you know it, >> they felt that the Oregon murders bore a remarkable similarity to the large
00:32:02
number of victims from the previous 10 [ __ ] years. >> Yep. 10 years. >> Yeah. Just going for it. Once he was
00:32:10
back in Long Beach, Randy wasted little time getting back into his routine. On the morning of January 27th, 1983, a
00:32:19
California Transit employee, those poor California Transit employees, >> he discovered the body of 21-year-old
00:32:25
Eric Church alongside the Seventh Street offramp near Seal Beach where some of the other victims were found. That's why
00:32:30
it sounds familiar, >> right? >> Church was fully dressed, not wearing any shoes. Unlike some of the other
00:32:36
victims, however, it looks like the killer had come to a skidding stop at the location where he was found rather
00:32:42
than pushing him from a moving car. Okay. >> Which is just interesting. >> Yeah, it is.
00:32:46
>> During the autopsy, the ME found ligature marks around his wrists, ankles, and neck and determined the
00:32:51
cause of death was asphixxia from strangulation. He couldn't say with certainty, but the medical examiner also
00:32:57
noted that Church had likely been sexually assaulted. His blood alcohol level was within the legal limit, and
00:33:03
there was a large amount of volume discovered in his system, which the medical examiner described as a quote
00:33:08
potentially fatal amount that would have put him in a mild to moderate coma. >> Wow. Yeah.
00:33:14
Having gotten away with multiple murders for more than a decade, Randy Craft was
00:33:19
becoming much more brazen with his behavior. Not only were victims showing up with much increased frequency at this
00:33:26
point. He's just one after the other, but he's also demonstrated a capacity for handling more than one victim at a
00:33:32
time, which is horrifying. Grown men like this, >> that's crazy to me. Um especially and
00:33:40
again these are able like these are like strong like you know not like you know these are grown ass men.
00:33:46
>> Yes. He's only praying on children. He has done that in the past but it's not
00:33:50
>> but he's not just going after like 13year-olds like all all the time. It's like
00:33:54
>> but you have to wonder if that was when he had an accomplice with him. >> Yeah. Cuz it's like
00:33:58
>> when he's going after multiple >> the Chris and Christopher and Dennis at the hotel. Yeah.
00:34:03
>> They were in their 20s. >> Yeah. Like they're they're like grown men and he that's the one that he did
00:34:08
the two. >> But then you think about the fact that he's drugging them. >> Yeah. >> He's drugging them and getting them
00:34:13
super drunk. >> That's your answer right there. Like it seems shocking and it is.
00:34:18
>> But it's like when you really think about it, the fact that there's volume found in high amounts in all of these
00:34:23
cases, they are being incapacitated. So whether they're strong grown men or not,
00:34:30
it really kind of is negates that >> because also think about the fact that at least one of these people victims has
00:34:36
been found with enough volume to put them in a coma. >> In a moderate mild to moderate coma
00:34:41
>> like that clearly I think that was probably like accidental that he gave that much
00:34:45
>> like over overdid it. >> Yeah. >> So just two weeks after the murder of Eric Church, Craft was out on the
00:34:51
streets again looking for another victim. So he is escalating. I feel like we have never covered somebody who has
00:34:57
gone this long, this hard this long. >> Cuz I'm sitting here being like, "It's got to end. It's got to end."
00:35:05
>> Now, in the early morning hours of February 12th, 18-year-old Jeffrey Nelson knocked on the door of the home
00:35:10
of his friend Bryce Wilson in the town of Cypress, which is just outside of LA. Wilson's mother answered the door and
00:35:17
said Bryce was sleeping and she wasn't able to get him out of bed. So Nelson left in the company of his friend,
00:35:22
20-year-old Roger Dval. This was the last time anyone saw either young man alive. Later that morning, LAPD officer
00:35:30
Donald uh Beckelder was on his way to work when he spotted Jeffrey Nelson's nude body lying beside the uh ramp in
00:35:38
Long Beach. When the detective got out of his car to investigate, he noticed Nelson's foot move slightly. Oh no.
00:35:47
Indicating that he was alive. The officer jumped back into his car and drove to the nearest phone booth he
00:35:53
could find to call emergency services, but by the time they arrived at the scene, they were unable to find Nelson's
00:35:59
pulse or detect any respiration. So sad. It's unclear whether he was still alive
00:36:04
when he was discovered. The autopsy indicates that Nelson was dead when he was dumped from the vehicle. So, I don't
00:36:11
know if he just thought he saw that or what. >> By that time, this was just a very
00:36:15
familiar scene at this point. Yeah, >> there were tire marks on the pavement. Looked like the killer had skidded to a
00:36:20
stop before dumping the body. There were ligature marks around his neck, which would later be associated with his cause
00:36:26
of death, esphyxiation from ligature strangulation. There was liature marks around his right wrist, and he had um
00:36:33
had his genitals cut off, which the Emmy believed had occurred after death. In this scenario,
00:36:40
>> witnesses told investigators that on the night they went missing, neither Nelson
00:36:44
nor Dval had been drinking or taking any drugs. But when the autopsy was conducted, the Emmy noted that Nelson's
00:36:51
blood alcohol level was.14. >> Wow, that's high. >> And he had Valium and the blood pressure
00:36:56
medication propanol, I think it's called, in his system. It's for hypertension. Hypert.
00:37:01
>> Why would he give him that? >> Um, not really sure, but Well, it's a beta blocker. I was just going to say
00:37:08
according to the toxicologist, the combo of these drugs as well would have made him very, very noticeably sedated and
00:37:15
possibly caused him to fall asleep. >> Yeah. >> Now, in their investigation of the
00:37:18
scene, crime scene texts discovered two distinct fibers that connected Nelson to
00:37:23
the other victims. Uh cuz remember, there was a couple of victims where they did find fiber on them. They just didn't
00:37:29
have anything to compare it to, >> right? The first a single maroon fiber was determined to have come from the
00:37:35
socks of the previous victim, Eric Church. >> Oh. >> So, this is not only putting them
00:37:41
together as having the same fibers on them, this is connecting them as being in the same exact place.
00:37:47
>> The second fiber would later be identified as coming from the floor mats in Randy Craft's car.
00:37:52
>> Huh. The following day around 300 p.m. a driver in the San Bernardino Mountains
00:37:56
pulled into a turnout near Malt Bald Baldi Road and he discovered the body of Roger Dval.
