00:00:06
Hey weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Elena. And this is Morbid. [Music] This is Morbid. And this is part two of
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a very very intense series. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Um it's not getting better um in part two.
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>> It's not getting easier in part two. I dare say it's getting worse in part two.
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>> Wow. >> Um not really sure how, but it is. It's going to be a three-parter, so there
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will be a resolution. >> Well, you said he gets apprehended in this part, and I like that part. He gets
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um so >> they get on to him. >> They they're getting they're getting ideas. >> All right.
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>> You know, he's getting on the radar. >> Are we talking about anything first or?
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>> Sh. We can we can get into a a vibe and then crash it right down. >> Okay. >> If you would like.
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>> Have you ever seen My Best Friend's Wedding? >> Um you want to hear something funny
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about me? No. >> You never seen it? You'd hate >> You would hate that movie so much. But
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one thing about me is that I love that movie so much. I used to fall asleep to that movie for like years in my
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childhood. >> I love Julia Roberts and I love Cameron Diaz and I like that guy that's in that
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movie, but I forget his name. >> Yeah, I don't remember. >> Everyone's probably yelling at me, but
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it's fine. >> I found out this morning that they're doing an a sequel. >> Oh, >> and I'm a little bit nervous, but I
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think everybody is returning. M. So, speaking of part twos, >> oh, very same of my same thing is is
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happening and I'm apprehensively excited. Very adjacent. >> I just wanted to talk about it. Okay.
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>> Uh, no, I get it. I You know what's funny to me is that Julia Roberts always plays
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I mean, can we be honest? She always plays that [ __ ] in that movie that like steals your man.
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>> She kind of does. >> She just like like America's Sweethearts. >> I've never seen that. She's that girl.
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>> She's that [ __ ] that steals. >> She's that girl that steals your man. It's like the the chill girl.
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>> She's always the chill girl that's like, "I'm not like other girls and I'll just
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steal your guy." >> Yeah, that's actually pretty fair. Like that's kind of her type in movies.
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>> I don't think she steals anybody's man in Mystic Pizza. >> Maybe she does. >> I don't think she does. I think she's
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engaged. >> She wanted to probably >> run away bride. She's not stealing anyone's man.
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>> No, but she's running away. >> She finds a man. >> She does. And it's not someone else's
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>> pretty woman. She's not stealing anybody's man. >> No, >> she finds a rich man.
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>> She just, you know, she's got two movies where you're doing that. Might be two
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movies. >> Well, now it could be three cuz who knows what's going on. >> Yeah, it might be three. Um, but yeah, I
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never saw that. Wow. Cuz that's what it's about, right? I just I remember like reading things about it and so
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basically hearing people talk about it. For anybody who hasn't seen My Best Friend's Wedding, this is so it's like
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from the '9s, >> but uh Julia Roberts, I forget her the name of her in the I forget who she
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plays, >> but she loves this guy named Michael. And he's getting married to Cameron
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Diaz's character named Kimmy. And Kimmyy's just like [ __ ] crazy. Like, but we love her. Like, she's adorable
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and sweet. And I think it's Jules is her name. >> Uh Julia Roberts character, which should
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have been easy to remember, but it wasn't. Wow. But she's basically trying to stop him from marrying Kimmy.
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>> Wow. >> And when I said you would hate it, you would hate this movie, Elena. But it's
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just like enjoyable because in the end, spoiler alert, he stays with Kimmy. >> Oh, really?
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>> When she realizes like that she shouldn't have done what she did and she feels bad for it. It's a romcom, so it
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ends up happy. >> Oh, man. I would Yeah, that would make me angry. >> One time I was crying and um me and
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Karen watched that movie together and it's one of my favorite memories. >> I love that crying.
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>> Aside from the crying. So now they're coming out with part two and I'm excited. This isn't an ad for it.
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>> I just heard about it this morning. >> This isn't an ad for that. >> This isn't an ad for my best friend's
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wedding. >> Weirdly, I know you guys thought it was just seems like a very random topic for
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your dad to discuss. That would have been >> And I'm just like, "Yeah, that movie
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sounds like it sucks." You're like, "No, it doesn't. I think it's kind of okay."
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>> No, it doesn't. >> I know it's a horrible subject, but sure. >> Yeah, but um she steals a big delivery
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truck at one point. I can't even say I can't even talk [ __ ] though, because And sorry, we're just going to talk for
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a second. >> No, we No, it's Do you know what? I I saw a lot of people the other day saying
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that they want us to talk more. >> Oh, I love that. >> That's why I brought up this random
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topic of my best friend. >> It's also This is going to be a very tough episode and it's a very tough
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series, so we might as well get some levity >> in the beginning here. Um, I can't even
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talk [ __ ] about my best friend's wedding because I used to love that movie Something Borrowed and it's literally
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probably worse than that. >> Oh, you liked that movie? >> I did like that movie. I hated her
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character. >> I can't believe you liked the movie. The There's a girl named Darcy in that
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movie. It's Kate Hudson, right? >> Kate Hudson. >> I can Okay, so you might like My Best
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Friend's Wedding in that case. >> I don't know. I don't know. >> It's very similar vibes. Yeah,
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>> it's actually almost exactly the same story. >> It's the same premise, I think. Um I
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also love >> It's actually better because Jules doesn't even sleep with Michael.
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>> Oh, wow. >> In the timeline. She did at one point. >> Oh, >> but in the timeline
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>> in the timeline, you know, like in the timeline of the wedding, she's not >> I felt like, you know what? I felt like
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something Borrowed had the same vibes as He's Just Not That Into You. >> Mhm. >> And I also like that movie. It's like a
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fun comfort movie, I think, cuz it's just like just you can just sit there and just you can turn into goo watching
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that movie. >> I read that book when I was like 12. >> Did you really? Yeah. Something
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>> when you were 12. >> Yeah. My mom and I used to swap books back and forth that like I definitely
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shouldn't have been reading, but >> that [ __ ] love to read. >> She loved a beach.
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>> She did that. And the other bulletin girl. >> That's true. >> Which I wouldn't consider a beach read.
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>> But I did read that way too young. >> Yeah. You know. >> Yeah. They were talking about that on SE
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the other day and I was like why the [ __ ] did I read that one I did? >> Yeah. Just talking about like an king
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Henry VII like [ __ ] >> I'm serious. >> Yeah, you were way too mean to read. >> I was way too young to read.
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>> What the [ __ ] was going on there? >> I don't know. Damn. >> Yeah. >> Uh oh, and speaking of books, um,
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>> you have one >> you can buy I have a couple. You can get the paperback version of The Butcher
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Game August 12th that comes out. You can pre-order it now anywhere you want. >> New update and not only does it fit in
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your pants pocket is just telling people to put it in their pants now. The book that is.
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>> So I did um a talk shop live by the time this comes out. >> It'll have happened ago.
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>> The cars will be flying. So I don't I don't think we'll I don't think it'll matter. Um but but you know that'll be
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different later. Uh but by the time this comes out it won't really matter. But on
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the talk shop live, I showed you that you can in fact fit the Butcher Game paperback, which comes out August 12th,
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and you can pre-order it now if you want to fit it in your pants pocket. And I said, if you want to put it in your
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pants, that's your prerogative as well because you're an adult, and I stand by that.
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>> Okay, I interrupted with the next question because I felt it was going to a weird place. But new development in
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the butcher game in the life of the butcher. >> You don't even have to fold it to fit it
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in your pants pocket. >> True. >> You can just right in there. So, I was correct. You can put it in your pants.
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>> She was wearing stretchy pants. If you're wearing jeans, you'll probably have to fold it. And you shouldn't do
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that. >> But, you know, do whatever you want. It's your prerogative. Okay. As long as
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you read it. That's all I ask. >> Don't Don't just put it in your pants without reading it. That's
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>> Yeah. Don't just put it in your pants. And, you know, like cuz you know, who knows? Who knows um if there's more, you
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know, who knows? So, put in your pants. >> Okay, sounds good. >> Yeah. So, that's the butcher game. Um
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and also, I'm going to start uh doing that like uh thing where I was I like recommended like one book on my
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Instagram and I was like, "Oh, I want to do this." And then I just didn't do it again like an [ __ ] Uh but I've had a
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a lot of you have like messaged me or said you really want me to do that more. So, I'm going to do that more. Yeah. And
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again, by the time this comes out, I hopefully I will have done that already. >> Well, and I feel like it's also
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something that we could do for the bonus episodes. Like another fun thing we can
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like, you know, who knows what we'll do with those bonus episodes, but we could talk about books
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>> cuz remember once we move to Sirius, you're going to get an extra episode every single month. One week per month.
