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Hey weirdos. I'm Elena. I'm Ash. And this is Morbid, where we're really happy. [Music]
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We're happy. I just want to be happy. Happy. I'm trying and it's finally enough.
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Uh, you probably saw this multiple weeks ago. Who knows when? Who knows when? We
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sure don't. But that will be a thing of the past very soon because [ __ ] we signed with Sirius XM.
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>> Starting September 1st, we are going to be part of the SiriusXM home. Although
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it already feels like we're part of their home. We love them. the nicest people.
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>> They're lovely. We're very excited to be a part of that crew and for them to be a
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part of our crew and for it to be one big happy happy family over here. >> It's awesome. But obviously, uh, since
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we announced this by the time you're listening to this multiple weeks ago, we saw you have a lot of questions. We
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probably have already answered them through a video at this point, but we'll answer them again.
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>> Here we go. >> Yeah. >> It'll help us plan for the video that we haven't filmed yet, but that we will and
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that you've already seen. Isn't that weird? Yeah. Anyway, so uh addressing Werey Plus, we will no longer be on
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Wondery Plus starting September 1st. >> We will not be on Wondery Plus September
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1st. >> No. Um early and adree early will no longer be a thing. I think it just is
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really tough to be able to connect with you. We both feel this way to connect with you guys when things are not coming
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out simultaneously. So Sirius has its own ad free platform that you can sign up for if you so choose where you can
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get the episodes ad free but everybody will get them at the same time. >> Yeah. So you can just choose whether you
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would like to pay for ad free or not. >> That's your choice babe. >> That's your choice but you can hear us
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everywhere. We'll be on you know Amazon music, Spotify, Apple, wherever you're listening to it. If it's not Wondery
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Plus we will be on there facts. So nothing's going to change. The only good things that are going to change are good
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things because it just um you know, we're going to be coming out at the same time every week. Still two episodes
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actually, >> but so yes, we're going to be doing a bonus episode that's going to come out
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in addition to the two episodes that already come out. one week out of the month, which I think we're going to do
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at the second week of the month. You're going to get a bonus episode, >> a third episode that week.
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>> That's going to be anything from like a guest episode, uh, talk us talking about
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like maybe like a cool documentary, maybe like we'll do like a book club or something. Who knows? Yeah, it can be
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really It could be just a smaller case or a smaller spooky thing we didn't really think belonged in like a full
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length episode like the regular other two episodes that week, but just kind of an overflow thing that we were like, we
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want you to hear about this, but >> yes, >> now you get it as an extra thing. You do
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not have to pay for this bonus episode. It's going to everybody. >> Yes. >> It's free for everybody
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>> and we're going to do it every month >> and it's fun. >> So, every month there'll be one week
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with three episodes in it. >> Yes. And if you um like we're still doing listener tail episodes once a
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month that will stay at the I think it's the last Thursday of every month. >> Yeah. The same as it is now.
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>> If you're watching those on YouTube, they're still going to be there. Have no
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fear. Literally like barely anything is changing. It's only good things like you
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just said. >> Yeah, exactly. We're just adding more episodes for you that are free.
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>> Yeah. Um, and that we won't have such um we won't have a long time between recording and it coming out. So, we'll
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be able to be a little more current with what's happening around us and yeah, feel more connected with you guys cuz,
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you know, that was that was a big deal for us. >> Yeah, exactly. >> Um, but it's very exciting because
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everything's, you know, everything's going to be >> awesome. It's all happening, Sheena
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Shay. >> It's all happening. Sheena Shay, I'm obsessed. And we got to do a fun photo
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shoot for it yesterday with our friend, our new friend Johnny. >> Yeah, definitely go. We We tagged him in
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the post about the release. >> Tag is literally just is a hermit. >> Yeah. And he's an amazing photographer,
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so definitely check him out. >> Hire him for all your photography needs. He made us feel [ __ ] amazing.
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>> Yeah. I hate I literally hate getting my picture taken. >> Yeah. We were both like panicking on the
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way there. >> I hate it. We both were like, "Why did we set this up? Do we Oh my god, what do
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we do?" And then we got there and we were like, "Oh, this is so easy." >> Yeah. I genuinely hate like I don't find
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photo shoots fun. Like I'm not one of those people who gets excited for I get very anxious and I just don't like it. I
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had a blast. >> You made me feel very comfortable. >> I love a photo shoot. I hate the part
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where you get the pictures back because you're like, "Oh no, I didn't think I didn't think that was going to happen."
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The only two people who have ever made me feel that way are Johnny, who we shot with yesterday, and then my wedding
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photographer, Molly Quill. Yeah. >> Two best photographers ever. >> Yeah. So, see, it's all great.
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>> Yeah. It's all good stuff, everybody. >> Yeah. >> We're excited about it. And I I'm really
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glad that I brought you all up. Um because I'm going to pile drive you down into the ground now.
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>> Thank you for >> with one of the worst cases I have ever read in >> my life. Okay. So,
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uh, so hold on to that serotonin, I hear it, cuz it Whoops. >> Hold on to your serotonin.
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>> Hold on to it. Uh, cuz today we are going to be talking about a case I'm going to, this case is going to be three
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parts. Um, it's a long case. Like, this is not three parts that are short. This is
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pretty long. >> Um, we're breaking it up. I'm going to break it up because one, there is so
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much happening in this. There are many, many victims, many, many intense details, and it it took a long time to
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figure who this guy was. And there's all kinds of other crazy stuff that we still
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haven't even determined yet about this case. And it took place in, you know, the the 70s and 80s essentially.
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>> So, this is going to be a three-parter. This first one is going to be pretty long and it's going to be pretty rough.
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So, I just need to let you guys know ahead of time that this episode in particular is going to be a tough one.
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>> So, yeah, in between this series, like this three-parter and whatever we put out next, we're going to do a spooky
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episode as like a palette cleanser. >> Yeah, because after these three episodes, you're going to need a a
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minute to breathe. Um, so we're talking about Randy Craft, also known by the press as the scorecard killer.
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Um, so let's start way back in the 1970s, Southern California. I mean, people who
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lived in Southern California, they were held in terror because multiple serial killers were stalking their area at any
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given time. >> California really had a time where they just [ __ ] went through it.
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>> Especially the 70s, it was like they were just the 70s and 80s, they were really going through it. And the thing
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is like these these serial killers were praying on victims from like a lot of different walks of life.
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>> Um no one was safe. >> Yeah. No one was safe there. From 1971 to 1983, Randy Craft, who we are talking
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about today, kidnapped, tortured, and murdered at least 16 men and boys. >> Jeez.
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>> But the real number of victims is considered to be very higher than that. >> Yeah.
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>> Like much higher than that. Um, when he was arrested in 1983, investigators searched his house and found this like
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really cryptic list with like cryptic references to what they believed were 61 victims in total.
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>> What the [ __ ] >> 61. >> That's insane. Think I need you to think about lining 61 people up in front of
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you. >> That's a lot of [ __ ] people. That's like somebody's entire family. >> Yeah. Like extended extended family. I
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don't even know if our family reunions have that many people at them. >> And the discovery of that list is what
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led to the nickname the scorecard killer. >> Um, after he was arrested in 1983, Randy
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Craft was tried and convicted of 16 counts of firstdegree murder and sentenced to death. In fact, and don't
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worry, we'll go over all of that. Um, but the the arrest and trial were definitely putting an end to the murder
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spree that had happened. But there were some questions that weren't yet answered. And this is the part of the
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case that really threw me for a loop because like that happens. We arrest Randy Craft. He's sentenced. He's
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charged. >> But then the question remained, who helped him? >> Oh, he had help. He They think he had an
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accomplice. >> What? >> Yeah. >> And they don't still able to figure out who it was.