00:38:02
>> My god. >> So they had gone out together and so he's done it again. >> He was fully clothed but his pants were
00:38:10
unbuttoned and pulled down. >> Uh Dval was wearing Nelson's jacket immediately connecting him to the other
00:38:16
victim. Also connecting him to other victims was the cause of death, ligature strangulation. Like Nelson, Dval had
00:38:23
ligature marks around one wrist and there was also evidence he had been sexually assaulted. At the time of his
00:38:29
death, his blood alcohol level was 007 and there was volume in his blood at least enough that Dval would have been
00:38:35
impaired if not unconscious. And again, they were not drinking or doing drugs. Right. So for more than a decade, Randy
00:38:44
Craft at this point had been killing men in multiple states now, confounding investigators,
00:38:51
>> they could rarely find even a shred of evidence in this case. >> 10 years. >> And he's leaving barely any evidence. I
00:38:57
mean, the evidence he's even leaving, they're just now starting to connect just them to each other. It's not even
00:39:04
connecting them to an outside source. Right >> now, in the end though, it wouldn't be
00:39:08
determined law enforcement or strong evidence that brought Craft's reign of terror to an end, but it was just simple
00:39:14
luck. >> Really? Yep. What was it? In the early morning hours of May 14th, 1983,
00:39:21
Sergeant Michael Howard and Officer Michael Sterling, the Michaels of the California Highway Patrol, were driving
00:39:27
north on the I5 when they spotted a car in the oncoming lane that appeared to be
00:39:32
weaving from one lane to another. Assuming the driver was probably drunk or >> impaired in some way, the officers
00:39:39
turned on their overhead lights and indicated for that driver to pull over. Before they were even out of the
00:39:44
cruiser, the driver, Randy Craft, was out of his car and walking towards them. >> That's never what you're supposed to do.
00:39:51
>> Howard said, "We walked towards him and took him up to the front of his car so
00:39:54
we could administer a field sobriety test. We hadn't seen anyone else in the car at that time."
00:40:00
>> Oh. While Sterling conducted the sobriety test, Howard approached the car and started speaking to the man in the
00:40:06
passenger seat that he just noticed. Craft said that was a hitchhiker he just picked up.
00:40:11
>> Mhm. >> When he got no response from this man in the passenger seat, he moved closer and
00:40:16
tapped on the window, which still didn't rouse the man. It was then that Howard noticed the passenger, who was
00:40:23
identified eventually as 25-year-old Terry Gamrell, appeared to be slumped over in his seat with pill bottles and
00:40:31
beer cans scattered at his feet. When he looked closer, he noticed that the victim's pants were pulled down just
00:40:37
below his groin, and his pants appeared to be wet with some kind of liquid. Howard also noticed that there was quote
00:40:45
indentations on his wrists that were similar to those of wide rubber bands like that kind of indentation.
00:40:52
>> So they caught this man >> mid mid disposal of a body. >> Howard called for an ambulance and while
00:41:02
the officers waited for paramedics, they questioned Craft, who had then failed the sobriety test and been placed in the
00:41:08
back of a police car. Craft told the officers that he'd given Gambrell some beers and some of his adapant, but
00:41:14
because he had just picked the man up, he didn't know whether he'd taken anything earlier in the evening.
00:41:21
>> Explain all the other things, Randy. >> Yeah. Eventually, the paramedics arrived
00:41:25
and examined Gambrell, but at this point, the man was already dead. >> That's so sad.
00:41:29
>> His body was removed to the nearest hospital where he was officially pronounced. At the autopsy, the Emmy
00:41:35
identified Gamrell's cause of death asphixxia due to ligature strangulation. The marks
00:41:41
on his neck indicated that he had been choked with a strap and the peticial hemorrhages in his neck indicated that
00:41:47
the strap had been repeatedly tightened and loosened before his death. >> A which remember he has used a Gat
00:41:54
before. He also noted ligature marks around the victim's wrists and when he was removed from the car he was missing
00:42:01
his socks and shoes. >> Oh my god. So he was absolutely in mid disposal. >> Yeah. Cuz obviously he hadn't just
00:42:07
picked this guy up at all if he doesn't have socks and [ __ ] shoes. >> No. Given the circumstances and the
00:42:12
evidence collected before and during the autopsy, investigators strongly suspected that they had just found the
00:42:18
man responsible for dozens of murders in Los Angeles over a [ __ ] decade. >> Yeah.
00:42:24
>> Craft was booked into the Orange County Jail on suspicion of murder and his bail
00:42:28
was set at $250,000. I can't believe this is how he got caught. >> Yeah, there have not been many cases
00:42:36
where that has been the case. Like, what a dumb sentence. That wasn't a dumb sentence.
00:42:44
>> It was a little crazy. It was just kooky. That's all. >> There have not been many cases where
00:42:48
we've seen that is what I meant to say. >> And the fact that this just it just came down to [ __ ] luck of all
00:42:57
the cars in Los Angeles. >> Yeah. for these two officers to just happen to find themselves behind this
00:43:05
car. Yeah. >> While he happens to be weaving >> mid disposal. >> Like damn. >> He's refusing.
00:43:12
>> What a dumbass. >> Yeah. A complete dumbass. >> Like thank goodness. But what a dumbass.
00:43:16
>> Thankfully, >> he is refusing to speak to anyone at this point, too. >> Yeah, that checks.
00:43:21
>> Now, within a few days, investigators had confidently connected Craft to the murders of Eric Church, Jeffrey Nelson,
00:43:27
and Roger Dval. And Craft's arraignment was postponed in order to give him more time to find an attorney, which he
00:43:33
definitely needs now. >> Yeah, for sure. Or determine his eligibility for a public defender. In
00:43:37
the meantime, bail was increased to $750,000 cuz they said, "We are finding out some
00:43:44
more about you, sir." I wonder in what is this 1983? I wonder how much 70 $750,000.
00:43:52
>> I can let you know. >> Was You're always my go-to for that because I'm very interested. It went
00:43:57
from 250 to 750. >> 1983. >> Yeah. About 2.4 million. Wa. That So they were like, "You're not
00:44:07
leaving." Is cray cray. I had to just read that like three times to make sure I was right.
00:44:12
>> Damn. >> Yeah. But about 2.4 million. >> Holy [ __ ] >> Damn. That's bonkers.
00:44:20
Later that same day, authorities from Oregon, who'd heard about the arrest, later contacted detectives in Long Beach
00:44:26
about a possible connection between Craft and six unsolved murders in their state. Marian County Sheriff Chuck
00:44:33
Foster told reporters, "When the fellow was arrested in Orange County, that caused us to do a follow-up
00:44:38
investigation, which produced evidence that leads us to list him as a definite suspect." Mhm.
00:44:43
>> Within a week, investigators from various agencies had combined their research sources, which like finally
00:44:49
>> nice. >> In connected Craft to 14 unsolved murders in three states, >> but we know there's more than that.
00:44:55
>> We sure do. Sheriff Brad Gates told the Los Angeles Times, "We have evidence which links him to 14 deaths in Southern
00:45:01
California, Oregon, and Michigan. We have made our information available to authorities from other jurisdictions
00:45:07
which are interested." The more detectives dug into his background and looked over the evidence, the more the
00:45:13
number of suspected victims list grew. >> On May 25th, 1983, Randy Craft was arraigned on five counts of first-degree
00:45:20
murder for the deaths of Terry Gamrell, Robert Logins, Eric Church, Jeffrey Nelson, and Roger Dval. In his statement
00:45:28
to the press, Craft's lawyer, Doug Otto, accused investigators of using his arrest as an opportunity to close old
00:45:35
cases. No, I don't think so. He was just, you know, like mid disposal >> of a man that
00:45:40
>> who was in the state that many men had been found in over the past decade. >> The same exact way.