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You will not get two episodes. You will get three episodes. An extra >> one week out of the month.
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>> And that bonus episode can be anything. So, if you guys, you know, have things
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that you would like to hear us talk about, you can also suggest it and maybe we can throw them on those bonus
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episodes. >> Hell yeah, brother. >> And they'll be for everybody again. They're free. They're for everybody.
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They're not locked anywhere. >> No. >> Um, but yeah. So, that'll be cool. So, maybe we can do that, too. Talk about
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books sometimes and that'll be fun. I love it because we're so excited for serious.
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>> Did you guys catch that? We kept saying seriously in episodes. >> We've been saying it for a few weeks.
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>> We would go like seriously. Seriously. Did you guys catch that? >> Seriously?
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>> Haha. We're so stealth. >> Oh, I guess we should probably get into the rest of this case cuz it's an
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important case to talk about. Um, it's just a very upsetting one. Yeah, as you guys probably noted in the first part of
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it, >> but it's fascinating. >> But it's uh it's fascinating. It's it's upsetting and it's something that needs
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to be told because I did not know about this case before this. I think I had heard of like the name like the
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>> killer's name. Yeah, but not any of the details whatsoever. >> Yeah, I definitely hadn't heard the
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details. So, I feel like it's it's important to get it out there. These kind of cases,
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>> I feel like they kind of like >> unfortunately can get buried in the history of other, you know, and
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especially around this time in the 70s, '8s, and around this location in California.
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>> There's a lot of serial killers happening. And I think a lot of the the ones that a lot of people know off the
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top of their head, Zodiac Ed Kemper, Bundy, the Hillside Stranglers, Charles Manson, all those those kind of buried
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it. >> Um, but this case is so upsetting and there's so many victims and there's so
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many victims that are unidentified to this day. It's like crazy. >> That is truly nuts. It's the same kind
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of thing with like John Wayne Gayy that there was a couple of unidentified victims and a couple of them got they
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got identified recently. So it's like the we should never forget about these things.
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>> Identify people decades and decades later like don't give up on it >> like familial DNA that all the
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developments there just who knows what's going to what what's going to come next
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in technology. >> So I hope they don't forget about these. >> No. Um, but yeah, when we last talked,
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um, they were the investigators were trying to profile the killer along with the FBI's behavioral science unit,
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>> which was like super new. >> Super new. Like, watch Mind Hunter if you're interested in that. I'm telling
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you, that show was so [ __ ] awesome. >> I, for no good reason, fell off the second season. I was thinking that.
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>> Oh, get back in there. >> When you uh, I think you said it during part one. I need to finish that.
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>> You got to get back into Mind Hunter. >> I think I might just like rewatch it.
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>> That show not continuing is a travesty. I know >> because it is one of the most I'm not
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going on a long tangent, I promise, but it is one of the most >> well done. >> Yeah.
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>> Shows and the cast is [ __ ] perfect. I cannot believe how well they did on that
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show. Like that show is honestly one of my top shows. And the fact that it didn't go past two seasons is
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>> [ __ ] >> Really gross. Um but go watch those two seasons cuz they're worth it. Uh but
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yeah, in the last episode we talked about how they were coming up with a profile for this killer. Um and it was
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helping them with a few things like you know that there was uh probably more victims than the investigators even knew
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about at that time that they hadn't discovered that were connected to this killer. That the killer was not somebody
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who was going to feel guilt or remorse. Was not going to be one of those people that turns themselves in or begs the
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police to stop them because they can't help themselves. He doesn't give a [ __ ]
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>> No. Um and also that it was unlikely that he was ever going to stop unless he
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was caught. He was never going to stop on his own valition. >> No. >> So again, this was I mean this was a really
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great profile to have, but it wasn't exactly leading them to anyone cuz they had nothing to go on at this point. And
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within a couple of months of the last murder, which was Craig Jonitis, the killer was out again. It it didn't take
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long. Like he was not taking time between these instances. And on the morning of March 29th, 1975,
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19-year-old Keith Crotwell caught a ride with some friends down to San Diego, which was about 40 miles from his home.
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Um, and he was going to be spending the day at the beach. This was something that he had done a million times before.
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He did it alone. He did it with friends. This was nothing different. >> I think most California teenagers could
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relate. A beach day with their friends. >> Yeah. Very routine. That afternoon, Keith met up with his friend,
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15-year-old Kent May, and they just hung out all afternoon. It was getting near midnight, and they started to notice
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that while the parking lot had mostly cleared out by them, there was still one man standing nearby just watching them.
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>> I hate that. >> Yeah. >> Ew. >> The man came over and started talking to them and just started chatting. But they
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said they both they felt pretty uneasy by his presence and they just didn't they didn't like his overall vibe, but
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they weren't like scared of him. It was just like this is a little unoff. >> Yeah.
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>> A few minutes later, the two boys and their new friend were back at this man's
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car now, which was a 1974 black and white Mustang. >> And this stranger gave them two beers
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and you know, they're teenagers, just hands them, he's a grown man, hands them to two teenagers,
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>> and they all get in the car and went for a ride. And as learned through interviews later, May and Crowell knew
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there was a certain risk with, you know, accepting rides or substances from strangers. But Crowell said or May said
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that he quote deferred to Crowell's judgment because he was the younger one. So he's deferring to the older ones.
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>> And since Keith thought the guy was all right, Kent decided there was really nothing to worry about. He's 15.
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>> Yeah. He's just looking what what's >> the amount of dumbass situations I got
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myself into at 15 because I was like following my older friends. I get it. >> Is it recommended? No. But
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>> yeah. >> Not long after leaving the beach parking lot, the driver started passing around
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pills. >> Oh, [ __ ] >> And Crowell quickly and easily identified these as Valium.
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>> That's not a >> Remember in part one, Valium was something found in one of the victims.
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>> Yeah. And also like no one's taken Valium to party. like what the [ __ ] >> And he warned Kent to go easy on the
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drugs. Crotwell did, Keith did. Um it w it wasn't the first time either of them had taken tranquilizers. So they each
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popped a pill and they were just waiting for, you know, whatever to set in. But within 15 minutes after that, Kent said
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he started to feel something coming, but then it like left really quick. And what
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left him what it left him with was like a numbing effect. like a very powerful numbing effect. Um, and he described on
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it bordering on catatonia. >> The [ __ ] >> Yeah. >> Doesn't volume like chill you out to a
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I've never done volume. Doesn't >> I thought it you down, >> but this was like to a numbing degree.
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Volume isn't supposed to numb you out into oblivion like I especially one. >> Yeah.
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>> You know, so this felt like it had something different. Um, from where he was sitting, Keith seemed to be
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experiencing the same effect as well. And the driver though seemed to be stone cold sober.
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>> They drove around for what seemed like a long time. Um, but Kent May said it was
00:16:01
very hazy. He could recall very little of this trip. It was just like kind of in and out. I mean, he's been drugged at
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this point. >> At some point, Kent passed out in the back seat >> and the next thing he knew, he was
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waking up in his own bed at home. >> What the [ __ ] And he said the sunlight was coming through his windows like
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middle of the day. >> That's horrifying. >> He said the night before total blank to
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him after that after passing out. Couldn't remember basic things like how he'd gotten home. And fortunately Kent's
00:16:29
roommate Terry Ditmar was able to fill in some of the gaps for him. According to Dipmar, he and his brother Frank had
00:16:35
been partying at the home of another friend that night and decided to call it a night a little after midnight. After
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settling in at home, Terry stepped outside for some fresh air when a black and white Mustang pulled into the
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parking lot and the passenger side door opened and Kent came tumbling out of the
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car. >> Oh. Kicked out of the car. >> Terry ran over to help his friend up and when he looked in the car, he saw Keith
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Crowell in the front side and he was passed out. >> Mhm. Later, Dipmar would describe the
00:17:04
driver to the authorities as quote, "A confident, sober face accented with dark bushy brows, blonde hair, and cold blank
00:17:13
shark size." >> Oh, not [ __ ] me up. >> Yeah, that cuz that that is >> Yeah, that's that's a [ __ ]
00:17:23
description >> as hell. That's intense. >> Several days passed and still no one had
00:17:29
heard anything from Keith. >> And he's the older boy. the older one. >> So, um the the roommate Ditmar and Kent
00:17:36
May convinced their parents to file a missing person's report for Keith. >> Yeah.