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>> No. I [ __ ] hate that. And when you hear the details of why they thought about this, it will chill your bones.
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>> I really hate that a lot >> because when you really look at the evidence of it, you're like, "Yeah, I
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think he had to help." >> And the fact that they didn't find this person is just gut-wrenching because of
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what? >> And they think he had a help in like almost all of these. >> I think they do. Yeah.
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>> What? >> Or at least some of them. >> Most of them. >> Yeah. Now, let's go back to 1972. It was
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in the early morning hours, December 26th of that year, just before 2:00 a.m., a California Highway Patrol
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officer was driving near the 17th Street exit on the 405 freeway. And as he drove
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by, he saw like a a group of people just standing on the shoulder of the off-ramp, like gathered around something
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on the side of the road. So when he pulled up to them to be like, "What the [ __ ] are you doing?" He gets out and
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sees that they're all standing at a decomposing body of a young man who was just laying there crumpled on the
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ground. and appeared to be in his maybe early 20s. >> Oh. >> Now, from what the officer could tell,
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the man had been dead for at least a day and his body had already started decomposing. He was fully dressed in a
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jacket, sweater, t-shirts, and pants, but he was only wearing one sock, no shoes, and his belt appeared to be
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missing. >> Okay. Now, uh this poor man had obvious liature marks around his neck. And the
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officer saw that and was like, I suspect that's probably the cause of death. But
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as he looked closer, he also saw that this young man appeared to have been struck in the face with an object or a
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fist because there was severe bruising around his nose and mouth. >> Now, in the days that followed this, um,
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this man would be identified as 20-year-old Edward Daniel Moore. >> It's a baby.
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>> He was a serviceman stationed at nearby Camp Pedleton. Uh, he was last seen a
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few days earlier at the Army base, but he had a history of going AWOL. >> Yeah. Uh, so when he wasn't immediately
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located, no one really suspected anything bad had happened. >> Um, he had a, you know, he had a tough
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childhood. He was placed in foster care as a child because his parents were deemed unfit.
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>> So he probably had a very difficult upbringing. And so he ended up having a lot of disciplinary issues growing up
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because obviously he was acting out due to likely trauma. >> Yeah. >> Um, since then though, he'd managed to
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like get by on his instincts and knowhow. He was like a very savvy guy that way. Now, when the autopsy was
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done, the medical examiner determined that his cause of death had been esphyxiation,
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>> but he found out that he had been gared, not manually strangled. >> Oh, that always adds such a layer.
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>> A garat is um you may have remember hearing about it in the um John Ramsey case, which is really awful. It's
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unfortunately always what I think of when it's brought. >> It's usually when there's um something
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put around the neck several times usually and it's tied into a mechanism. Usually it can you know in John Bane
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Ramsay's case it was the end of a paintbrush. >> Yeah. >> And it is used to twist and tighten it
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like like a machine almost. >> It's like medieval torture. >> Yeah. It really is. It's an awful awful
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in whoever is doing the garading can kind of loosen it or tighten it at will. So it prolongs it.
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>> Yeah, it can prolong it. >> Now, in addition to the ligature marks around his neck, there were similar
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marks on his wrists and ankles which indicated he had been restrained prior to death.
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>> There was also a bunch of abrasions on his face from being beaten. Um, this is
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going to get very graphic and just from here on out, we're going to get very graphic and I apologize ahead of time
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cuz we're essentially talking about torture here. There's a lot of torture happening in these and it's brutal. Um,
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his genitals had clear bite marks on them and scratch marks. >> Oh. >> Um, it also appeared that he had been
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sexually assaulted. Um, and his missing sock, cuz he was only wearing one sock, had been found stuffed into his anus.
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>> Oh my god. >> Yeah. Um, that is kind of a calling card. That >> he does that. This killer does that a
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lot. >> Yeah, this is kind of a thing. Um, and the medical examiner believed that he
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had been redressed after being killed. >> That for some I mean for so many reasons
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is so freaking >> that's a chilling detail. >> Yeah. Yeah. Like what are you doing?
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>> There was also a lot of superficial scratches on his arms and other exposed body parts which looked like they were
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um like like he had fallen on gravel. And the medical examiner believed they were consistent with the type of
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injuries one would get if they had fallen on gravel or been pushed but from a moving vehicle. Oh wow.
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>> Um so they believe that that's what happened. Um in fact the medical examiner told investigators it probably
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slowed down but it didn't stop. >> So maybe when he was pushed out or dumped. >> Yeah. Okay.
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>> Like when they believe he was probably killed and pushed out of a moving vehicle on the side of the freeway.
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>> A few days later the results of a toxicology test showed that there were no drugs in Moore's system and his blood
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alcohol was well below the legal limit. Um, Detective Bill Tines knew the most reasonable place to start their
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interviews would be with the other soldiers at Camp Pendleton. But because there was like a very particular sexual
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nature of Moore's injuries, he also expected that they should interview people he may have socialized within the
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community, anyone he may have had a relationship with at some point. Investigators soon learned that Eddie
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Moore had only just turned 20 a few months earlier. He was basically 19, >> and his tenure in the military had been
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pretty short. Um he'd come to Camp Pendleton after enlisting in the south and before that he and his brother had
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spent their youths bouncing from one foster home to another. >> That's awful. >> Yeah. So fellow soldier Charles Vines
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said uh told investigators, "My impression of Eddie is that he is a lonely kind of person and kind of lost."
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>> Yeah. >> Um Eddie and Charles had had a very close relationship for a bit before his
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murder. >> And he said Eddie is the kind of person that would befriend or try to become
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friends with anybody who would talk to him for very long. If somebody Yeah. If somebody in a restaurant or on the beach
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or any place would stop and talk to Eddie for four or five minutes, Eddie would want to become that person's
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friend. >> Oh, like >> and that just shows he probably like that's a direct result of like
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abandonment, you know? >> Absolutely. Like you're just looking for love and just connection. Yeah. Although
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there were no suspects or leads and evidence was very slim, a picture of Eddie Moore was beginning to kind of
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like emerge that was suggesting just how he may have been lured to the beach in the first place. Right.
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>> Vines had told the detective that Moore had hitchhiked a lot. He liked to go to
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that beach. >> He liked to go there to escape the stress of life. You know, that was a
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sanctuary place. He was also fairly irresponsible and impulsive, according to Vines, often acting without regard
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for consequences. Yeah, he's just a 20-year-old. Um, so it seemed pretty reasonable to assume that he had either
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been picked up by or gone off with a stranger who had shown him just some kindness.
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>> Yeah. >> Um, >> which was also like very normal at that time. >> Exactly. After a month of slow
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investigation, Detective Tines hadn't made much progress on the Moore case. And then a second body was discovered
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under very similar circumstances. Uh this time this body was discovered on the muddy bank of the Terminal Island
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Freeway in Wilmington. On the afternoon of February 6th, 1973, investigators in Wilmington were called to Seal Beach for
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what was described as the discovery of a murder victim. When LAPD detective John
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St. John arrived at the scene. He saw that the victim, a young man in his late teens, or early 20s, was lying nude in
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the overgrowth near the off-ramp to the Terminal Island freeway. According to the medical examiner, um this young man
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had only been dead for about 6 hours, and like Eddie Moore, the cause of death appeared to be asphyxiation from
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garotting. >> Um and the gar was a steel wire. Oh. >> Now to Detective St. John, there was a
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lot of similarities between these two cases like right off the bat. Not only had the victim been strangled with a
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garage um and seemed to have been pushed out of a slowmoving vehicle on the side
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of the highway again, but the victim also had the sock placed where it had been placed in the first case.