00:45:45
>> Yeah. >> He said, though, >> they're living up every uh unsolved murder they can find. They're clearing
00:45:51
paper on this case. >> I don't think so. I think your client's just an absolute piece of [ __ ]
00:45:55
>> Here's the thing, Doug Otto. >> Gross. >> Shut the [ __ ] up, Doug. >> Here's the thing. [ __ ] off.
00:46:00
>> You know what's like free to do? To shut the [ __ ] up. >> It is. That's the cool thing about
00:46:05
shutting the [ __ ] up. It totally cost you 0. >> Cost you nothing. >> Yeah. >> It certainly wouldn't have been the
00:46:10
first time detectives had used an arrest to close cold cases, of course, but that
00:46:14
accusation seemed uh >> wild especially when a few days later investigators searched Craft's home and
00:46:21
car. >> It sounds like they found a lot there. >> Yeah. Where they found a mountain of
00:46:25
evidence connecting him to a large number of victims. In his car, technicians discovered a belt that LA
00:46:32
matched the ligature marks on Gamrell's neck, as well as a large amount of Adavant, Valium, and alcohol, all of
00:46:39
which had been found in the victim's blood. In the passenger seat of the car, there were large dark stains from what
00:46:45
was eventually determined to be human blood, which had soaked deep into the seat cushion. Wow. Technicians also took
00:46:52
samples of the carpet, and they determined them to be a match for the fiber samples found on Roger Dval's
00:46:57
body. >> Wow. The evidence collected in the car was enough to connect him to at least
00:47:01
two murders, but it's what was found under the carpet that proved most damning. In a large envelope
00:47:08
strategically hidden under the carpet on the driver's side, technicians found a stash of more than 50 photographs of
00:47:15
young men in very lurid and very sexually explicit poses. Some of the men in the photos, like Logan's Church, and
00:47:22
Deval, were among those on the victim's list, while others were not known to investigators. Mhm. In some cases, the
00:47:30
subjects in the photographs were clearly alive when the photos were taken. Others
00:47:34
though depicted images of men who were sleeping, unconscious, or dead. Oh my god. Not only did these photographs
00:47:43
provide a lot of circumstantial evidence connecting him to the victims, they also
00:47:47
connected the victims to Craft's various homes over the years since many of them
00:47:51
were taken in those locations. Dude, the photos were some of the strongest evidence investigators could find in
00:47:58
there in this entire thing. >> Pictures worth a thousand words. >> But the most sensational and
00:48:03
consequential evidence was found in the trunk of his car. Why was he just keeping I mean like boopping around with
00:48:10
all this stuff. >> Super duper cool of you to like give them everything they needed in your
00:48:13
literal vehicle. But >> why are you keeping this all in your car, sir? >> Exactly.
00:48:18
>> What did they find? Technicians searched the trunk and they discovered a three-
00:48:22
ring binder and inside they discovered a sheet of paper with 61 entries written in cryptic language. 61 entries. I'm
00:48:31
assuming this is the scorecard. >> This is where the scorecard killer name comes from. This document eventually was
00:48:37
referred to as his scorecard and would prove significant at trial. >> 61 names. The prosecution and detectives
00:48:45
argued it was a journal of sorts and listed all of Craft's murders. Um although the scorecard was written in
00:48:51
cryptic language with entries only appearing to reference certain aspects of the individual or the encounter in
00:48:57
time detectives were eventually able to associate certain victims with certain entries.
00:49:02
>> Yeah. >> Um I'm not going to read the entire thing uh cuz a lot of it is like not
00:49:07
connected to unsolved murder kind of thing or unknown. that some of the names he would give the victims is shows you
00:49:14
how disconnected he was. Um like one of them is just EDM. >> Oh my like what? >> One of them's hairy carry,
00:49:24
one of them's Airplane Hill, Marine Down Van Driveway. Twoin one twoin one. Yep.
00:49:33
Twiggy Wilmington Lagouna Beach Marina Pier 2. So he's even just referring to some of these
00:49:40
people as where he either found or dumped them. >> Like driveway diabetic skates
00:49:45
>> diabetic. >> Uhhuh. Which also, how did you know that? >> It must have come up in conversation.
00:49:50
>> Portland Navy white user parking lot. >> Um parking lot was connected to Keith
00:49:58
Croatwell. >> I was wondering that. Um, deodorant dog teen trucker seventh street MC Lagona Hoth off head
00:50:12
off head >> twoin one hitch New Year's Eve Westminster Date Jail out. >> Oh, that was the victim who had just
00:50:23
gotten out of jail. >> Just got out of jail. >> Two in one beach. He likes when he kills
00:50:28
two people um in one or dumps two people in one. He says two in one. >> That's disgusting.
00:50:33
>> Hollywood bus. >> Um Portland blood Portland head hike out LB boots oil and one of them is
00:50:45
what you got. >> What? >> Yeah. It's just like so yucky. It's so disconnected. It's so
00:50:57
[ __ ] cold. You can tell he like thinks he's he thinks he's done something here with these names, too.
00:51:04
Like he likes that he's just like calling them oil >> dog. >> Like that's so sad to be reduced to
00:51:11
that. >> Yeah. And the worst part is he probably knew most of their names. >> Yeah.
00:51:15
>> But he just didn't even bother. >> Right. >> So the quote unquote scorecard would
00:51:20
would prove essential to the prosecution's case against him. But it was only one piece in a very big growing
00:51:27
mountain of evidence that would eventually connect him to several of his victims. Uh several fibers found on or
00:51:34
like several of the bodies at the time of the discovery were found to be a match to fibers from
00:51:39
furniture or carpets in Craft's homes at the time of the murders >> or the carpets in his cars. Other
00:51:46
critical pieces of evidence collected throughout the investigation were like semen samples that matched his blood
00:51:51
type, hairs collected from various victims, um, which were a match for Craft, and a fingerprint found on the
00:51:58
broken bottle used to cut Marl's body after he had been murdered. Remember, they could not, it didn't come up in the
00:52:04
database. >> They finally figured it out. >> They can now compare it, and it matched.
00:52:08
During a search of his home, investigators discovered a large amount of personal items and clothing belonging
00:52:13
to several of the victims. This included, among other things, the shaving kit known to belong to Eric
00:52:19
Church, which still had Church's fingerprints on the outside. The nylon gym bag and pair of nunchucks belonging
00:52:25
to Lance Tags. A camera belonging to Michael Fallon. a keychain, bottle opener, and boots belonging to
00:52:32
Christopher Shoenborn, and a large assortment of belts and shoes belonging to various other victims
00:52:38
and were connected to them. >> Yeah. >> Given how huge this case was and the vast number of victims and the
00:52:45
incredible amount of press coverage that the case did receive at the time, it took years for the prosecutor's office
00:52:52
to build their case against >> Craft. Yeah. I mean, this is over a decade >> and they wanted to do it right. Yeah.