00:17:40
>> Keith had come from a kind of troubled home and was living with friends at the
00:17:44
time. So, the police just assumed he was a runaway. >> Mhm. Very >> It wasn't until 6 weeks later that they
00:17:50
learned how very wrong they were >> on the afternoon. >> I think that because of that, it would
00:17:54
have like it wouldn't have been as long for them to realize that people weren't runaways cuz they were still doing that
00:17:59
in the 80s. Exactly. It's like all these people you lost in the 70s and realized
00:18:03
that they hadn't just run away, they'd actually been abducted by serial killer. >> Can we can we just have a process for
00:18:09
this? >> Can we change this way of thinking? >> And instead of assuming cuz also again
00:18:14
overreact. If he's a runaway then cool, you'll find out he's a runaway. >> Must have gotten far
00:18:21
>> and yeah, you put some energy into it, but you found out that he ran away and
00:18:24
you can give up now. But if you do it flip it the other way, it always turns out bad.
00:18:29
>> Yeah. It never turns out good. >> Now, on the afternoon of May 8th, three teenagers at the Long Beach Marina were
00:18:35
climbing over a rocky wall in search of small crabs and, you know, other marine life around there at the end of a jetty
00:18:42
around 300 yards offshore, and one of them spotted something wedged in the rocks. The object had clearly been in
00:18:49
the water for a few weeks and had been worn down by the constant movement of water over the surface, but it was
00:18:55
pretty easily identifiable for what had had once been. It was a human head. >> Oh, they saw a human head wedged into
00:19:03
some rocks at the end of a jetty. >> That is awful. >> Yeah. Investigators and divers scoured
00:19:10
the area all afternoon, but they weren't able to find anything additional. They just found the head. A few days later, a
00:19:17
local dentist was able to identify the skull as matching the dental x-rays of Keith Crowell. Once the skull had been
00:19:24
identified and um the Crotwell and Dipmar families got in touch with investigators and gave them the
00:19:29
information about the man in the black and white Mustang that they'd seen with Keith the night before he disappeared.
00:19:35
Unfortunately, Kent May still couldn't remember anything from that night, but the lead about the car was still a good
00:19:40
one. And if they could find its owner, there was a good chance that Terry Demar could identify him because he was the
00:19:46
one who saw him. >> His Gary Shark Eyes. >> Yeah. Without a body or any forensic
00:19:50
evidence, there was no way for the medical examiner to identify how Keith had died or what happened in the hours
00:19:56
leading up to his death. >> He's literally got nothing. >> You know, without the presence of what
00:20:00
would become the killer signatures at that point, investigators really didn't have a reason to connect Keith's death
00:20:07
either without like strangulation involved. >> Yeah. >> But investigators spread out across the
00:20:13
area around Long Beach Marina in search of that Mustang and its driver. They went door to door. They were talking to
00:20:18
witnesses, anything they could. And 5 days later, they discovered a car matching the description provided by
00:20:24
Ditmar. >> Nice. >> It was parked in front of an apartment building less than one mile from the
00:20:29
beach. >> Whoa. >> A search of the DMV records indicated the car belonged to Randy Steven Craft.
00:20:35
>> Yeah, I know that name. >> It was a man who'd recently relocated to the area from an address in Orange
00:20:40
County. None of the neighbors seemed to know Craft or even recognize the name, though. But fortunately for detectives,
00:20:46
one of the local mail carriers knew the name and were like, "This is where he lives. Here you go." When detective Mike
00:20:52
Woodward knocked on the door, and very averagel looking man appeared and invited him right into the apartment.
00:20:58
Average. From all appearances, Randy Craft was a perfectly ordinary middle-class man. Pretty
00:21:05
indistinguishable from the countless other people living on the beach. Yeah, >> he did not stand out.
00:21:10
>> I get it. Um, it did occur to Woodward early on in their exchange that Craft apparently he he he gleaned this by some
00:21:18
something that he was gay. >> Okay. >> He just said he knew. He said, "He spoke with a very mild, timid type voice and
00:21:24
he appeared to me to have some gay tendencies." That is a direct quote. I wish you could see the side eye that I'm
00:21:32
doing right now. >> The The gay tendencies. >> Thank you. The phrase gay tendencies.
00:21:36
>> What are gay tendencies aside from sleeping with a male? >> And how does one appear Did you see him
00:21:41
sleep with a man? >> That's the thing. How do you appear to have them? >> No, you don't.
00:21:47
>> How do you just appear to see gay tendencies in someone? It's a very strange way in a judgmental.
00:21:53
>> Very 70s. Very 70s to take. >> I just want to know what he did that the guy was like gay.
00:21:58
>> He was like must be gay. Jesus Christ. >> Um, so Randy Craft's boss at Aztec Aircraft would later confirm Woodward's
00:22:05
suspicion. Um, again, this is all going to be very offensive, but it's coming from 70s detectives and men. So, just,
00:22:12
you know, know that, um, this is his employer, okay, at Aztec, Ry's employer. >> Yes, Ry's employer. He told Detective
00:22:20
Woodward, he was like, "Yes, you are correct." >> So gay. >> He said, and I quote, "Oh, no." He was a
00:22:26
little bit affected. He held his fingers kind of like he was gay. How do you hold
00:22:31
your fingers like you're gay? and talked affeminite a little, but he was a very good employee.
00:22:38
>> People just talked like that. Like the gayness didn't affect his work. >> I got to know. He held his fingers kind
00:22:45
of like he was gay. What is a gay finger? I'm not really sure. >> How is one finger straight? Is there a
00:22:54
bisexual finger? Like where where Mikey's trying to show me right now. >> Is there a bisexual finger? I'm just
00:23:01
confused. That's a weird statement. It is. >> I've never looked at someone. >> I love it. Didn't affect his work at
00:23:07
all. >> Didn't affect his work being gay. >> His sexual preference never affected his
00:23:11
work. >> He wasn't out here kissing dudes while he was working. And it's like, yeah.
00:23:15
Okay. Jesus Christ. This is This is making me so angry. My entire I need to see if my is like, "You're stressed
00:23:21
right now. >> You're stressed right now." He held his fingers kind of like he was gay. I'll
00:23:25
never get over to that guy. Go [ __ ] yourself. Yeah. Um, but >> I'm engaged right now, by the way.
00:23:31
>> You're engaged. >> Engaged on my uh You're >> engaged to be married. >> Engaged to be angry.
00:23:35
>> I'm engaged to be angry. >> But a simple check into Craft's background proved that not only was he a
00:23:40
good employee. Um, but he was also held in high regard by just about anyone who knew him.
00:23:45
>> All right. >> According to author Dennis McDougall, Craft quote, had a reputation among his
00:23:49
friends for loyalty, caring, and an eventempered nature. >> Damn, that's terrifying. Uh, he also had
00:23:54
no arrest record or any interactions with law enforcement. >> How the [ __ ] did he
00:23:58
>> And even the bartenders at the nearby Ripples's bar, which we talked about before, spoke very highly of him.
00:24:04
>> What? >> And while it was true he was he did happen to be gay. There was a large
00:24:09
percentage of the population in the Belmont Montore neighborhood of Long Beach that was also gay. So like he's
00:24:15
not the only crazy guys. There's gay people in the world. >> There's more gay people than just Yeah.
00:24:21
And that fact, even with the presence of the black and white Mustang, didn't make
00:24:25
him a killer. So, I mean, you can't just rely on that. What do you have? You got
00:24:30
to have some forensic evidence here. >> Yeah. >> Uh, initially, when he was asked about
00:24:33
the night Keith Crotwell went missing, Craft denied having met either boy and claimed he was somewhere else that
00:24:39
night. But Woodward didn't believe him and asked him to come to the station and talk to him.
00:24:43
>> He said, "Take your gay fingers down to the station." >> And I think it was like, "You do have a
00:24:47
black and white Mustang and you are a mile away from this." like, "Yeah, I mean,
00:24:51
>> we better talk to you." >> Um, but at the station, Craft continued to deny that he picked up Kent and Keith
00:24:57
that night, but eventually after a little more talking, his story started to change.