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>> Yeah. >> Um otherwise, the two young men were similar in age and build, so that was
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also something to look at. But unlike the Eddie Moore case, detectives were unable to identify this young man found
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near Terminal Island through fingerprinting or any other kind of identification.
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>> Wow. >> Several sketches and digital renderings have been made of this victim in the
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years after this. No identity has been found for this young man. >> That's awful.
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>> That [ __ ] kills me. >> And how old was he? Did you say 19? >> He was like they think he was like late
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teen, early 20s. >> Oh, that's that's so sad. It's like why has nobody come forward and claimed this
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person? >> No one has claimed him. That's so sad. It >> is really really sad. >> But it just like it goes to show people
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these serial killers can sense that in so many upon it. >> Oh, and it's so awful.
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>> Now nearly 6 weeks passed since the discovery of the second body when on April 17th, Huntington Beach police
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received another early morning call from a driver who claimed to have found a body by the side of the road. Another
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one. Uh this was in an area lo known locally as Airport Hill. Uh so investigators get to the scene and they
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found the body of a young man, again in his late teens or early 20s, lying near the side of the road. Uh this boy
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appeared to be between 18 and 25, anywhere in there. He had blonde hair. He was average build. He was dressed in
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a shirt, pants, and socks, but he was wearing no shoes. And his belt was missing.
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>> Based on his appearance, detectives at the scene believed his cause of death had been blunt force trauma to the head.
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Oh wow. >> When an autopsy was performed later that day, it turned out that the cause of
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death was not blunt force trauma, it was suffocation. Uh but the medical examiner
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couldn't tell whether it was by strangulation or quote by a gag or something put over the nose and mouth.
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In addition to the suffocation, there was also evidence of considerable anti-mortem trauma to the body,
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including ligature marks on the wrist, bruising around his mouth and nose, and his genitals had been removed. Oh. Um,
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he had lost at least two pints of blood because of that. >> And they he was still alive when that
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happened, they think. >> Mhm. >> Oh my god. >> There was also evidence of sexual
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assault and postmortem road burns and cuts all over his exposed parts of his body, which indicated that he too had
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been pushed out of the vehicle. >> The victim had no ID on him, and they ran his fingerprints through the state
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database, and nothing came back. Like the previous victim, a composite sketch was made and circulated, but no one in
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the area seemed to recognize this young man or know who he was. >> And he's still unidentified.
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>> It seemed Well, we'll get to it. It seemed surprising to the officers that somebody, especially someone this age,
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would disappear and not be reported by anyone. >> Yeah. >> But as they would later find out, that
00:20:03
was because they were looking in the wrong place. >> Okay. In March 1995, so we're skipping
00:20:08
ahead, nearly 22 years after this body was found in Huntington Beach, Kurt Marine, a Santa Ana County Deputy
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Coroner, merged his California fingerprint database with that of the wider western United States and received
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a match on the fingerprints. >> Oh. >> The young man from 1973 turned out to be 18-year-old
00:20:29
Kevin Clark Bailey. His father, Clark Bailey, after receiving a phone call about this, said, "I was a little
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stunned." >> Yeah. >> Clark Bailey had divorced his wife when Kevin was just four years old, and he
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hadn't seen either of his children since then. Oh. >> According to report records, Kevin
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Bailey had grown up in Middleton, New York, and had been living in Corvalis, Oregon, nearly a thousand miles away
00:20:52
from Huntington Beach, as recently as 5 days before his murder. >> Oh. In fact, he he had been
00:21:00
fingerprinted on April 4th, 1973 when he was picked up for loitering around a schoolyard, which is how they were able
00:21:06
to get the match on the fingerprints. >> Oh. >> Had police in Huntington Beach had the
00:21:10
capability of searching fingerprint records like around where that area was, they would have matched those two and he
00:21:18
would have been identified immediately. >> Yeah. It was just the fact that it was
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too >> Yeah. >> too early on. Now, it would have been pretty helpful for investigators to
00:21:25
identify Bailey's body at the time it was found, >> but that doesn't really mean that they
00:21:30
would have found the killer. >> Yeah. >> Um, in addition to not knowing the identity of the victim, they also had
00:21:36
literally no forensic evidence and no leads. >> In fact, just about the only thing they
00:21:41
did have was a very strong suspicion that the Moore case and the two identified cases were all the work of
00:21:46
the same killer. That's literally at this point, >> which is nothing really. >> Yeah. And they had barely any time to
00:21:52
even like sit here and ponder on this. Um because what April 22nd, investigators received a call about
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several body parts having been found in locations around Wilmington. >> And this is just like month to month.
00:22:05
>> Yeah. This is literally like days at this point. So, they arrive at the scene
00:22:09
and detectives learn that, as had been described to them over the phone, locals had indeed found one leg, two arms, a
00:22:16
torso, and human skin had been found in four green plastic bags on Terminal Island, not far from where the second
00:22:24
victim was discovered. >> Human skin? >> Yeah. >> Just a bag of human skin. >> Human skin.
00:22:32
>> Yep. >> Holy [ __ ] dude. According to the press, quote, "The torso, that of a young man,
00:22:37
had been mutilated. A few days later, on the morning of April 25th, the victim's
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other leg was discovered in a dumpster behind a bar just off the Pacific Coast Highway. Unlike the other limbs, it had
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been wrapped in cloth and placed in the trash." 2 days after the leg was discovered, the victim's head was
00:22:55
discovered in a paper bag by an employee loading paper waste on a conveyor belt in the Pioneer Paper Stock Company.
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>> Jesus. Because the company processes paper waste from all over the LA area, there was no way to know where the head
00:23:09
had originally been discarded. >> Yeah. >> Nevertheless, investigators were like
00:23:14
99% sure that the head belonged to the dismembered victim found on Terminal Island. Cuz
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>> you would think, >> you know, what are the odds? >> Yeah. >> According to the medical examiner, all
00:23:23
the limbs, quote, were severed with a dull knife. Oh, what the [ __ ] This is like horror movie [ __ ] I was just
00:23:32
thinking that >> um as with the previous two victims, investigators were unable to identify
00:23:38
this dismembered victim and the remains are still unidentified to this day. >> You have to another one
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>> that's awful that that's still unidentified that person is. And you have to think too
00:23:50
>> the enjoyment that this person must be like the killer must be getting out of this
00:23:56
because think about how long we've talked about it taking to dissect a body with a good knife. Like that's a project
00:24:02
that's going to take some time. >> But a dull >> a dull knife. >> Yeah, >> that's going to take
00:24:08
>> a long time. >> Days I would think. >> A long time. And they knew at this point
00:24:14
they were like this is definitely the work of the same killer. I mean this is just
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>> this person is depraved. Now, whenever there are multiple victims discovered over kind of a short period of time,
00:24:25
investigators obviously have to consider whether they should even disclose these
00:24:30
connections to the public because that might cause panic. >> Yeah. This was particularly true in
00:24:35
Southern California in the 1970s where residents had also kind of already been traumatized by multiple serial killers
00:24:42
like Herbert Mullen, Ed Keer, the Zodiac Killer. Mhm. But with the discovery of the fourth body, investigators were
00:24:49
like, "We got to let the public know." Like, "You can't hold that. You need to be vigilant."