00:52:57
Now, among the more challenging tasks they faced were determining which of the 37 suspected victims they could
00:53:03
confidently and irrefutably connect to to Craft. They couldn't mess around with these.
00:53:08
>> No. >> And which ones they were unfortunately not going to be able to prosecute him
00:53:11
for at that time, which is a tough task, >> especially going to like their families
00:53:15
and explaining the why and >> Yeah. >> what and everything. >> Exactly. Ultimately, the DA went ahead
00:53:21
with charges of first-degree murder for the following victims. Edward Daniel Moore, Kevin Clark Bailey, Ronnie Jean
00:53:29
Wybe, Keith Davin Crowell, Mark Howard Hall, Scott Michael Hughes, Roland Gerald Young, Richard Allen Keith, Keith
00:53:38
Arthur Cllingbeiel, Michael Joseph Enderbeaten, Donald Harold Creel, Robert Wyatt Loggins Jr., Eric Herbert Church,
00:53:47
Roger James Dval Jr., Jeffrey Allen Nelson, and Terry Lee Gamrell, which are 16 victims. Yeah.
00:53:55
>> So that's who they could irrefutably connect him to. There are many others that they can connect him to. They just
00:54:03
were worried that they didn't want to. >> They wouldn't stand trial. >> Yeah. >> 16. To be able to prove
00:54:10
16 murders irrefutably is absolutely bonkers. >> Wild work. Especially when you think
00:54:17
about this time period. They didn't have like a ton when it came to deal like and
00:54:21
it was relatively new for a jury to understand. Mhm. >> To have the confidence to bring 16
00:54:26
murders to trial and say these this evidence is irrefutable is like >> unheard of insane. Truly unheard of.
00:54:33
>> Truly unheard of. Cuz usually when you have this like you were saying when you
00:54:36
have this massive amount of victim pool going on, >> you can really a lot of times we see
00:54:42
that they could only grab like two or three of them. >> And even that is tough. >> And that's always like wo I'm I can't
00:54:48
believe they were able to connect that. I think even like uh Rodney Alcala had a
00:54:51
had a very high number of victims and they they couldn't get a ton of a ton of his victims proved in court because it's
00:54:58
like it's really and when you want to make sure to nab this guy. >> You can't [ __ ] around with ones that
00:55:05
you're like >> could they potentially nab us on this or they could could they potentially
00:55:09
question this one entire trial >> and then they'll question these ones and like we don't want to lose them because
00:55:16
of this. And you have to think too of all the technicalities that he is definitely
00:55:22
going to appeal on when he's ultimately proven guilty. >> And with 16, they feel like they have
00:55:27
it. >> Yeah, that's bonkers. >> Crazy. Now, in addition to the murder charges, he was also charged with one
00:55:34
count of sodomy against Michael Enderbeaten. >> I'm actually shocked that it was only
00:55:38
one count of sodomy. >> One count of inflicting mayhem against Jeffrey Nelson and one count of sodomy
00:55:44
against Roger Dval. What does inflicting mayhem entail? >> Um, it involves maliciously maming or
00:55:49
disfiguring another person. >> Oh, okay. >> So, that absolutely makes sense. There
00:55:54
should have been a lot of those. Yeah. >> In these cases, special circumstances were attached, making it a death penalty
00:55:59
case. >> Nice. >> Also, despite their best >> in this case, nice. >> Nice. Like, get by.
00:56:04
>> Mhm. >> Uh, despite their best efforts, there remained many unanswered questions with
00:56:08
regard to several of the cases, too. Unfortunately, >> yeah. Chief among them, detectives were
00:56:13
never able to determine who, if anyone, had helped him commit the murders or dispose of the bodies. Randy Craft was
00:56:20
not a large man, and it seemed pretty unlikely that he would have been able to carry and dump a lot of those victims on
00:56:25
his own. He really isn't a big guy. >> No. >> Also, at a few of the dump sites, there
00:56:30
was evidence of another person having been there at the same time. >> Yeah. Like the footprints alongside the
00:56:35
other set of footprints, >> William's crime scene. That's where the second set of footprints was. Uh there
00:56:41
was also the matter of the photographs found in Craft's car. While some were taken with a Polaroid camera and didn't
00:56:47
need to be developed, many more were taken with a tra traditional film camera and would have required traditional
00:56:53
processing. Craft had no dark room in his house and he was not known to be familiar with film processing. So who
00:57:01
the [ __ ] had a dark room and was developing these sick photos? >> Yep. That's what I'm saying. And that's
00:57:09
the thing. So investigators concluded that someone had to have developed that film for him.
00:57:16
>> What the [ __ ] And the fact that to this day, they don't know who it was. >> Like however many years later, almost 50
00:57:23
years later at this point, we still don't know >> because no one else could have developed
00:57:27
those. Whoever developed those cameras saw what was in them. >> Yeah. Yeah. Especially with that kind of
00:57:33
developing back then. So >> like in a dark room, you're literally like washing them, drying them, letting
00:57:39
them like cheese. >> They're like he couldn't have just brought it to a film developing place
00:57:43
because those people would have seen it, see the photos. >> And it's like so either someone helped
00:57:49
him with the murders, >> helped him with disposal, or at the very least knows about the murders, saw the
00:57:56
pictures, or all three or two. >> And realistically, like it could be multiple people. Some maybe one person
00:58:04
had the whole photos and then maybe somebody else did the disposals that that could have been more than one
00:58:09
person. >> It's horrifying that that nobody was willing to come forward and like no one
00:58:15
decided to have a conscience >> and that he wouldn't >> that he wouldn't break on that is
00:58:21
interesting. >> Crazy. I mean, he really when it's a death penalty, >> there's even and if that doesn't
00:58:26
convince you that there's another person, in a small number of cases, there was foreign DNA not belonging to
00:58:32
Craft or the victim found on the victim's bodies. >> You hope that they still have that
00:58:37
somewhere. >> I I hope >> process that [ __ ] >> Let's use it, man. Like, we got to find
00:58:41
out who this is. >> Absolutely. >> And with regard to the potential accomplice, investigators are obviously
00:58:46
looking in the most likely place. He had two known long-term boyfriends that he lived with. Yeah.
00:58:52
>> So, it's like you would think the person in the house with him is probably a likely suspect.
00:58:57
>> In the cases between 1971 and 1976, detectives believed it was very possible that Craft's then boyfriend, Jeffrey
00:59:05
Graves, had helped him dispose of the bodies after the murders. >> Really? >> Graves was interviewed several times and
00:59:10
consistently denied having anything to do with the murders, but he died in 1987 uh shortly before Craft's trial began.