00:25:02
>> Actually, he said he was walking to his car after leaving Ripples when he saw a
00:25:07
young couple in the parking lot arguing. Yeah. Craft told him, quote, "Finally, the girl had eventually had it, and I
00:25:15
believe she got in the car and left with some people, and the guy comes over and
00:25:19
was talking to me right there in my car." >> What? >> Craft claimed that the guy who was
00:25:24
talking to him, meaning Keith, was soon joined by another man and that they all had beer and decided to go for a drive.
00:25:30
>> Not a man, honey, a 15-year-old. >> Exactly. Craft claimed that the three of them drove around for a while, then they
00:25:36
returned to the parking lot where Kent got out of the car and rejoined his friends. Nope. But Keith wanted to keep
00:25:42
drinking, so Craft kept driving with him. At that point in the interview, Craft's story began to spin out into a
00:25:49
very convoluted story about Keith driving the car and getting it stuck in the mud, at which point Randy decided to
00:25:57
walk several miles to a restaurant where he called his roommate for help and left
00:26:01
Keith with the car. >> He left a stranger with his car. >> Here's something drive his car.
00:26:07
>> Everybody should learn this right now. The more details that come spinning out
00:26:11
and the more convoluted it comes, the more they are lying. >> Yeah. >> There's not no you don't you don't need
00:26:16
all those details. You call in sick for work when you're really doing something else and you get way too detailed with
00:26:20
it and your boss is like, "Yeah, come on in." >> Yeah. Like I know you're bullshitting
00:26:23
me. Now, when Craft got back to the car, he said Keith was nowhere to be found. >> He told Woodward, "We were pretty drunk,
00:26:30
so you know, it crossed my mind that he might have passed out." And when he finally got the car unstuck, you know,
00:26:36
from the mud. M >> crap says he went out to get some breakfast and didn't think another thing
00:26:40
about Keith Crowwell. >> Okay. >> He just disappeared. That's not my problem. >> Crazy that you were like the last person
00:26:46
to see him before he disappeared and his head was found wedged into a jetty. >> Yeah, it's crazy. Investigators checked
00:26:52
out Craft's story with his roommate Jeff Graves, who confirmed that Craft had called him for help that night and he
00:26:57
met him at a restaurant. They even went as far as driving out to the area where he claimed the car had
00:27:03
become stuck and they discovered a service road with tire ruts deep enough to have caused trouble for a driver.
00:27:09
>> Okay. >> These two discoveries seemed to confirm Craft's story. >> Yeah. >> Yet something about the whole thing was
00:27:15
[ __ ] right to Woodward and his partner. They at least had that sense of like something's off here.
00:27:20
>> Well, that's good. The detective decided there was enough suspicion and there was
00:27:23
enough circumstantial evidence to file charges against Craft for the potential killing of Keith Gwell,
00:27:30
>> but when he brought it to the case to the district attorney, he was told, "Forget about it."
00:27:34
>> I kind of get that there's really not a lot there. >> They said, "They don't have a body, just
00:27:38
a head, and there's no forensic evidence tying Craft to this head." >> Yeah. >> Uh all they had was conflicting stories,
00:27:45
and that wasn't enough to build a case. And to be honest, >> you wouldn't be able to convince a jury
00:27:49
on that. >> No. No way. >> You didn't have enough there at all. >> Like, if I didn't know the outcome, I'd
00:27:54
be I'd still be sitting here like, I don't know if I even did all this. >> I don't know. The coroner's official
00:27:58
cause of death for Keith Crowell is listed as accidental drowning >> still. And the rest of his remains are
00:28:04
believed to have sunk somewhere in the ocean. >> Oh, they never found them. >> Yeah. Where even if they were
00:28:10
discovered, they would obviously be too badly damaged to be of any use in any criminal case. Woodward and his partner
00:28:16
did the best to keep the case alive, but after a month or so of inaction, other cases came in and they were just given
00:28:22
priority and it kind of got shoved to the side. >> That's really sad. >> Yeah. So, who is Randy Craft, though?
00:28:29
>> Please tell me everything >> who just entered the chat here. So for five years, investigators had just spun
00:28:36
their wheels and just tried and tried to no avail to connect these murders in in
00:28:42
a in a case where the where the killer had left absolutely not one shred of evidence to lead to him.
00:28:50
>> Now they finally had some suspect, at least something, you know, like this is
00:28:54
at least in one of the cases that they believe is connected, but they couldn't come up with anything to hold him. So
00:29:00
now he's there and they can't hold him. >> Still, that didn't stop detectives from
00:29:06
looking into Craft's background. And much of what they learned in hindsight fit a more modern profile of a serial
00:29:13
killer, to be honest. So Randy Craft was born March 19th, 1945 in Los Angeles, California. Um, does that that doesn't
00:29:21
make him is he an Aries? >> Pisces. >> Yeah. >> He's right on the cusp though because
00:29:27
March 21st is Aries. I don't know what that means, but >> Pisces, um, you know what I will say?
00:29:33
Ever since I started taking my astrology class, you really can't glean all the information about one person just based
00:29:39
on their sun sign. >> Yeah. >> But, uh, Piscarian people are usually like very dreamy.
00:29:45
>> Okay, that's interesting. >> They're usually like artsy. >> Okay, but I'm assuming he doesn't really
00:29:50
have the positive >> qualities of a Piscerian. >> No, I don't think he's got those. He
00:29:55
doesn't have a lot of positive attributes. Um, he was the fourth child born to Harold in Opal Craft. Oh,
00:30:01
>> that's a pretty name. >> I know. Isn't that adorable? Uh, according to Dennis McDougall, the
00:30:06
obstitrician, and this is a quote. Um, the obstitrician who delivered him reported no congenital malf forations,
00:30:13
no birth injuries, and no complications. >> Hey, that's great. >> That's great. Normal birth.
00:30:18
>> Sick. >> Congrats. Good news. >> That's awesome. >> That's what you're trying to hear. Super
00:30:22
happy about that. The family lived in Long Beach where Harold and Opel worked the production lines and Douglas
00:30:27
aircraft. Meanwhile, at home, Ry's three older sisters watched over and doted on
00:30:32
their baby brother while their parents were at work. Cute. >> According to his sister, Doris, uh Randy
00:30:38
was quote, "A very calm baby, but that didn't prevent him from getting hurt every now and then."
00:30:42
>> Yeah, he's a kid. A little after his first birthday, he fell off a couch and broke his collar bone, which is
00:30:48
upsetting. Um then a year later while the family was looking at a new house, he fell down the front steps and hit his
00:30:54
head on the concrete and actually lost consciousness. >> Oh, that's not good. We don't love an
00:30:58
early head injury. >> We hate an early head injury. Harold and Opel rushed him to the nearest hospital
00:31:03
and he did regain consciousness and was released to his parents and they said there was no complications later.
00:31:09
>> But they also didn't have a lot of information or insight into that. >> No, they did not. As the only boy in
00:31:15
this family, he was definitely spoiled by his parents. very doted on, treated better than his sisters could ever
00:31:21
remember being treated by their parents. >> If you have a brother and only one brother, you totally know how that's how
00:31:27
that goes. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. In fact, while the entire family was very very devoutly religious and an
00:31:34
very active in their church community, Randy didn't really have an interest in church and so he didn't want to attend
00:31:39
and he didn't have to, but the girls had to. That's such [ __ ] I think that's such [ __ ] So of the time. Also,
00:31:47
none of his sisters recall Craft being abused in any way at home or anywhere else in the community, and any medical
00:31:53
records that would have shown abuse are gone. So, like, it doesn't >> But obviously, we can't tell for sure if
00:31:59
he was abused or not. But, we do know that nobody in his home, school, or anywhere else in his community reported
00:32:08
or thought there was any abuse present in that home. >> He ends up saying that he was abused.
00:32:12
Huh. >> It's just it's just one of those things. >> Okay. So, at school, Randy was quickly
00:32:16
singled out by teachers for being highly intelligent. Oh, and he was placed in very accelerated classes very early on.