00:24:53
>> Yeah. They were like, "You know what? We're pretty sure there's a killer operating in the area, but this time
00:24:57
preying on young men." >> Yeah. >> In a press conference held after the discovery of the body parts, an LAPD
00:25:03
spokesperson told reporters, quote, "There may be more than one sex maniac loose in the area, but they had yet to
00:25:09
identify a motive for the murders and had no suspects." Now, just to go in, you know, broadly
00:25:16
speaking, the murder of gay men or men who authorities just assumed to be gay because they did a lot of that back
00:25:22
then. >> Yeah. >> Have not been pursued with the same kind of enthusiasm as straight victims or,
00:25:27
you know, like there's the missing white woman >> syndrome >> syndrome that happens. Also,
00:25:32
investigations into the murder of gay men have historically been kind of influenced by a lot of assumptions about
00:25:40
not the killer, but the victims. >> Yeah. And a lot of biases go into it a lot of time. It's just fact. Like you
00:25:47
can look back on it. We've covered a lot of cases like this. >> Ronald Dominique,
00:25:50
>> the Bayou Strangler we talked about. It's the same kind of thing. There's a lot of assumptions that go into it. a
00:25:55
lot of well whatever they got themselves into the it's the same thing that happens to sex workers a lot you know
00:26:01
>> and Ronald Dominique was before the or was after this think about the bias that
00:26:05
was going on in the 70s I'm sure >> yeah and the thing is with the victims in this case they represent when we go
00:26:12
through them various sexual identities across the spectrum like they're not locked into one
00:26:19
>> um I mean most people do you know >> yeah they weren't all gay they weren't all bisexual at least a couple of them
00:26:25
had were definitely didn't have any interest, you know, sexual interest in men at all.
00:26:30
>> Um, so weren't part of that spectrum. Um, but when it came to the four bodies
00:26:34
they now believe to be the work of the same killer, detectives Bill Tines and George Troop were pretty confident that
00:26:40
the victims, and I quote, >> no, >> had a one night stand with a boyfriend and things got out of hand.
00:26:49
Four of them and also got out of hand. Got out of hand. There's also just no evidence to literally no indication
00:26:58
>> whatsoever. First of all, you don't have a one night stand with a boyfriend. That's that doesn't usually work that
00:27:04
way. Those two things are usually mutually exclusive. >> All four of them had a one night stand
00:27:08
with a boyfriend. >> What? Two only two of them are identified. So, so far and so half of
00:27:14
them you don't know, but you're saying they had a one night stand with a boyfriend. And I'm sorry, things got out
00:27:19
of hand. Like I'm sorry, one of them was dismembered with a dull knife. >> There was a bag of human skin socks.
00:27:26
Yeah. In parts where they shouldn't. Like >> there was a bag of human skin part of
00:27:32
this case. >> That's beyond getting out of hand. >> Jesus Christ. >> Yeah. It just shows that that kind of
00:27:38
like flippant like just whatever. They had a nightstand and things. Wo. >> It's such a lack of tact that you're
00:27:44
like, who lets you talk to people? >> Who lets you say things that are going to be written down for?
00:27:51
>> Yeah. >> These are young guys. Like literally out of high school kind of young with like
00:27:56
And it's like [ __ ] Like you're just like flippantly being like, well, whatever. I don't even if that was the
00:28:02
case. Even if that was the case that it was a one night stand gone wrong, so they deserve it. Like what does that
00:28:08
mean? >> Well, and it's just so funny. that we shouldn't investigate it as far. No,
00:28:13
someone still did this to them and should be locked up for it. >> We're just going to be like, "Oh, yeah,
00:28:19
it's fine. >> It's the things getting out of hand for me." >> What's nice to me is that that theory
00:28:25
completely shat in their face very quickly. I'd fell apart on July 30th, 1973, when the body of 20-year-old
00:28:33
Ronald Weeb was discovered at the 7th Street exit near Seal Beach, almost exactly where Eddie Moore's body had
00:28:40
been discovered. >> Oh, okay. >> According to his mother, Ronald had left her house in um Los Alamidos around 8:30
00:28:47
p.m. on July 27th and was headed to the sportsman's lodge to have some drinks with friends. He was last seen at the
00:28:54
bar a little before 2:00 a.m. when he said goodbye to his friends and left. >> Okay. That night, Ronald had driven to
00:28:59
the bar, but got a flat tire along the way and parked near a tire store a short distance from the lodge. So, it's
00:29:06
assumed that he began walking or hitchhiking in order to get home. >> Mhm. >> Uh the following morning, when his
00:29:11
sister became worried and went out looking for him, she found his car parked near the tire store, the tire
00:29:16
obviously flat. Now, Ronald's body was discovered 2 days um 2 days later just off the highway. And to investigators on
00:29:24
the case, everything looked pretty familiar to what they had been seeing. Like Edward Moore, Ronald was fully
00:29:30
dressed, except he was missing his belt, shoes, and one sock. >> His pants were unbuttoned, and he was
00:29:37
exposed. There was also a quarter inch wide ligature mark around his neck. There was also superficial scratches all
00:29:44
over exposed parts of his body. He had clearly been pushed out of a moving vehicle. Um, an autopsy was performed
00:29:49
that day and it basically just confirmed the link between him and the other victims. Ronald's cause of death was
00:29:56
asphixxiation from ligature strangle strangulation and the Emmy estimated that he had been killed approximately 2
00:30:02
days earlier. So, it all lined up. >> Yeah. >> Um, that would place his time of death a
00:30:07
short time after he left the sportsman's lodge. Um, they determined that he had also been hit with a blunt instrument at
00:30:15
least two or three times hard enough to fracture his skull. >> Jesus. >> And there was ligature marks on his
00:30:20
wrists and ankles. This this next part really just disturbs me. The way the blood had settled
00:30:29
suggested that he had been suspended at the time of death. >> Wow. Suspended in the air. I don't think
00:30:37
we've talked about that since we talked about um Willie Pikton. >> Yeah, >> that's another [ __ ] level.
00:30:45
>> Yeah. >> of sadistic to determine that he had been suspended in the air when he was
00:30:50
killed is >> I don't know why. It's it's something about that part of it. It's all
00:30:57
obviously I don't think I need to say it, but >> it's [ __ ] you hear and [ __ ] you see in a
00:31:02
horror movie. >> It just doesn't feel like real life. Like you're like people do that to other
00:31:06
people? There's poor people. >> It's awful. >> Who is this [ __ ] dude Randy? >> You know, like some of the other
00:31:12
victims, there was evidence of sexual assault and the sock was found where it was found with the other ones. Um, this
00:31:18
time though, there was little evidence of anti-mortem torture or post-mortem mutilation. Um, there was no drugs found
00:31:25
in his system. His blood alcohol level was 0.02, far below the legal limit. Um, one of the more troubling aspects of the
00:31:33
crime scene was the position and location of where the body was found. It was obvious that the body had been
00:31:40
dragged or dropped on the road, but it was discovered laying right next to an ice plant, which is a kind of succulent
00:31:47
apparently common in California to Tines and Troop, which this is interesting. It
00:31:52
seemed very unlikely that a body pushed from a me moving vehicle would have landed in exactly that spot, not
00:31:58
disturbing the plant in any way. >> Yeah. >> They then considered that the killer may
00:32:03
have drove to the location and carried the body from the car, but we he would have had to move very quickly.
00:32:08
>> Yeah. >> And even though this man only um he only weighed about 130 lb, that much dead
00:32:15
weight would still be very difficult for one person to carry. So, in fact, it seemed more likely and
00:32:21
like alarmingly so that the killer had some help moving the body. >> This is when they first said, "Wait a
00:32:27
second. >> This doesn't just happen one person." >> I still have no idea. >> I still
00:32:33
>> during their investigation, Ty and Troop learned a lot about Ronald Weeb. Um, and
00:32:38
all of it seriously undermined their initial must be an angry one night stand boyfriend theory. At the time of his
00:32:45
death, Ronald was living with his father after becoming estranged from his wife.
00:32:49
>> Obviously, gay men can marry women. It has happened. It still happens. >> But in this case, he had become
00:32:56
estranged from his wife because he was having an affair with another woman. >> So, he was a straight man.