00:59:18
>> Wow. >> And he died of illness. >> Okay. Um, I was going to say >> like he wasn't murdered. Jeff Seig was
00:59:24
also considered as a possible accomplice, but like Graves, he denied any role and there was never enough
00:59:30
evidence to connect him to the murders. >> So after years of delays, his trial finally began on dece on September 27th,
00:59:37
1988 in Santa Ana County with Deputy District Attorney Brian Brown um acting on behalf of the state and C. Thomas
00:59:45
McDonald representing Craft. In his opening statement, Brown referenced the large amount of evidence discovered over
00:59:52
the years that connected Craft to the murders, including the fact that at the time he was arrested, the defendant had
00:59:57
been found with a victim in his car. Despite his obvious attempts to stick to the facts and avoid any
01:00:02
sensationalizing, Macdonald nonetheless accused the prosecution of trying to inflame the jury and color their
01:00:09
thinking so that they would arrive at a preconceived decision before they'd even
01:00:12
listen to the evidence. brother. That's just >> he was found with a victim. >> Yeah.
01:00:18
>> In his car. >> He was found with a dead body in his car. >> His car is rife with evidence and his
01:00:23
house is rife with evidence. >> There's personal notes. There's blood. >> This is one of those that as the defense
01:00:30
attorney, you just got to go, "All right, we just got to try to minimize at this point." Like, you know what I mean?
01:00:34
Like, we >> shocked he didn't go for like an insanity defense or something like that.
01:00:38
>> In that case, you kind of have to go for that cuz you have to explain why he did
01:00:42
this. He can't claim that he didn't do this. >> No, there's there's a dead body in his
01:00:47
possession, brother. >> Over the course of the trial, the jury heard from several witnesses who'd been
01:00:52
with the victims before they disappeared. But exchanges with the witnesses frequently became heated upon
01:00:58
cross-examination because Craft was acting as his own co-consel. >> Oh. >> And had a tendency to be confrontational
01:01:05
with witnesses. >> What a [ __ ] piece of absolute garbage. Outside the courtroom, tensions
01:01:12
between the press and the judicial system earned the story even more attention. The judge publicly argued
01:01:17
with the press over the release of sensitive information, like his so-called scorecard, which they
01:01:23
published. From the moment the trial opened, his defense was unusual and pretty bold.
01:01:30
With regard to the murder of Terry Gambrell, the defense argued that when the officers discovered Terry in the
01:01:35
front seat of Craft's car, the young man wasn't in fact dead. McDonald told the jury, "Of course he wasn't dead. You do
01:01:42
not have to have a pulse or a heartbeat to have vi viability." >> Sir, >> what do you have to have to have
01:01:51
viability? >> I need you to go back to uh biology class in seventh grade and explain that.
01:01:58
>> What the [ __ ] >> You don't need a pulse or a heartbeat to have viability. So, what are you talking
01:02:03
about? The potential of like brain waves firing off or something like that? That
01:02:07
means he's he still was murdered. Like, what are you what are you talking about?
01:02:11
>> That's beyond. >> In response, yeah, in response, the prosecution pointed out that regardless
01:02:18
of whether Gambrell was still warm and possibly alive when Craft was pulled over, he was pronounced dead a short
01:02:24
time later, which makes him one of Craft's victims. He didn't end up dead for no reason in that car. Like, they're
01:02:31
like I'm I would have been like, did he spontaneously die in the passenger seat?
01:02:36
No. >> What the [ __ ] >> He had a liature mark around his neck. >> Yeah. >> Are you kidding me?
01:02:40
>> And drugs in his system. >> Who did that? >> Right. >> In time, it became clear that McDonald's
01:02:46
strategy was to create enough reasonable doubt in the mind of the jurors that they could possibly reach any
01:02:51
conclusions and would have to acquit. That was what he was going >> like attempted to do that in a
01:02:55
intelligent way. You would think because if I was on that jury and that [ __ ] said to me, "You don't need
01:03:01
a pulse or a heartbeat to have viability." I would have to raise my hand and ask the judge a couple
01:03:06
questions. >> You would have to go your honor. >> Me and the jury literally Hello.
01:03:14
>> I just Can you Can you clear something up for me? Do we have a science teacher
01:03:17
in the room? >> Hi. Biology. Hi. Hi. >> Basic biology. >> Hey. >> What the [ __ ]
01:03:25
>> Yeah. Now, in support of that, the defense presented of his strategy of like, let's just create chaos.
01:03:32
>> Yeah, exactly. Let's create a [ __ ] circus. >> The defense presented a range of
01:03:36
alternative suspects, which weren't exactly in short supply at that time in Southern California, unfortunately.
01:03:42
>> Um, in fact, investigators themselves had initially thought at least some of the victims had been killed by Patrick
01:03:47
Kernney or William Bonan, right? and a variety of the supposed alibis for Craft on the night of the murders he was still
01:03:53
trying to use. The defense's other tactic was to offer various alibis for him on the nights that this whole thing
01:04:00
all the things happened. In the case of Keith Crowell's murder, for example, they presented previously obtained
01:04:07
testimony from Jeff Graves. Remember Jeff Graves was the one who supported the whole he got stuck in the mud, he
01:04:15
called me to come get like he called me for help kind of thing. And when we first hear that, we go, "Oh, well, [ __ ]
01:04:20
maybe." But now that you know that he had an accomplice and that they were looking at him as an accomplice,
01:04:27
>> it gets a little muddy. >> That's literally >> Yeah. Similarly, in the case of Mark
01:04:32
Hall's murder, Craft and several family members alleged he was at a New Year's Eve party at his parents house all
01:04:37
evening and he returned very early in the morning that following day. But in this case, a detective for the
01:04:43
prosecution drove the route described by Craft and discovered that he could have
01:04:47
left the party and returned the next day at an early hour and still had several hours in which he could have killed
01:04:53
Hall. >> There you go. >> I love that a detective was like, I'll be and then just drove the route and was
01:04:59
like, nope. While McDonald's case may have been at times um kind of compelling to watch, I suppose the prosecution had
01:05:07
a significant and far more compelling, seriously compelling amount of physical evidence.
01:05:11
>> Yeah. Like the fact that they have things that these victims were last seen wearing or carrying in this
01:05:17
motherfucker's house. >> They also have photograph and blood and fibers >> and a dead body found in his possession,
01:05:23
which I will never stop yelling from the [ __ ] rooftops. They had physical evidence, forensic evidence, witness
01:05:28
testimony. >> They had it all. >> Yeah. He at least murdered the 16 men that they were presenting.