00:32:24
He was, according to McDougall, who we have uh cited in the show notes. Um, he was quote, "A likable egghehead, always
00:32:30
good to crib homework assignments from, but not a first round draft choice for the flag football team." All right? You
00:32:36
know, uh, but while Randy was clearly a good and capable student, he wasn't always compliant. Um, and his former
00:32:43
teacher, Lee Manley, said he was one of those people who felt the rules didn't apply to him,
00:32:49
>> which is not great. >> When he wasn't in class, he played saxophone in the school band and would
00:32:54
be found otherwise with his two best friends, Billy Manson and Paul Witson. Uh, they dubbed themselves the three
00:33:00
musketeers. They were like inseparable. Um, and they weren't really exactly inclusive when it came to other
00:33:07
students, but like they were very tight-knit group. >> Okay. Um they always managed to be
00:33:12
looked upon pretty well by their peers and you know they succeeded in you know romantic endeavors from time to time.
00:33:17
They didn't have trouble with the ladies. >> All right. >> Um but you know uh Manson recalled later
00:33:22
there were a batch of girls that we ended up spending a lot of time with in rotation almost.
00:33:28
>> What a way to put that sir. >> I said dang Billy >> Billy. Damn. >> I bet those girls wouldn't like to hear
00:33:36
that. >> Yeah. Holy [ __ ] >> Not a rotation. Now, years later, Randy Craft would acknowledge that he knew he
00:33:42
was gay at this time, obviously, but he never let on to anyone else. And it seems that no one ever suspected it
00:33:48
either. That's just how it was. >> Nobody saw his gay fingers back then. >> Nobody noticed.
00:33:53
>> Nobody noticed his gay fingers. >> Yeah, I gay fingers go insane. That goes crazy insane. Um, so it turned out that
00:34:02
although Randy was genuinely liked and, you know, by his peers, by adults in his
00:34:07
life, not everyone thought highly of him, which I don't think anybody can get 10 out of 10.
00:34:13
>> Um, Steve Manley said, which was one of his friends, I didn't trust him and I
00:34:17
didn't like him. >> [ __ ] >> All right. >> So, this was one of >> Steve Manley put it blunt.
00:34:23
>> This wasn't like one of the three musketeers. Obviously, it was like an acquaintance of his, but like he didn't
00:34:28
like him really. Um he was four years younger than Randy and was in the same Boy Scouts troop with Craft with Craft.
00:34:35
Um he said he was the kind of person who'd say one thing to the parents and then do almost the opposite. I didn't
00:34:40
ever feel comfortable around him and I never understood why. >> Huh. >> So that guy had like instinct. Yeah.
00:34:47
>> Uh after graduating from high school, Randy was accepted to Claremont Men's College on an academic scholarship and
00:34:53
in the fall of 1963, he began his first year. Uh he participated in Claremont's Reserve Officers Training Corps program,
00:35:01
ROC. >> Uh it's a military training program designed to like, you know, it helps
00:35:06
students pay for college. Also kind of training them to go into the military. They had that at my one of my high
00:35:12
schools. >> Yeah. ROC is a pretty common thing. Yeah. >> But by 1965, the war in Vietnam was
00:35:17
ramping up a little bit and many young people, Craft included, began speaking out against the military activity in
00:35:24
Southeast Asia. It was a very big movement. Randy had always been interested in politics. Um, so the war
00:35:30
gave him something to speak out against. He felt he also he wanted to pursue a political career at one point. He was
00:35:36
very interested in that. >> Most of his teenage and young adult life, he spoke out very actively
00:35:42
politically. >> Wow. >> Um, in the summer of 1966, he moved to Huntington Beach with a friend from
00:35:48
college. And that same year he was arrested there after he was picked up in a vice raid on one of the known cruising
00:35:54
spots by the beach and he was charged with lewd conduct. >> Oh. >> So there was that or
00:36:00
>> so it is funny that later he was found to have no arrest record. >> Yeah, cuz he was arrested.
00:36:05
>> Fortunately he was let go with a warning cuz it was his first offense. >> Was he 18 at this point?
00:36:11
>> Um >> he might have been like 17. >> Yeah, it might have been that. But he was living a secret life at this point.
00:36:19
Nobody knew who he really was. You know, he wasn't out. Yeah. >> Um so, but he was also trying to
00:36:24
maintain this like public persona a little bit. So, and it was taking a toll on him. I imagine that is very tough.
00:36:31
>> Um later that year, he developed serious anxiety and it led to migraines, stomach
00:36:35
problems, and this led to him becoming a regular user of Valium and other painkillers. Mhm.
00:36:42
>> In 1968, Randy was out of college and his deferment, which had kept him out of
00:36:48
the army, had expired, so he was going to be drafted. >> Uh, he decided to be proactive and he
00:36:54
joined the Air Force. He figured it was safer than the Army or the Marines. That
00:36:58
was just his reasoning. Yeah. >> After enlisting, he was sent to Texas for boot camp and technical training.
00:37:03
But rather than being sent to fight in Vietnam, he was assigned to the Air Force Test Center as a protective coding
00:37:10
specialist. um also known as a painter of test planes, which is interesting. >> That's cool.
00:37:15
>> Um things got worse the next year though because he did come out to his family
00:37:20
the next year. >> According to Dennis McDougall, quote, "His father went into a rage, howling
00:37:25
that no son of his could possibly turn out queer." His mother was more understanding, if disapproving. She held
00:37:32
out hopes that he was just going through a phase and would get over it. >> That's the worst thing you could ever
00:37:37
say to your kid when they come out as gay. Not the worst, but it's up there. >> Horrifically traumatic.
00:37:41
>> Yeah. Coming don't ever say to your kid like this is just a face cuz it's >> Don't ever say to your Don't just let
00:37:48
who they are. >> Entrust them when they tell you who they are. >> You should your love for your child
00:37:54
should not be conditional. >> If you're worried that you're going to have a gay kid, you probably just
00:37:59
shouldn't have a kid. >> Yeah. Cuz guess what? Just have a kid. >> Chances are pretty bad.
00:38:03
>> Who gives a [ __ ] >> Yeah. As long as they love a consenting adult, you know, like together, like
00:38:08
it's like that's as long as they're not hurting anybody and no one's hurting them.
00:38:12
>> Yep. >> What are you disapproving of? >> Yeah. Let them live their life. >> Let them live. Ry's sister Kay, on the
00:38:18
other hand, blamed his sexuality on having attended an allmale college, but she tried to be sympathetic and
00:38:24
understanding of his situation. Regardless of whatever attempts Kay made, Ry's relationship with his family
00:38:30
was very strained after this, I can imagine. and it appeared to worsen his anxiety.
00:38:35
>> Yeah. >> Um although his family wasn't supportive, he did find a supportive community outside of the family. He
00:38:40
frequented bars in the area and started actually going on dates, like just starting to actually like live
00:38:46
authentically. You know, um unfortunately, as he suspected, his newfound openness got him discharged
00:38:53
from the military. >> Insane. Yeah. Um but he was given a general discharge rather than a
00:38:59
dishonorable one. >> Mhm. whatever positive feelings he may have had at this point of his like, you
00:39:04
know, being so authentic and being who he was, there was no denying at this point that being openly gay in the ' 60s
00:39:11
and ' 70s had a lot of drawbacks. Unfortunately, for one thing, um it pretty much destroyed any chance he had
00:39:18
at running for public office, which he was interested in. >> Um and that had been like a dream of his
00:39:24
to be honest. And since being out had earned him a discharge, he found himself unemployed, which means he couldn't pay
00:39:30
his rent. >> Yeah, that's a very tough position to be in. >> As a result, he had to move back in with
00:39:35
his parents and found a job tending bar at one of the local bars. The arrest for
00:39:39
lewd conduct a few years earlier had been Ry's first experience with the law enforcement, but it certainly wasn't
00:39:45
going to be his last. >> In March 1970, 13-year-old runaway Joseph Fer went to the police in Long
00:39:52
Beach. 13 years old. Mhm. >> and reported that Randy Craft had picked him up hitchhiking and taken him back to
00:39:59
his apartment where he gave him drugs and alcohol. What Joseph didn't tell police at the
00:40:05
time was that after giving him drugs and alcohol, Craft had repeatedly sexually assaulted him.
00:40:10
>> Oh no. >> Years later, when he was asked why he didn't tell this information to the
00:40:15
authorities, Joseph replied, "How do you tell something like that to your mom? Something you don't understand
00:40:20
yourself." >> Yeah. At 13 years old. >> 13. That will change you for a long, long, long time.