00:33:00
>> Yeah. And he was dating this other woman at the time of his death. >> Okay. >> So, he was presenting very straight. Um,
00:33:07
also no one who knew Ronald had even the slightest suspicion or inkling that he had any kind of romantic interest in
00:33:13
men. >> Okay? You know, and nothing about his life suggested that. >> It just wasn't the case here.
00:33:18
>> The details of his personal life changed the investigation a lot. Uh, previously
00:33:23
investigators assumed the killer was preying on members of the gay community or on what they were calling hustlers
00:33:29
who lived on the margins of the so of society. >> Oh my god. >> Yeah. Like people must be drug addicts.
00:33:35
must be people, you know, hustling and putting themselves in danger essentially.
00:33:39
>> It's crazy how much people hate gay people. Yeah. >> Like it's actually wild.
00:33:43
>> When you sit and you hear it and you think about it, it's like it has nothing
00:33:48
to do with you. So why do you give a [ __ ] >> That's the thing. >> I say it every time we cover a case like
00:33:54
this, but every time it just echoes in my brain. Why do you give a [ __ ] How does it affect you? All right. It
00:34:02
[ __ ] doesn't. It literally does not. >> It's so like gay panic to me is insane.
00:34:07
>> It's the weirdest way to live your life to be like worried about what consenting
00:34:13
adults are doing >> cuz all you like I literally don't care. >> It says so much more about you to be
00:34:19
freaked out and like up in arms about gay people than it does about the the gay person
00:34:23
>> people just living their lives >> cuz it's like y'all this is just about who we sleep with. So that's real
00:34:28
[ __ ] weird that you're that worried about that. >> Who gives a [ __ ] In fact, there was
00:34:32
while I was researching this case, there was like some quote from one of these investigators
00:34:38
and I brought it up to Mikey and Ash because I was like, "Am I crazy or does this just not matter?" And it was
00:34:44
talking about one of the victims and it was like, "Oh, and this person that they
00:34:46
interviewed, they had a sexual relationship, >> but it never made I was looking further
00:34:52
into it and I was like, >> why did they even like why would this matter?" >> Like I was like, this isn't pertinent
00:34:57
information. Am I being crazy or like it's too it's like kind of like a microaggression to be like oh like
00:35:03
>> gay people sleep with a like have a lot of relationships you know it's like no
00:35:07
>> yeah cuz it's like you you hear about interviews all the time they interview family friends acquaintances all that
00:35:13
stuff >> very little I mean I don't care straight gay by anything I don't care if those
00:35:20
two people slept together once or twice cuz it doesn't have an effect >> as long as they're if are they becoming
00:35:26
a suspect Sure, that might become pertinent. Absolutely. But if they're not, why the [ __ ] do I care if they're
00:35:33
just giving information about their their friend who maybe they had a relationship with,
00:35:37
>> but that's why it happens. It should be like a gay person will sleep with anybody.
00:35:42
>> Yeah. It's like that's the thing. It just doesn't >> and they have so many partners like,
00:35:46
"Shut the [ __ ] up." >> Yeah. So, yeah. It's just It's very strange to me. It's strange behavior.
00:35:51
It's strange that it's still a thing. >> It's It just grinds my gears. >> Yeah. That's the thing. It's like it's
00:35:56
very infuriating >> cuz it's like no these are just people who were murdered and we can just
00:36:01
investigate it as if these are people who were murdered >> and it's like I know we're talking about
00:36:05
something from the '7s so obviously it's like so different but it's really not because these are still things that that
00:36:12
that the community faces today and it's so irritating. >> Yeah, absolutely. Um, like we should
00:36:17
just investigate deaths of humans the same across humans, you know, to make sure that the people who are killing
00:36:24
humans are are not just flossing around. >> Keep your weird comments to yourself.
00:36:27
>> Yeah. Exactly. >> Um, so again, they were assuming that they this was, you know, victims were
00:36:34
only part of the gay community or like they said quote unquote hustlers who lived on the margins of the community.
00:36:41
>> Truly unreal. But now they had to consider the potential victim pool was much larger, including any young man who
00:36:49
seemed at least even slightly susceptible to whatever roost the killer was using to get his victims alone. Cuz
00:36:55
remember, he might not be luring them in being like, "Hey, want to fuck?" >> Yeah.
00:37:00
>> I think that's the assumption that these like idiots were making at first. They
00:37:03
were just like, "Well, that has to be it." And it's like, "No, maybe he just offered them a ride."
00:37:07
>> Yeah. And then did awful. guy had like Ronald had a flat tire. >> Yeah. >> He could have easily been lured in with,
00:37:15
"Hey, I can drive you to this place or I can drop you off down the road." Like, >> it's just wild. Unfortunately, again,
00:37:21
there was very little evidence collected at this dump site, and no one had seen or heard from Ronald since he left the
00:37:27
bar that that night. So, the case was almost kind of cold from the start. >> Wow. with nothing to go on,
00:37:32
investigators had to just kind of like wait until the next victim was discovered, which is the most horrifying
00:37:38
thing I've ever heard. >> Yeah. >> Um, and this would take at least 6 months, actually. But detectives were
00:37:44
pretty sure it was going to happen. Like even through that 6 months, they were like, he's not going to stop.
00:37:49
>> It's actually crazy that it took 6 months after this whole everything you've said happened so quickly.
00:37:53
>> But now when we look back, that scorecard that he had, quote unquote scorecard,
00:37:57
>> victims in between, >> there might have been more in between that just weren't linked to him. and
00:38:01
like maybe not even >> maybe he traveled, maybe he went different places. Like who knows?
00:38:05
>> That's so scary. >> Now, on December 29th, 1973, hikers in the San Bernardino Mountains discovered
00:38:11
the body of 23-year-old Cal State art student Vincent Cruz Mestus in a ravine near the base of the mountain. It was
00:38:18
immediately clear to investigators that Vincent was killed by the same man. He was fully dressed except for his shoes
00:38:25
and he was missing one sock. According to the medical examiner, the cause of death was asphyxiation. But according to
00:38:31
the medical examiner, the cause of death was asphyxiation. And like the others, the victim had been tortured before
00:38:38
being killed and his body was mutilated after death, which that was a little different from the other ones. Um, in
00:38:44
addition to the sock that had been found, um, there was, and this is awful, there was a pencil or large toothpick
00:38:51
pushed into his urethra. >> Oh my god. which the medical examiner believed happened before death.
00:38:59
Oh my god. His hands had also been cut off and placed into plastic bags while he was alive or
00:39:09
>> the wounds had been covered with plastic bags. >> Oh, the hands have never been found by
00:39:16
the way. >> Oh my god. Um yeah, also the medical examiner said that um in addition to the
00:39:23
various injuries, it looked like the killer had shaved his face and head after he had murdered him. Ew. Ew.
00:39:29
Because that's so creepy. >> Yeah. >> There like what is the pathology behind that? Like when people when killers will
00:39:36
wash their victims or set them up or dress them. It's so >> there's many different pathologies
00:39:43
for each different thing. It's I hate it. Uh, according to friends, um, Vincent was, you know, he was young. He
00:39:50
was like adorable. He was slightly naive and was known to be bisexual. >> Well, he was young.
00:39:56
>> We're all [ __ ] naive when we're young. At 23, I was the most naive I've ever been.
00:40:00
>> Exactly. In fact, Vincent had been picked up by police a few times for um sex work around the apartment he shared
00:40:07
with a roommate. So, it didn't seem unreasonable that he would go off with a stranger. That's what they were kind of
00:40:12
linking that to. Yeah. Particularly if there was some transaction that had happened.