01:05:34
>> Much of that evidence was circumstantial. But for the defendant to have so many of the victim's belongings
01:05:39
and photographs, like we were just saying, which had been taken before and after their deaths,
01:05:45
>> how are you arguing that Craft was not responsible for the murders? >> Yeah, that's beyond reasonable doubt. On
01:05:49
April 29th, 1989, closing arguments began in the trial. In his arguments, Deputy District Attorney Brian Brown
01:05:57
pointed to the large amount of evidence in Craft's possession and reminded the jury of the large amount of forensic
01:06:03
evidence and testimony that they had just witnessed. Finally, he reminded them of the victim list found in Crap's
01:06:10
possession, which he referred to as a quote dynamite piece of evidence that connected 14 of the 16 victims to each
01:06:18
other and back to Randy. Mhm. >> In his closing arguments on the other side, defense attorney James Merwin
01:06:25
proceeded with their strategy of just >> being a fool. >> Of of acting a fool. >> Yeah, exactly.
01:06:32
>> Reminding the jury that while the forensic evidence did show the craft had been in the presence of these men and
01:06:37
may had had sex with some of them, investigators and the prosecution were unable to prove beyond a reasonable
01:06:42
doubt that he killed them, >> except for the fact that he has photos in his possession of them dead. As for
01:06:48
the supposed scorecard that Brown suggested was irrefutable proof, Merwin dismissed the idea that it was a list of
01:06:55
victims and suggested, quote, "It may be no more than a guest list for a roommate's birthday party." Are you
01:07:01
[ __ ] kidding me? >> That's a literal quote. >> Are you [ __ ] kidding me? >> Maybe no more than a guest list for a
01:07:08
roommate's birthday party. A guest list also, weirdly, that has dates attributed
01:07:14
to each of those people. >> Various dates. What do those dates mean? >> How many roommates do you have?
01:07:19
>> Also, did the roommate give every single one of these people a nickname? >> Yeah.
01:07:24
>> Uh that include blood and multiple multiple have the same nickname. Two for one.
01:07:28
>> Yeah. Portland head. Who's that? >> I'd love to know >> who's coming to his birthday party named
01:07:33
Portland Head. >> Get a grip. >> Like get a grip. >> Get a [ __ ] grip. >> And a life while you're at it.
01:07:39
>> Get a literal grip. Get a life as my dad would say to anybody that pisses him
01:07:43
off. >> It's my favorite thing that he says. Get a life. He says it with such [ __ ] he
01:07:48
burns. >> Tells aid in traffic. >> Yeah, life. It's pretty great. >> [ __ ] that guy, though. Not my dad. This
01:07:54
guy. Um, on May 2nd, the jury, just in case that wasn't clear, >> on May 2nd, the jury retire retired for
01:08:01
deliberation, which lasted a full 11 days, which is wild to me. >> Baby girls, why did it take you that
01:08:06
long? >> Like, what is going on? >> Respectfully, no. >> Disrespectfully, what took so long?
01:08:10
before emerging on May 13th to find Randy Craft guilty of all 16 murders. >> Iconic,
01:08:16
>> as well as one sodomy charge charge and one charge of mayhem. >> Good. >> When the verdict was read, the families
01:08:22
of the victims wept and cheered the outcome. >> Um Jeffrey Nelson's mother, Judy, told a
01:08:27
reporter, "I know he's guilty. He knows he's guilty. Every mother in there had 16 beautiful sons, and that guy
01:08:34
destroyed them. He should pay something." >> Absolutely. >> And you know what, Judy? I [ __ ]
01:08:38
agree. >> Yep. Wholeheartedly. Quick little side tangent. Um, we haven't talked about
01:08:43
like the Idaho murders a lot. One, because we are not >> we're not covering >> we weren't current either. Like while it
01:08:50
was happening, we would have been 3 weeks behind everything. >> So, we didn't want to be like 3 weeks
01:08:54
behind all the updates and be annoying you guys with like >> it would just be like really
01:08:58
disrespectful to everybody involved. >> We're not going to cover them anytime soon. Not anytime soon.
01:09:03
>> Yeah. anytime soon because one it happened pretty recently and two those families are still like they just went
01:09:10
through that sentencing. Not only that, but just thinking about this mother talking about that.
01:09:15
>> Brian Anton, who covers a lot of these, he covered like the Gabby Patito case
01:09:19
while it was going. He's like very journalist. He's a very great and very respectful journalist from what I've
01:09:24
seen. He was in the sentencing for Brian Coberger and he saw one of the victim's
01:09:30
mothers receiving threatening text messages from some piece of [ __ ] internet person who was literally
01:09:36
threatening her while she was at the sentencing for the man who brutally murdered her child.
01:09:41
>> Trying to say that Brian Coberger was not guilty. Meanwhile, his evidence, his
01:09:46
DNA was found as evidence at the go. >> I won't even >> I won't even. And so like
01:09:51
>> what are you doing texting a murder victim's mother like that? like pisses me off. Like you got to be the lowest
01:09:58
form of the same people who were sitting there saying that the roommates had something to do with it and all that
01:10:05
[ __ ] Like I'm not going to go far into this because again I said I would not cover this, but just like we got to get
01:10:11
it together. We've all had moments where we thought something about a case and theorized. We have been guilty of that
01:10:17
before. >> Absolutely we have. >> But you got to evolve. >> Start evolving. Everybody evolve. It's
01:10:23
2025. We got to stop that >> and realize that you don't know everything. >> That's the thing. And it's like and
01:10:29
>> and you never will. >> You got to evolve in the true crime world with like not you got to know what
01:10:35
start looking around. Just start looking around. See >> how it you know like that it just like
01:10:41
that really thinking about that poor woman getting threatening text messages from people who think they know more.
01:10:46
>> Yeah. just sent me into orbit and I was just thinking of this mother like sitting
01:10:52
there being like all 16 mothers in that courtroom lost sons and I'm like [ __ ] >> they did
01:10:56
>> like just leave people alone >> just leave leave these families alone >> have some [ __ ] respect.
01:11:02
>> Yeah, for real. And I'm not I know it's not you guys listening you guys. >> I'm not talking like straight to you
01:11:07
guys saying like [ __ ] like you know like when you look around and see those you're probably getting
01:11:10
>> you never know who's going to tune in. Yeah, you never know. Uh but uh so back
01:11:15
to they you know they came back they gave him the guilty verdict for all 16 victims uh and they returned to the
01:11:22
courtroom on June 5th for the sentencing phase. Um that lasted another two months.
01:11:27
>> Wow. >> During this period the defense made a number of arguments for leniency. You
01:11:32
can literally go [ __ ] yourself with that. >> Including arguing the head injury that
01:11:36
Craft had sustained as a small child doing damage to his frontal lobe. I'm I'm sure that it did, but like it
01:11:42
doesn't make you kill that many people and lose that amount of humanity. >> The prosecution disagreed with that and
01:11:49
encouraged the jury to return a death sentence. >> Yeah, me as well. >> On August 12th, 1989, the jury did
01:11:55
indeed sentence Randy Craft to die for the crimes he committed. One juror said, "He should die for what he did to all
01:12:01
those people. I've had nightmares thinking about the horror of what this man has done." Another juror agreed with
01:12:07
this, telling a reporter, "I'm never going to be normal again. I was so naive about so many things."