00:40:26
>> Poor baby. >> I know. >> In his courtroom testimony given two nearly two decades later, Joseph Fans
00:40:32
explained that he'd met Craft at the Huntington Beach Pier and the man had taken him back to his apartment where he
00:40:37
showed him black and white porn and offered to find a woman for him to have sex with. He was 13. Jesus. Eventually,
00:40:45
he started showing him boy images of himself having sex with other men. And then he gave him a large amount of pills
00:40:52
and wine and sexually assaulted him. After the whole ordeal was over, Fans got dressed and left the apartment, but
00:41:00
he was stumbling so much because he was very inebriated that a passer by stopped
00:41:04
and helped him to a nearby restaurant and somebody called an ambulance. >> It's very reminiscent of Jeffrey Dmer.
00:41:11
um fearing that no one would believe him and knowing that an accusation could reflect badly on him, Joseph chose not
00:41:18
to tell anybody about the sexual assault. Just lived with that. That's a lot for a 13-year-old to just stuff
00:41:23
down. >> According to Joseph, police took the report of him having been drugged and
00:41:27
physically assaulted and got a warrant to search Craft's apartment. But because Joseph had admitted to taking the drugs
00:41:34
voluntarily, which I'm like, he's 13. >> Yeah, he can't take drugs sent to do that. Like, let's be real. The officers
00:41:40
had no cause to arrest Craft and ultimately it just went nowhere. The report. >> Yeah.
00:41:49
>> What a world we used to have. >> The So in the aftermath of the whole thing, Joseph claims his family
00:41:55
abandoned him at which point he descended into a life of petty crime and substance abuse that plagued him for
00:42:01
decades. >> His family abandoned him because he came forward with this. >> Isn't that awful?
00:42:05
>> Yeah. What a [ __ ] family. In the years after that, Randy got involved with several people, but none were really
00:42:12
long-term dating prospects. He was just dating around. In fact, it wasn't until he met Jeff Graves, who Detective
00:42:18
Woodward assumed to be his roommate, that Randy started dating someone seriously.
00:42:23
>> Oh, so he was actually his partner. >> Yeah. Okay. >> Uh, but in the beginning when Woodward
00:42:27
talks about it, he's like, "Oh, it was his roommate." Um, in the meantime, >> his mom was just a proving mom.
00:42:32
>> Yeah, >> that's just his friend. >> That's just his friend. In the meantime, he found more steady work at the
00:42:38
aircraft factory working with electronics. And for the first time in his life, he was feeling like he was
00:42:43
starting to make something for himself. But then he ran into a streak of bad luck starting in 1975. Being picked up
00:42:49
and questioned in the Crotwell case was just the first of many frustrations. So we're up to the point where he is picked
00:42:56
up for the Croatell case. So he's already been through some [ __ ] before that. Not long after he was questioned
00:43:01
by Woodward, Randy was laid off from his job at the aircraft factory and began working as an independent computer
00:43:08
consultant. It's wildly inconsistent work, barely paid enough for him to get by. Then at the end of 1975, he and Jeff
00:43:16
Graves's um relationship ended and Graves moved out cuz Graves was like, "Hey, why are the police here?"
00:43:22
>> Yeah. He's like, "Something is wrong here." It seemed to Randy like everything he'd worked to achieve in the
00:43:27
previous 10 years had just slipped away in a matter of months. Now years later, the significance of Craft being
00:43:34
questioned in the Crowell case would not be lost on investigators. >> For four years, they had been searching
00:43:40
for a brutal killer who'd left more than a dozen bodies. But they'd made almost no progress. Yeah. And although they
00:43:47
didn't know it at the time, they had the man they'd been looking for in their custody pretty briefly, but without any
00:43:53
evidence to charge him with a crime, they just had to let him go. Maybe it was because of all the chaos happening
00:43:59
in his life at the time, or I maybe the arrest scared him. But whatever it was, Randy Craft's killing spree, which had
00:44:07
been averaging a new victim every five or six weeks, >> Yeah. >> came to an abrupt halt after he was um
00:44:14
interviewed by Detective Woodward. >> Scared him. Then on January 3rd, 1976, an offduty Santa Ana police officer was
00:44:21
riding a dune buggy with friends near Silverado Canyon when they came upon the body of 22-year-old Mark Hall. According
00:44:30
to his friends, Mark Hall had gone out drinking with another friend on New Year's Eve, and they had visited a bar
00:44:36
before attending a party at a friend's apartment later in the night. At the party, Hall drank a lot and smoked some
00:44:42
pot, but by the end of the night, he was like very intoxicated. He's at a party.
00:44:46
Yeah. Uh deciding they wanted to go to another party, Hall and his friend walked about two blocks to another
00:44:51
friend's apartment. But by the time they got there, Mark was so drunk that he passed out as soon as he laid down on
00:44:56
the couch. You know, whatever [ __ ] happens. >> Later that night, when the party was
00:45:00
kind of winding down, Mark's friend, Philip Homer, was looking for him so they could leave together. But according
00:45:06
to Homer, Mark was nowhere to be found. assuming his friend had found it just another way to go home. Homer eventually
00:45:12
left the party and figured he'd just check on Mark the next afternoon after he slept it off. A few days later,
00:45:17
Mark's body was discovered just feet from the road. To anyone familiar with the other murders and the circumstances
00:45:24
in which the bodies were discovered, there was really no doubt that Marll was a victim of the same killer. Um, but
00:45:30
this time everything seemed a little worse, if you can imagine that. Um, Marll's body was nude and he had clearly
00:45:39
been tortured brutally before death. His mouth and trachea were quote densely packed with dirt and leaves. Oh. Which
00:45:50
the coroner believed had become impacted from his having been force-fed debris. >> What the [ __ ]
00:45:58
>> He was alive when it was shoved down his throat. >> Like force-fed dirt and debris. dirt and
00:46:05
leaves and debris. >> Jesus. >> He had also been burned with a car cigarette across various parts of his
00:46:13
body. A car cigarette lighter, excuse me, with various parts of his body, including his eyes.
00:46:18
>> Oh. >> Nose and nipples. >> Oh. >> And his genitals had been removed >> while he was alive.
00:46:26
>> Most of this was done while he was alive. >> The medical examiner also found that a
00:46:31
swizzle stick had been shoved into his urethra. into his bladder. >> Oh my god. >> And the genitals had been inserted into
00:46:39
his rectum. I didn't know it could get worse, but it got worse. It sure did. Like, how how how
00:46:55
am I never hearing about this case ever? >> Yeah, that's insane. I'm That's the thing. Like this is one of the worst
00:47:03
>> any of these details ever, ever, ever. >> This is nuts. >> This is top brutality I've ever heard.
00:47:11
>> Top. And I It's And nearby the body, the detective discovered a broken bottle with blood on
00:47:20
it, which they believe was used to cut the body postmortem. >> Wow. A broken bottle.
00:47:26
>> Yeah. There were also clear ligature marks around Hall's neck and the medical
00:47:31
examiner listed the cause of death as an combination of alcohol poisoning and suffocation from the blockage in the
00:47:37
airway. He suffocated on the debris that was shoved down his throat. >> Of course he did. Yeah.
00:47:41
>> At the time of death, Hall's blood alcohol level was 67. For context, a blood alcohol level of around 045 or 050
00:47:51
would pretty much result in death. >> Wow. So Hall was well beyond that at the time of his death. Later, when the
00:47:58
evidence and photographs were shown in the courtroom, the prosecutor referred to this as the worst of Craft's murders
00:48:05
due to the brutality and the extent of the wounds and the fact that the victim was alive when most of these injuries
00:48:10
were inflicted. >> Yeah. >> Like that is >> used a cigarette lighter to burn his
00:48:16
eyes. >> Unthinkable. >> Yeah. Now, initially investigators were hesitant to publicly declare Hall a
00:48:26
victim of the same killer, which is shocking to me. >> I mean, he escalated so much
00:48:31
>> for sure he did. >> But still, I mean, you that's kind of to be expected after a cooloff period, I
00:48:36
would think. >> That's the thing. And they did acknowledge that while it was sheer
00:48:38
speculation, there were simil similarities in the murders. I understand they're trying not to like
00:48:43
jump the gun >> and again create mass hysteria. More importantly, this time, the killer
00:48:48
hadn't gotten away with leaving no evidence this time because on the broken bottle used to slash Hall's body,
00:48:55
forensic investigators found a latent fingerprint that didn't belong to the victim.