00:40:17
>> Vincent was last seen by his roommate 3 days before his body was found. >> According to the roommate, Vincent had
00:40:22
said he was quote going into the mountains to do some drawing. >> Oh. >> And he had taken his sketch pad and
00:40:28
pencils with him. >> Stop it. He just wanted to get away and relax. >> Exactly. Those items weren't found with
00:40:34
the body and have never been found. Um, in fact, there was very little evidence collected in that ravine and nothing
00:40:39
that would point to the killer. Like he was not leaving anything at these scenes.
00:40:45
>> No. >> Now, nearly half of all murder victims are killed by someone they know.
00:40:50
>> Yeah. >> Um, but the rate is all like very much higher for women. >> Um, these are the cases that are pretty
00:40:57
easily and eventually solved because there's some evidence that's going to lead to that connection. You know,
00:41:02
>> in cases where the victim's killed by a stranger, though, it is so much [ __ ]
00:41:07
harder than anyone. >> There's no connection. It can be anyone in the entire world
00:41:11
>> and he's not leaving anything. >> So the Exactly. So those kind of cases almost always are solved because of
00:41:18
luck. >> Yeah. >> Just sheer luck. >> No, it's true. >> Um and in the case of the murdered men
00:41:22
in Southern California, investigators just weren't having that luck. It wasn't happening. They were getting left
00:41:27
nothing. There was no connection between these guys, so there was nothing to go on.
00:41:32
>> Yeah. >> Now, because there was similarities in all the cases, investigators were
00:41:36
confident that Vincent's case was connected to the other killed men. But whoever was killing these men again was
00:41:43
not leaving any witnesses, any evidence, nothing. And 6 months passed with pretty
00:41:48
little progress in the case again. Then on June 2nd, 1974, the body of 20-year-old Malcolm Little was
00:41:55
discovered sitting propped up against a mosquite tree along Highway 86 just south of Sultan Sea.
00:42:02
>> Oh. >> Now, despite being more than 150 miles from the area where the other bodies
00:42:08
were found, 150 miles away, >> very far, >> his body bore many of the signatures and
00:42:15
mutilation investigators had come to recognize from this killer. He had been strangled. His genitals had been cut
00:42:21
off. This is awful. There was a mosquite branch inserted into his rectum. Oh. Now, at first, investigators questioned
00:42:32
whether Malcolm Little's killer was the same man who' killed the others in LA because of the the distance.
00:42:38
>> Yeah. >> But as soon as they started interviewing friends and family, everything started
00:42:42
piecing together. Malcolm was an out-of work truck driver from Selma, Alabama, who just arrived in California a week
00:42:49
earlier. >> Oh my god. >> To visit his brother in Long Beach, not far from where the killer usually
00:42:54
hunted. >> And he was just visiting his brother. >> But not long after he had arrived in
00:42:59
California, his girlfriend called from Alabama, pissed that he had left without taking her with him.
00:43:05
>> Oh. >> Uh, yeah. So, the girlfriend demanded that he come back to Alabama and they
00:43:09
could go to California together >> when he was on his way. and Little explained that he didn't have enough
00:43:13
money to get a bus ticket back and two additional tickets to get them back to California, but she was like, "No, you
00:43:19
got to come back and get me." So, he was like, "Okay." So, he agreed. >> So, on May 27th, Bill, who's Malcolm's
00:43:26
um brother, dropped him at the intersection of the Garden Grove and Santa Ana Freeways, where he intended to
00:43:32
hitchhike his way back to Alabama cuz remember, it's the 70s. >> Yeah. Everybody was doing it. This was
00:43:37
the last time Bill saw his brother alive. That's so sad that he was so committed.
00:43:41
>> Yeah, he was going back. Yeah. >> Malcolm Little's cause of death was determined to be asphixxiation from
00:43:47
strangulation and the majority of the mutilation had, I guess thankfully, occurred postmortem.
00:43:53
After identifying this victim and verifying some of the information, Malcolm Little was added to the growing
00:43:58
list of victims. But if detectives were thinking that, you know, something about
00:44:03
this latest victim was going to break the case, they were very disappointed. >> Yeah. Uh like the other cases, no clues
00:44:11
found at the place he was found. >> Nothing. >> Um he had only been in the state for a
00:44:15
little, you know, under a week at that point, too. So there were no leads, nothing that was going to point to any
00:44:21
kind of connection. >> This time, investigators wouldn't have to wait long, though, for another victim
00:44:26
to be discovered. On June 22nd, just a few weeks after Malcolm Little's body was discovered, the nude body of
00:44:33
18-year-old Roger Dickerson was found at the end of a dead-end road in Laguna Beach.
00:44:38
>> Oh. >> Near a private golf club, >> which is a very affluent area. >> Yeah, I'm sure we all know.
00:44:44
>> Yeah, exactly. Dickerson had been sexually assaulted. There were bite marks on his genitals.
00:44:50
Um, and his cause of death was asphixxiation from strangulation. This time though there was something new that
00:44:56
hadn't been a factor in the other cases. In addition to a small amount of alcohol
00:45:01
in his system, there was also the presence of dazipam which is the generic form of valium.
00:45:06
>> Mhm. >> Once they identified this victim who turned out to be US Marine, a US Marine
00:45:12
stationed at Camp Pendleton. >> Oh. >> Detectives got to work interviewing, you know, associates, friends, family. And
00:45:19
this is the second person from Camp Pendleton. >> Second one. According to his fellow
00:45:22
Marines at the base, Dickerson had just been granted liberty, which is an authorized absence from the base, I
00:45:28
guess it's called. Like you can go out on your own, >> um for a short period, and he wanted to
00:45:32
visit Los Angeles. On the night he went missing, um he and several other Marines
00:45:37
had went out to Buds Cove Bar in Sanh San Clemente where he told them of his plan to go to LA for a few days.
00:45:43
>> Yeah. >> According to those friends, he had found someone to drive him to LA, but he
00:45:48
didn't mention that person's name. M that was the last time any of them saw him alive. A little over a month later
00:45:54
on August 3rd, another body was discovered. >> Jeez. This time found in an oil field in
00:46:00
Long Beach. >> Oh, that's chilling. >> That morning, oil field workers arrived for their shift and discovered the fully
00:46:07
clothed body of 25-year-old Thomas Lee. Like some of the more recent victims, Lee's body had been dumped in a less
00:46:14
obvious location cuz before they were like right in the open. >> Yeah. It's like shock value.
00:46:20
>> Yeah. And he was placed at the bottom of a steep incline, though clearly still in
00:46:23
an area where it would be found kind of quickly, but still a little further out.
00:46:27
>> Yeah. >> Lee had a high blood alcohol level at the time of his death, and the cause of
00:46:31
death was listed as a asphixia from um a strangulation. >> Upon further investigation, detectives
00:46:38
learned that Thomas Lee worked as a waiter at Princess Louise, which was a popular San Pedro restaurant. He was
00:46:44
also a regular um at at area bars like Lil Lucy in Long Beach and The Diamond in Wilmington.
00:46:51
>> Both areas were places where the killer had found other victims. Lee was also
00:46:56
known among the the gay community as one of the more active cruisers in the area.
00:47:02
>> And they a lot of people they talked to said he was he was a one night stand guy. He was he had a lot of
00:47:08
>> a lot of friends, you know. >> He was hanging out. >> Yeah, he was hanging out at the back. He
00:47:11
>> was living. uh that is, you know, he's something he's allowed to do. He's a consenting adult and as he's doing it
00:47:17
with other consenting adults. >> Live your damn life. >> But unfortunately, this would make him a
00:47:21
perfect target for this killer. Right. >> The last time anyone had seen Lee was around closing time the night before his
00:47:27
body was discovered on August 3rd. >> Investigators had barely time to blow their nose when on August 12th, another
00:47:37
body was found. >> Jesus, >> this is days. >> Yeah. >> Hours. Really? Yeah. >> This time, this body was found at the
00:47:44
bottom of an embankment off the Ozo Parkway in Orange County. Although the victim, 23-year-old Gary Wayne Cordova,
00:47:51
is considered to be one of the victims in this case, it's a little confusing why exactly. According to his friends,
00:47:58
Gary had said he was moving from Pasadena and was going to hitchhike to Oceanside.