01:12:12
>> Wow. You have to think like what people go through. >> Yeah. And those kind of things. Yeah.
01:12:19
>> Really will change you for the rest of your life. >> You are seeing things that the public is
01:12:24
not seeing. You are seeing crime scene photos. You are seeing autopsy photos. You are seeing the worst kind of [ __ ]
01:12:28
you can imagine. >> On such a minute level, I you and I have talked about this before. I feel changed
01:12:34
from doing this for so many years. >> I'll never I will never stop thinking about the Moors murders.
01:12:41
>> You just said that and that immediately popped into my head >> when I accidentally stumbled upon a
01:12:46
picture that I did not want to see. >> I was not looking for it. It came up in the course of something else and I I
01:12:52
will think about it until the day I die. >> It's the pictures. It's the brutal details and like I'm not saying that you
01:12:58
like none of us should have an interest in true crime or anything like that, but
01:13:01
like it does change you. >> Yeah, it absolutely changes you. >> It should change it. I think it it
01:13:06
definitely should change you. So, the judge Donald McCarten chose to reserve a lot of his commentary until Craft had
01:13:12
exhausted his appeals, but he did have some strong words for the defense regarding their conduct during the
01:13:18
trial. Oh, I bet. >> He told McDonald and Mer uh Merwin in a harsh tone before admonishing them for
01:13:25
the constant delays and attempts to stall. This trial should have been over in 3 months.
01:13:30
>> Yeah. McCarten pointed to the trial of Richard Ramirez, which had began on the
01:13:34
same day as Craft's trial and ended in just two months. >> Wow. >> Yeah. Isn't that crazy that they started
01:13:40
on the same day? >> Yes. >> 3 months later, >> California. >> Yeah. California's been through it.
01:13:45
>> Yeah. Three months later on November 29th, Judge McCarten formally sentenced Craft to death and he remained in
01:13:52
custody of the state and then was removed to San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. Because California has gone back
01:13:58
and forth over the legality of the death penalty in their state, very few executions have occur occurred in the
01:14:04
years since he was convicted and none have occurred since 2006. Today the death penalty is legal but
01:14:11
there has been a moratorum in place since 2019 that bars the practice. >> As a result of this whole thing Randy
01:14:18
Craft remains on death row at San Quentin without any date for his execution. He's 82. Damn. In the years
01:14:25
since his conviction, he has appealed several times but has yet to successfully overturn his conviction or
01:14:30
sentence. The challenges he's brought to the appeals courts have ranged from the
01:14:34
unlawful admission of evidence to the legality of the death penalty itself. But in most cases, the court just failed
01:14:41
to find his arguments persuasive at all. >> Mhm. >> As for the crimes themselves, Craft has
01:14:46
consistently denied any responsibilities for the murders and maintains that he is
01:14:50
innocent of the charges. >> That's a joke. >> Even after all that evidence. >> That's a joke. Also, sorry, he's 80. For
01:14:56
the most part, Randy Craft has denied requests for interviews and did not testify on his own behalf or speak
01:15:02
during the sentencing phase. Finally, in 2016, he agreed to speak with the Bay Area Reporter, an LGBT news organization
01:15:11
in California about the case and trial. >> Uhhuh. >> He told the reporter, "I'm getting
01:15:15
older. I'm going to die here. If I don't say something, it will never be said." According to Craft, he met Terry
01:15:22
Gambrell at a bar called the Brig, and the Marine was very drunk and incoherent. He said he was sitting down
01:15:28
holding stuff in his lap near the trash can in the parking lot. He looked out of
01:15:32
sorts, and I asked him if he was okay. >> Oh, you're such a humanitarian. >> He didn't say anything to me other than
01:15:37
he said, "El Toro. I thought he was drunk or whatever and would take him to the base." He claimed that at the time
01:15:43
he was noticed by police he wasn't weaving because he was drunk, but because he was trying to help Gambrell.
01:15:49
>> Oh, yeah. He said, "I was shaking him, trying to wake him, shouting at him, trying to see if anything was in his
01:15:54
mouth, blocking his airway." >> That's so crazy cuz like, who strangled him then?
01:15:57
>> Yeah. Looking to see if he was wounded or bleeding. >> Oh my god. >> He said, "Then I noticed the lights of
01:16:02
the CHP patrol car that was pulling me over." >> [ __ ] like this shouldn't even get
01:16:06
published. >> No, it shouldn't. And I love that he also had which I believe is personally I
01:16:12
believe this is him getting a little funny funny out of his his statement here when he said he wanted to make sure
01:16:18
that nothing was blocking his airway. >> Oh yeah. >> Really? Like the several things that you
01:16:23
force-fed down people's throats and suffocated them with >> throughout the years.
01:16:27
>> Yeah. >> Like that was a cute little addition. You [ __ ] piece of [ __ ] Throughout
01:16:33
the interview, he continued to assert that the supposed scorecard the prosecutor made so much about was just a
01:16:40
list of guests for an upcoming birthday party. >> Why did it have different dates then?
01:16:44
>> And different states, >> dates, states, names. What the [ __ ] are you talking about? And why are you
01:16:49
wasting people's time? >> He said one column was the names of people I wanted to invite and the other
01:16:54
column were may. It was in code so he wouldn't recognize it because he was going to surprise his roommate.
01:16:59
>> And what were the different dates and states about? Don't worry about it. As for all the other evidence against
01:17:04
him, that was all manufactured by the prosecution to close the case on so many unsolved murders. He said, "I didn't get
01:17:10
a fair trial. The government turned it into a serial killer trial." I bet. Wow. Whether he did or didn't get a fair
01:17:17
trial, he remains on death row to this day, and he will likely remain there until he [ __ ] dies. In the meantime,
01:17:23
the authorities in California are continuing to work on identifying those additional victims, both those on the
01:17:28
quote unquote scorecard and those who don't appear there, but are nonetheless believed to have been victims of Randy
01:17:35
Craft, the scorecard killer. So, there's more than the 61 on that card that they
01:17:39
think are attributed to him. That's crazy. And that is the case of the scorecard killer, Randy Craft.
01:17:48
That was truly unlike anything we have ever covered. Truly. I Yeah. Some of the things that we talked about in the past
01:17:57
few days are unimaginable. And just like that juror, I feel changed forever. >> I feel completely changed by this case.
01:18:05
Completely. Those poor families having to sit there and hear the [ __ ] atrocities that were done to their
01:18:12
children. >> Yeah. >> I like by this piece of absolute garbage. That's a crime in and of itself
01:18:18
that they had to sit there and hear about that. >> Yeah. >> That's awful. >> It's It never ceases to amaze me that
01:18:24
people like this exist. >> That's the thing happens. >> Yeah. >> To to make people this way.
01:18:31
>> Yeah. >> It It is fascinating to look into some simple he bumped his head. >> No, it's so It goes so far beyond that.
01:18:40
>> Yeah. >> People are twisted, my dude. >> They twisted. I mean, this is like worst nightmare.