00:49:00
>> Nice. >> Because it had been used to cut the victim, it stood to reason that the
00:49:05
thumb print on the glass belonged to the killer. >> Yeah. >> Unfortunately, when the print was run through the
00:49:10
database, it didn't match any prints on file. >> Run it through another database. that
00:49:14
left detectives waiting for another victim in the hope that the next crime scene could produce maybe a little more
00:49:20
evidence. >> You all just can't talk to somebody else with a different database.
00:49:23
>> This is the most frustrating. That wait turned out to be much longer than anyone
00:49:27
had predicted. But for a killer who had been leaving victims with like very consistently and quickly, the unknown
00:49:34
suspect had seemingly disappeared after this murder. Uh, in the months that followed, authorities in California had
00:49:40
arrest arrested Patrick Kernney, who confessed to the murder and dismemberment of 28 boys and men over
00:49:46
the span of 15 years. >> Jeez. >> At first, it seemed as though investigators finally caught the person
00:49:52
responsible, but like for these killings. But the hope definitely fell apart quickly because when the cases
00:49:57
were compared, >> there were similarities, but there were far more dissimilarities. Most
00:50:02
importantly, all of Kern's victims have been shot in the head. >> Oh. And there was no evidence of torture
00:50:08
in those cases. >> Yeah, that's very different. >> Ultimately, investigators would wait
00:50:11
nearly 2 years before they had their next crime scene. >> And how many more people lost their
00:50:17
lives? >> Exactly. On April 16th, 1978, Anaheim police received a call about the
00:50:23
discovery of a body laying about 5 ft from the road beside the on-ramp in the Riverside Highway. When they arrived,
00:50:30
they found the fully clothed body of 18-year-old Scott Michael Hughes, a Marine stationed at nearby Camp
00:50:36
Pendleton. >> The third person, >> the third one, Hughes had obvious liature marks around his neck, which
00:50:41
were consistent with a belt, and his body showed signs of roadburn, indicating that he was pushed from a
00:50:47
slowmoving vehicle. The medical examiner listed the cause of death as cerebral enoxia, which was the result of
00:50:54
strangulation. There was also anti-mortem modem abrasions, possibly from being tossed out of a moving
00:50:59
vehicle. And the killer had cut open Hughes. This is horrifying and brutal. Just putting that out there. The killer
00:51:06
had cut open his scrotum and removed one of his testicles. There was no sign of alcohol in his system at the time of his
00:51:13
death, but the medical examiner did note dazipam was present at um about three times the therapeutic level. Wow.
00:51:20
>> Which would have caused sleepiness and mental confusion. Mhm. According to administrators at Camp Pendleton, on
00:51:26
April 14th, Hughes had told another Marine that he was planning to hitchhike to Washington to visit his brother who
00:51:33
was suffering from cancer. Um, after which he was scheduled to be reassigned to a base in Okinawa, Japan.
00:51:40
>> Wow. >> Completely out of here. >> The next time anyone saw Scott was 2 days later when his body was found on
00:51:46
the freeway. Also, the crime scene itself yielded few clues and almost no evidence. again. Uh but there was very
00:51:53
distinct carpet uh carpet fibers found on the victim's body which were collected and they hoped that they could
00:52:00
at least use them in some way. For two years, there had been silence. And it seemed like he had come back and was
00:52:07
apparently trying to make up for lost time because in the early early morning hours of June 11th, just 2 months after
00:52:13
the murder of Scott Hughes, a driver on Irvine Center Drive called the police to
00:52:19
report she saw what she thought was a body on the side of the road. About 20 minutes later, a Santa Ana firefighter
00:52:24
called police with a similar report, and the officers were sent to the scene where they found the lifeless body of
00:52:30
23-year-old Ronald Roland Young. Just hours before the body was discovered, Young had been released from the custody
00:52:37
of the Orange County Sheriff's Department after being picked up on on a misdemeanor charge of public
00:52:42
drunkenness. >> They had let him sober up, so he was totally sober when he was let out.
00:52:47
Investigators theorize that after being released from custody, he was likely picked up by the killer when
00:52:52
hitchhiking. >> Yeah. >> Which is like, what the [ __ ] >> What are the odds? >> To those familiar with the case, this
00:52:57
was very eerily familiar crime scene. Young wasn't wearing a shirt, but the killer had obviously redressed him and
00:53:04
everything else, which always gives me >> I don't know what it is. >> He wasn't wearing a left shoe or his
00:53:10
belt. >> He was also missing the shoelaces from his right shoe. and that um his genes
00:53:15
were soaking wet from a large amount of blood. During the autopsy, the medical examiner
00:53:22
noted that his cause of death was blood loss following four stab wounds to the chest, all of which struck the heart.
00:53:29
>> Oh wow. >> This was a deviation from the killer's usual method of strangulation, but there
00:53:34
were other hallmarks. >> Yeah. According to the medical examiner, at, and this is a quote, at or near the
00:53:39
time of death, a sharp knife had been used to cut the scrotal sack and remove one testicle and some skin from the
00:53:46
penis. Sorry, you said while he was still alive. >> Yeah. At or near the time of death.
00:53:53
>> Okay. Young's blood alcohol at the time of death was around the legal limit, 0.08, 08. But there's a large amount of
00:54:00
alium in his system, which when combined with the alcohol would have made him lethargic, if not unconscious.
00:54:06
>> Definitely. Detectives on the young case had barely begun processing this evidence on June 19th when a Los Angeles
00:54:13
firefighter discovered the body of 20-year-old Richard Keith laying on the side of Molton Parkway. Like most of the
00:54:20
other victims, Keith had been strangled and there were ligature marks on both wrists as well. Um, it indicated
00:54:26
obviously he had been bound. His blood alcohol level was 0.07, but the medical examiner also noted a large amount of
00:54:33
volume in his system and the combination had apparently caused him to choke on quote white froth which was found in his
00:54:40
throat. >> Oh yeah. Upon investigation, it turns out that Ke uh Richard Keith was yet
00:54:47
another Marine stationed at Camp Pendleton number four. Now, according to Keith's girlfriend, he had gone with her
00:54:54
to visit her mother on June 18th, the day before, and he left around 11:00 p.m. Because he had no car and didn't
00:55:00
arrange for a ride, he hitchhiked to his girlfriend's house and was presumably planning to return to Camp Pendleton the
00:55:06
same way. >> Mhm. >> Otherwise, there was little else about the body or crime scene that would give
00:55:11
them anything else to go on. Almost like clockwork, another body was discovered on July 6th. My god, this one just off
00:55:20
the side of the road on Interstate 5. After receiving the report from a driver on the I5 around 3:30 a.m., officers
00:55:27
came to the scene to find the body of 23-year-old Keith um Clingb laying half in and half out of the slow lane. So,
00:55:36
like on the highway. Yeah. >> When they arrived, officers were expecting a dead body, but upon closer
00:55:42
examination, they discovered that Clingb was unconscious and had had a very weak
00:55:48
pulse. >> What? >> He was still alive. Paramedics were called and he was rushed to the
00:55:53
hospital, but he died shortly after arriving. >> He was found alive. There were obvious ligature marks on his
00:56:00
neck indicating strangulation, but according to the autopsy, his cause of death was determined to be
00:56:06
acetammenophen overdose with liature strangulation a contributing factor. >> Acetammenophen, isn't that like Advil?
00:56:14
>> Yeah, Tylenol, right? Tylenol. >> Um, yeah, cuz uh Advil is ibuprofen, right?
00:56:20
>> Yeah. Yeah. Uh, so yeah. Uh, the liature marks weren't the only thing though tying Keith's murder to the other
00:56:26
victims. He had also been burned repeatedly with a car cigarette uh lighter, including on the eyes, face,
00:56:34
and the left. Apparently, the left nipple is his like thing that he burns, and it happens in a lot of these cases.
00:56:42
>> Um it'll happen a few more times. >> Maybe it's cuz he's right-handed or something.
00:56:45
>> I don't know. But Keith had recently hitchhiked to California from his home in Everett, Washington. He was
00:56:51
apparently visiting his mother who lived in San Diego. Mhm. >> Among the items found in his pockets
00:56:56
were a number of matchbooks from various businesses, including one from a Chevron
00:57:00
station in Long Beach, which was another piece of evidence tying him to Craft's growing list of victims. Other aspects
00:57:08
of the case that linked him to the other victims included his missing laces from
00:57:12
one of his hiking boots and the fact that, like many of the others, he had been pushed from a moving vehicle on the
00:57:17
side of the road. Like the previous cases, investigators strongly suspected the four most recent
00:57:23
murders were definitely committed by the same individual. And now the press was calling this this killer the Freeway
00:57:30
Killer. >> That's how what was named because they hadn't yet found the scorecard.