00:48:02
>> Mhm. >> He was fully dressed when he was found. I think this is probably why they
00:48:06
started to connect him. He didn't have any shoes or socks on. >> Okay. and his cause of death was
00:48:11
determined to be acute intoxication from drugs and alcohol, >> specifically dasopam.
00:48:17
>> So maybe from the one of the last victims. >> It's believed apparently that like this
00:48:21
is the theory that they came up with that connects him to this. They believe that the killer picked Gary up while he
00:48:27
was hitchhiking cuz he was >> and intended to assault and kill him like the others, but Gary began
00:48:32
overdosing before that could happen. >> Oh, >> so that is a possibility. He is counted
00:48:36
among the victims. >> Interesting. Uh, the final victim discovered that year was found on
00:48:41
November 29th. It was shortly after 400 p.m. when Irvine police received a call about a body found near the San Diego
00:48:49
freeway. When they got there, investigators found the body of 19-year-old James Dale Reeves about 25
00:48:56
ft from the road, not far. Um, he was clothed in just a blood soaked t-shirt and was laying face down between two
00:49:03
trees just a few feet from the rest of his clothing. All of which were soaked in blood. Although the medical examiner
00:49:10
wasn't able to identify a cause of death. >> Oh. >> He suspected suffocation. Also,
00:49:18
when the body was discovered, the killer had inserted a 4ft tree branch. >> 4 foot?
00:49:26
>> Yes. a 4foot tree branch. Yeah, I told you this is just horrific in every way. It gets like it gets worse
00:49:39
and worse. How is that even possible? >> Yeah, it's awful. And he's like, again, he's
00:49:46
19 years old. These are like kids. >> That's that's like beyond brutal, >> you know. Now, according to his family,
00:49:53
James had asked to borrow the family car on the afternoon of November 27th. He drove down to the newly formed Gay
00:50:00
Community Church in Costa Mesa, where he had Thanksgiving dinner with other members of the community.
00:50:06
>> Then he drove over to Ripples, which is a popular bar in the Belmont Shores neighborhood. When investigators
00:50:12
searched the area, they found the car was still in the parking lot of Ripples, indicating that James had been picked up
00:50:17
at the bar. Yeah. likely by the killer who dumped his body on the highway. >> It will never not be strange to hear
00:50:25
what people do in their last hours and to to picture that in your head. >> Yeah. You just had Thanksgiving with
00:50:30
your friends at the newly formed church for your community, >> right? >> And you have no idea after celebrating
00:50:37
what was probably like a nice we just formed this church together, we have this community, this is our Thanksgiving
00:50:44
together. And then to have this happen and just to think like obviously >> nobody has any idea that this is
00:50:51
happening and they're thinking about their plans for the next couple hours or their plans for the next
00:50:55
>> couple days. >> It will never it will never cease to like [ __ ] me up. >> It will never.
00:51:01
>> Now in their statement to the press, investigators hedged their bets on this one. this they said. So JJ um detective
00:51:10
JJ Hurlbert told reporters, "We're not necessarily saying he's homosexual, but he certainly prays on homosexuals and
00:51:17
engages in homosexual activities with his victims." So they're like, "We're not like saying the killer's gay. We're
00:51:24
not saying he's not gay cuz he sexually assaults these guys." So like, but like >> wow. I just I'm like way ahead on that
00:51:33
one. Like we're not saying he's necessarily gay, but like he might be. It's like, thank you. That's so helpful.
00:51:39
>> I'm not sure about all that. >> Thank you for that. >> Now, after so many murders and so little
00:51:44
evidence, investigators were looking for any help, which I understand that they have nothing to go on. Um, and so they
00:51:51
started turning to the gay community to be like, "Can you help us identify who this could be because he might be
00:51:57
praying in these certain areas?" But the gay community was very reluctant to speak with detectives for obvious
00:52:04
reasons. >> JJ Hbert said, "We can't find anyone who can put the victim and the killer
00:52:08
together. However, we feel there must have been cases of someone being picked up by this guy who got away and just
00:52:14
hasn't come forward." Which is very possible. Yeah. But they might feel, you know, they might feel like ashamed about
00:52:22
it. They might feel scared. They might feel like they're they're going to be pinned for it for somehow or in trouble
00:52:28
somehow. >> Yeah. >> Cuz it's not like they haven't seen >> this happen a million times to their
00:52:33
community. So, of course, they're not going to run and be like, "Let me help." >> Yeah. Now, unfortunately for the
00:52:38
detectives, you know, and the other investigators, they had just formed a newly formed task force for this, but no
00:52:44
one came forward with any suspicious members of the community or providing tips on anything that they had seen,
00:52:50
>> which also there's a there's a possibility no one saw anything that they figured was worth noting, right, or
00:52:55
had been picked up by this guy and let out. He might not let anyone go. So for George Troop and the other
00:53:02
detectives on the case, it was obvious these were the victims of the same killer obviously, but it seemed
00:53:07
impossible that someone could commit so many murders and not leave any evidence behind or be seen by anybody ever.
00:53:17
>> Equally frustrating was the fact that while they were struggling to make progress, the body count was just rising
00:53:23
and less time was happening between discovery victims. >> Yeah. So, the new year comes and they
00:53:29
immediately get a call for a newly discovered body in the killer's hunting ground.
00:53:34
>> Oh no. >> This time, a teenage boy, 17-year-old John Williams Laris was last seen
00:53:41
boarding a bus carrying a pair of roller skates. >> Oh, >> yeah. The day before his nude body was
00:53:47
discovered, January 4th, 1975. He was floating in the surf off Sunset Beach. Oh. According to the bus driver,
00:53:55
Jon got off the bus at a stop near Ripples Bar, where previous victim James Reeves disappeared from a month earlier.
00:54:02
Like many of the other victims, Laris had been sexually assaulted, and there was a foreign object, which was later
00:54:08
identified as a wooden surveyor stake inserted into his anus, and he had been strangled to death.
00:54:15
>> Jesus Christ. 17 years old. >> 17 years old. In addition to the discovery of another victim, what was
00:54:23
probably most alarming was that there were drag marks in the sand where the victim where the killer had dragged the
00:54:29
body to the water and alongside those >> were two sets of footprints. >> Oh, [ __ ] that.
00:54:36
>> Yep. As some investigators had suspected already, the killer likely had an accomplice.
00:54:41
>> Yeah. I mean, at this point, that's just a fact. >> At the very least, someone was helping
00:54:46
him dispose of bodies. >> Yeah. you know, >> an I mean, that's an accomplice. Yeah.
00:54:50
Unfortunately, detectives had barely started to even contemplate the implications of this, that there's a
00:54:56
second set of footprints. Less than two weeks later, another body is discovered.
00:55:00
>> It almost makes, and obviously, this is not the case, but it makes you feel like
00:55:03
with two people, it would be easier to find them. You know, >> you would think, I don't know why it
00:55:07
just more people to [ __ ] up, you know, exactly. >> Humans are fallible. So, you would think
00:55:12
with two of them, it's >> two people to turn on each other. >> Yeah. On the morning of January 17th,
00:55:17
construction workers arriving to a job site next to the Golden Sales Hotel off the Pacific Coast Highway discovered the
00:55:24
body of 21-year-old Craig Jonitis. In this case, he was fully clothed except he was missing his shoes and socks.