01:18:50
>> I can't even come up with a word for this. I mean, monstrous, grotesque, atrocious,
01:18:58
>> every abhorent, abominable. Like, it's just like everything is >> he he's and that and there's so many.
01:19:06
>> Like, it got to a point when I was going through this that I was like, when does
01:19:09
it stop? >> Yeah. >> Like, when does it stop and when does he get caught? Cuz I can't read about
01:19:13
another one of these. But then I was like, you have to read about another >> matter no matter what. And it's like,
01:19:20
holy [ __ ] >> What was it ultimately 12 13 years he was killing? Yeah. It was like over a
01:19:25
decade. >> Yeah. Like that is in three states like several counties like thank goodness for DNA. And thank goodness
01:19:34
those uh jurisdictions started talking to each other. >> I know. >> And opened it up to other jurisdictions.
01:19:40
They never would have connected this. >> I know. And you just you really hope that with the and I've said it like so
01:19:44
many times, but I really hope that with the advancements in forensic sciences, he they can figure out who the [ __ ]
01:19:49
helped him with this and who that other DNA belongs to on some of those bodies. >> Yeah. I hope so because I want to get
01:19:55
>> some of those people identified. Nobody should have to be unidentified for that
01:19:59
long. >> Yeah. And like the accompllices should not be able to live the rest of their
01:20:03
lives. >> No. Yeah. The accompllices. We need to find out who the [ __ ] did that like
01:20:08
>> Yeah. >> He had help. >> Absolutely. Who the [ __ ] is it? And he's not going to turn on anybody cuz he's
01:20:13
not admitting that he was even involved. >> And so he would that would ruin his whole like he's a little [ __ ] So it's
01:20:20
like >> he's dumb because you're on death row no matter what. >> You're in your 80s. You're dying there.
01:20:24
So it's like just admit it, dude. Clear your [ __ ] conscience. And it's like not that you have one.
01:20:28
>> Evil to the core. >> And he's holding on to his [ __ ] So he knows if he starts pointing fingers he's
01:20:33
now admitting to what he did. So it's he's never going to do it. That's why he hasn't pulled anyone in. And I'm shocked
01:20:39
by it. >> Yeah, it is nuts. >> But it's to save his own ass. But I don't know why cuz I'm like, you're
01:20:44
dying there. But he wants like he doesn't want that legacy. He wants to pretend that he's innocent and he was
01:20:49
just railroaded. >> That's crazy. >> Yeah. Well, like we promised, our next episode will be spooky. I think we're
01:20:56
going to do spooky games. >> Yeah. We found some really cool ones that we just want to get like fun with.
01:21:01
>> They're scary. >> They're scary. Like paranormal place. >> Yeah. Just for one episode so we can
01:21:06
just take a second. >> Yeah. And then I think after that we've got listener tales.
01:21:10
>> Yeah. >> Um so yeah. Well, with all that being said, we hope you keep listening
01:21:14
>> and we hope you >> keep it weird. >> Not so weird that you don't go do something nice for yourself today.
01:21:22
>> Yeah. Treat yourself. >> Treat yourself. >> Treat yourself. [Music] [Music] [Music]

Badges

This episode stands out for the following:

  • 95
    Most heartbreaking
  • 90
    Most shocking
  • 90
    Most intense
  • 90
    Most controversial

Episode Highlights

  • Rod Stewart's Concert Surprise
    Elena shares her unexpected enjoyment of Rod Stewart's farewell tour concert.
    “It was one of the best [ __ ] concerts I've ever been to.”
    @ 04m 36s
    August 21, 2025
  • Life is Lifing
    Elena expresses gratitude for the positive changes in her life and the universe's gifts.
    “Life has been I just want to like shout out to the big universe up there.”
    @ 08m 10s
    August 21, 2025
  • The Tragic Discovery of Raymond Davis
    13-year-old Raymond Davis was found dead, tied and strangled, marking a heartbreaking moment.
    “Oh my god. 13.”
    @ 20m 46s
    August 21, 2025
  • The Connection Between Victims
    Investigators began to see a pattern among the victims found along the road.
    “They theorized their killer was some kind of salesman or other professional.”
    @ 31m 30s
    August 21, 2025
  • Escalation of Violence
    Randy Craft's behavior became more brazen, leading to multiple victims at once.
    “Having gotten away with multiple murders for more than a decade, Randy Craft was becoming much more brazen.”
    @ 33m 19s
    August 21, 2025
  • Roger Dval's Body Found
    Roger Dval's body is discovered, fully clothed but with signs of assault.
    “My god.”
    @ 38m 02s
    August 21, 2025
  • Craft's Arrest
    Randy Craft is arrested mid-disposal of a body, leading to a major investigation.
    “What a dumbass.”
    @ 43m 13s
    August 21, 2025
  • The Scorecard Killer
    Craft's cryptic scorecard reveals a chilling record of his victims.
    “That's disgusting.”
    @ 50m 33s
    August 21, 2025
  • Randy Craft's Trial Begins
    The trial for Randy Craft began on September 27, 1988, with significant evidence against him.
    @ 59m 35s
    August 21, 2025
  • Guilty Verdict
    On May 13, 1989, Randy Craft was found guilty of all 16 murders, bringing relief to the victims' families.
    @ 01h 08m 10s
    August 21, 2025
  • The Impact of True Crime
    Witnessing the horrors of crime changes those involved forever. One juror said, "I'm never going to be normal again."
    “I'm never going to be normal again.”
    @ 01h 12m 08s
    August 21, 2025
  • Randy Craft's Denial
    Despite overwhelming evidence, Craft maintains his innocence, claiming he didn't get a fair trial.
    “I didn't get a fair trial. The government turned it into a serial killer trial.”
    @ 01h 17m 10s
    August 21, 2025

Episode Quotes

  • It's transcends time and space.
    Randy Kraft: The Scorecard Killer (Part 3) | Morbid | Podcast
  • That's his youngest victim so far, right?
    Randy Kraft: The Scorecard Killer (Part 3) | Morbid | Podcast
  • It's got to end. It's got to end.
    Randy Kraft: The Scorecard Killer (Part 3) | Morbid | Podcast
  • Pictures worth a thousand words.
    Randy Kraft: The Scorecard Killer (Part 3) | Morbid | Podcast
  • You don't need a pulse or a heartbeat to have viability.
    Randy Kraft: The Scorecard Killer (Part 3) | Morbid | Podcast
  • I'm getting older. I'm going to die here.
    Randy Kraft: The Scorecard Killer (Part 3) | Morbid | Podcast

Key Moments

  • Life Updates08:10
  • Case Introduction09:27
  • Victim Count Increases33:17
  • Scorecard Revealed48:34
  • Guilty Verdict1:08:10
  • Respect for Victims1:11:02
  • Denial of Guilt1:14:59
  • Craft's Interview1:15:15

Words per Minute Over Time

Vibes Breakdown