00:55:31
>> There was a dark red liature mark around his neck indicating that he'd been strangled, but there was very little
00:55:37
evidence found at the scene. Nothing that could help them trace anything back. And despite the lack of forensic
00:55:42
evidence or witness statements for Troop and the other detectives, they were they
00:55:47
were like there's a profile that can be taken out of this at the very least, >> right?
00:55:52
>> With three exceptions, all of the victims were gay or had some sexual interest in men that was like discovered
00:55:58
in their background. So, it was fair to assume they'd gone with the killer willingly perhaps. Yeah. Like at least
00:56:04
some of the time. >> And he definitely had a type. Young white men with a medium build. They all
00:56:10
were. It was also obvious that rather than cover up the crimes, the killer appeared to be leaving his victims in
00:56:16
places where they would be discovered by either police or the public. >> Mhm. You know, on the side of the
00:56:22
highway, public beaches, like that kind of thing, near golf courses, >> right? >> During the investigation, something else
00:56:28
occurred to Troopines that may have revealed something about the killer's background. Actually, in many of the
00:56:33
cases, a sock had been inserted into the victim's anus. >> Yeah. Similarly, many of the victims
00:56:39
were discovered with white tissue either on their body or inserted into their nostrils. Oh, at first they initially
00:56:48
took this, they didn't even reveal this at first and then later they when they did they talked about how this they
00:56:53
believe this could have been some kind of like you know fetish >> or some kind of signature
00:56:59
>> but eventually troop made an interesting association with this. It turned out
00:57:04
that plugging orififices in that manner was something commonly done in the military in circumstances where a
00:57:11
serviceman has been killed but won't be immediately transferred to a hospital or
00:57:15
morg because investigators believe the killer had used this to keep the bodies from purging while they were being
00:57:22
transported to a dump site. >> I don't I don't It's apparently like a thing. Okay.
00:57:34
>> Yeah. So, it gave them at least something that they could at least I know there's no words for it, but it
00:57:39
gave them something that they could touch upon to say >> maybe he knows of this practice, which
00:57:44
would indicate >> and it narrows down a little. Yeah. It's it's that's literally all they have.
00:57:50
That's literally >> all they have. >> Holy [ __ ] And I also I feel like either way it's sexually rooted in nature. Like
00:57:58
he's I think he's getting like for him he's getting some kind of kicks from that. Yeah, for sure. It's I'm
00:58:04
interested in like the tissue in the nose. >> Yeah, that's interesting. That's an
00:58:08
interesting one. >> But the other >> Yeah. >> is different. >> So to the local investigators on the
00:58:12
case, the idea of a killer, you know, systematically choosing, killing, and dumping victims was a relatively new and
00:58:19
foreign concept actually. Um it's not that California obviously didn't have its fair share of, you know, serial
00:58:25
killers. Um but it was the way that this killer was behaving that was new to them. Like, you know, they had Charles
00:58:33
Manson who like reveled in the adoration of his cult members. Zodiac Killer sought fame more than anything else.
00:58:40
>> This killer seemed to be pretty highly intelligent in the worst kind of way. >> And knew exactly what he was doing. And
00:58:48
maybe he didn't know why he was doing it, but he knew what he was doing. He was a hunter. He was getting more
00:58:53
skilled each time. and he was leaving nothing. While getting the attention, he was also
00:59:01
leaving absolutely nothing for them to go on. Knowing that they wouldn't catch their killer without some kind of
00:59:07
insight into the psychology here, the task force s reached out to the FBI and uh the behavioral analysis unit was
00:59:15
doing at this time like super innovative work in studying killers and other violent predators. Um go watch Mind
00:59:22
Hunter. Yes. Uh, in his profile of the killer, FBI agent Howard Tetton categorized the suspect as a lust
00:59:29
killer, someone who's whose periodic murders were usually committed to satisfy a sexual urge.
00:59:35
>> Yeah. >> Another analyst on the team, Dr. E. Manel Patterson from the California
00:59:40
College of Medicine, described the killer in a way. They got something out of these profiles, but this is a wild
00:59:50
description. >> Okay, I'm getting ready. described the killer as a man who quote desires to
00:59:54
feel masculine and veriral but does not feel masculine. He vicariously identifies with the masculine image of
01:00:01
the victim. Sod sodomizing the victim affirms that he is a potent aggressive verile heterosexual male. So he's
01:00:09
essentially saying this is a guy who hates himself, >> okay, >> and wants to feel masculine but isn't.
01:00:15
>> So he's like taking masculinity from his victims. >> He's kind of assuming that this is a gay
01:00:20
killer as well. So, he's like putting it in there that like this is obviously a gay man who doesn't feel masculine and
01:00:27
feels masculine by taking masculinity away from other men. >> Okay. >> Which is just like a It's a strange way
01:00:35
of saying it. >> Yeah. >> Um it's got a lot of assumptions in there. >> Yeah. Lots of implications there.
01:00:41
>> Some some kind of bizarre way of looking at it. >> Frankly, it wasn't as bad as I was
01:00:45
expecting. >> No, it could have been way worse. There was parts of it that were worse that I I
01:00:50
don't choose to say. >> Love that. >> But we did. What I wanted to take from this is like from those two different
01:00:57
analyses, we got a few things from them. One, there was likely more victims than
01:01:02
were known to investigators, >> which we confirm later, >> which we do. Two, the killer felt
01:01:07
absolutely no sense of guilt or remorse because he's a lost killer. He doesn't give a [ __ ]
01:01:11
>> Yep. >> Three, it was highly unlikely he would stop on his own valition. >> Yeah. No. I mean, clearly not.
01:01:16
>> Yeah, he can't stop. The urges are too much. Now, the insight provided by the
01:01:21
profilers and psychologists was of some value, obviously, to the task force, but
01:01:26
it didn't really do anything to point them in the direction of a [ __ ] suspect, which is what they've been
01:01:31
trying to do this whole time. >> Yeah. >> In the meantime, within a couple of months of murdering Craig Jonitis, the
01:01:37
killer was back out on the streets looking for another victim already, and he's going to find one.
01:01:43
>> Mhm. And that's where we're going to end for part one because >> because we all need a collective minute.
01:01:48
>> The amount of men who have died in part one >> and so >> in horrific, violent, just
01:01:55
>> graphic, >> atrocious ways. >> Yeah. >> Is something I think we need to take a
01:02:00
minute from. >> Yeah. >> Um because part two is going to pick right up there with some more victims
01:02:07
because we are not done with this piece of [ __ ] >> unfortunately. And we are going to get
01:02:11
into how they discover who Randy Craft is. >> Okay. Love that. I love the part where
01:02:17
they're apprehended. >> We are going to get there. >> The part where they're not stresses me
01:02:20
out so much. >> So, we will get there. Um, but yeah, this is a real This is a hard one. This
01:02:25
tough one. >> Yeah. >> Because of the era it happened in. >> Mhm. >> Like for so many ways, obviously because
01:02:32
of the brutality of the entire thing, but also because of the era it happened in and the way that things were talked
01:02:37
about in the press and by investigators. It's just there's a lot to unpack to like chew on while you're learning all
01:02:44
the details of all the brutality that happened to these poor men >> to hear how it was described and certain
01:02:50
assumptions that are made about victims mostly >> is like what makes it really tough to
01:02:55
swallow. That's why it's just like I got to take a minute. >> Absolutely. Yeah, I agree.
01:02:59
>> Yeah. So, we'll we'll be back with a lot more. >> All right. >> It's rough. We'll see you then because
01:03:06
we hope you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird but not so weird that you don't come back for part two, honey.
01:03:13
>> Hey yo, bye >> bye bye. [Music] [Music] [Music]