00:57:35
>> Oh, >> so he was initially called the Freeway Killer. >> But there already was another Freeway
00:57:40
Killer. >> There probably is. >> Yeah. Um, but they were reluctant to say that much in press conferences, uh, that
00:57:46
there was a connection between these four bodies. The investigators weren't. Uh, Detective Willie Stanbury told the
00:57:52
press during one of the conferences, we have to give a lot of consideration as to them all being committed by the same
00:57:57
person. So, they're like, we're considering it. >> Yeah. >> Still, while they felt confident that at
00:58:02
least these latest four killings were connected, detectives readily admitted that the investigations were already
00:58:07
starting to go cold just a few weeks later, even though they were connected. >> Yeah. Um, Stanbury said, "It's virtually
00:58:13
at a standstill because we have no place to turn." >> That must be in maddening.
00:58:19
>> Infuriating. >> Yeah. >> Two months later, another body was discovered along the highway in San
00:58:26
Bernardino County. >> Like, where does it end? >> But this case was even more vague and
00:58:30
void of evidence than the others. On September 30th, 1978, a driver reported seeing a body along the Interstate 83,
00:58:38
and it turned out to be 20-year-old Richard Crosby. Richard was known to be a regular
00:58:43
hitchhiker and that night he was just headed to the movie theater. Crosby's cause of death was listed as suffocation
00:58:49
and his body's body showed a lot of signs of torture including the same burn marks in the same spots with a car
00:58:56
cigarette lighter. >> Mhm. Less than a month later, on November 18th, the body of 21-year-old
00:59:02
Michael Michael Indderbeaten was discovered along the side of the 7th Street exit on the 405 freeway, just a
00:59:09
few yards from where the first victim, the very first victim, Edward Moore, had been found years earlier.
00:59:15
>> According to friends, Michael had gone out to some nightclubs along the Pacific
00:59:19
Coast Highway the night before his murder, where he and some others eventually found a ride with some other
00:59:24
patrons. >> Yeah. because the car was full, one of the young women was sitting on Michael's
00:59:29
lap and acc, you know, according to ports later, he started to pinch her in what she said was a not very good area.
00:59:36
>> Oh. >> So, she slapped him in the face and he became angry and he demanded to be let
00:59:43
out of the car. >> Okay. >> His friends reported to police that that was the last time they saw him. He was
00:59:48
walking towards the Pacific Coast Highway in the direction of his home. Now, Michael was discovered wearing only
00:59:54
a pair of pants, which had been pulled down slightly. Like many of the others, he had been burned in the eyes and other
01:00:01
places that we discussed with a car lighter, and his scrotum, testicles, and skin from his genitals had been removed.
01:00:08
>> Wow. >> All of which was likely happened when he was still alive. >> Oh my god.
01:00:13
>> All of that. >> The cause of death was listed as anoxia due to suffocation. But while there were
01:00:19
ligature marks around both wrists, there were none around his neck indicating he
01:00:23
had not been strangled. >> Interesting. >> But he was suffocated. >> Mhm. >> His blood alcohol level at the time
01:00:28
was.16 which would have rendered him drunk but only mildly really. >> Yeah. Not like crazy.
01:00:33
>> Um he also had Valium and Secoarbatl both tranquilizers in his system. >> The combined effect of those two would
01:00:41
have made him heavily sedated at the least if not possibly unconscious. So that seems to be the
01:00:46
>> the pattern here. >> Yeah. In their statement to the press, investigators remained pretty reluctant
01:00:51
to connect his murder to the larger pool of victims. But with a total of 18 victims now across three counties,
01:00:58
>> 18, >> it was getting pretty hard to ignore the obvious connections being made to the
01:01:02
press. >> Y >> um but when he was pressed about the connection, the sergeant GF Buzzard
01:01:07
would only concede that Michael's death may be connected with the others. >> That's all he would say.
01:01:12
>> All right. because the murders were occurring across multiple counties in Southern California and law enforcement
01:01:18
agencies from those counties didn't always communicate well. We've talked about that. Yep.
01:01:23
>> If they communicated at all, >> the connection between one victim and the others, wasn't always apparent
01:01:29
immediately. >> Um, also information about potential suspects, light as it may have been,
01:01:34
wasn't always passed along or discussed in inter agency meetings because remember, they all have egos and they
01:01:41
don't want to share their [ __ ] Yeah, you know, if anyone had considered Randy Craft a suspect in these murder cases,
01:01:48
it doesn't appear that his name was circulated widely, nor was he ever identified as a suspect during this
01:01:53
time. >> Wow. >> So, to investigator surprise, following the discovery of Michael's body, Michael
01:01:59
Interbeaten, um the murder stopped again for nearly 7 months. >> Okay. >> Then on June 16th, 1979, another US
01:02:07
Marine was found dead on the side of the 405 highway. According to one of the Marines station at the base, 20-year-old
01:02:14
Donald Creel was last seen around 1:30 a.m. on the night of the 16th when he told a fellow Marine he was going to go
01:02:20
to a restaurant like close to the base. At 9:30 p.m., a driver on the 405 spotted Creel's body along the side of
01:02:27
the road and called the police. When the first officer arrived at the scene, he felt for a pulse. Didn't find any, but
01:02:34
he did note that the body was very warm and there was blood coming from his nostrils, indicating that he had been
01:02:40
killed very recently. >> Yeah. >> His body had many cuts and scrapes that came from him being pushed out of the
01:02:47
car. When the autopsy was performed, the Emmy noted the obvious ligature marks on
01:02:51
his neck, but the cause of death was attributed to an overdose of multiple drugs.
01:02:55
>> Okay. In addition to a blood alcohol of 006, Creel had unusually large amounts
01:03:00
of acetaminophen, two antihistamines and phenocetin and chlorine, both prescription painkillers.
01:03:10
>> Okay, >> that was difficult to say. >> Yeah, >> the autopsy also showed that his left
01:03:14
nipple had been burned with a car cigarette lighter. >> So, those working the case, the killer
01:03:19
seemed to be defying any kind of pattern for when he would kill. they were trying
01:03:23
to come up with like >> is there a p is there a random pattern you know like anything sometimes bodies
01:03:30
would appear like they were on a cycle and then he would just disappear for large stretches of time and they
01:03:35
couldn't predict when he was coming back. >> Yeah. >> This next um this time the next body
01:03:39
showed up on August 29th but not in the usual method either like having been dumped on the side of the road out of a
01:03:46
car. On the morning of August 29th, police in Long Beach received a call about human remains having been
01:03:53
discovered behind the Union 76 gas station on the Pacific Coast Highway. And they meant human remains. When they
01:04:01
arrived, investigators found a human head, torso, and left leg and garbage bags in the station's dumpster.
01:04:08
>> There was no indication of the person's identity, but there was a sock stuffed
01:04:12
into the anus, strongly indicating who the killer was. >> Okay. It would take many years, but
01:04:18
eventually this victim was identified. Um, it was 21-year-old British tourist Keith Jackson.
01:04:25
>> Oh my god. Just the fact that he was on vacation here. >> And unfortunately, despite like really
01:04:30
intense efforts from authorities, they never could find the rest of his remains.
01:04:34
>> Oh, that's >> which is really sad. Just 2 weeks later on September 19th, the remains of
01:04:41
19-year-old Gregory Jolly were discovered in a plastic bag along the at the side of the Highway 330 in San
01:04:47
Bernardino. The first discovery was a headless torso. But the following day, investigators found Jolly's head and
01:04:54
what the press reported as quote other body parts in trash bags about 25 miles from where the torso was discovered. Now
01:05:02
he's just scattering body parts. >> Yeah. Like what the [ __ ] So unable to identify the body, the sheriff's
01:05:07
department reached out to the FBI who ran the fingerprints through the national database and found that it was
01:05:12
Jolly. It turned out that he was from Jacksonville, Florida, and nobody seemed to know why he'd come to California or
01:05:18
who he might have been with on the night of his murder. >> Huh. >> According to his parents, he left home 2
01:05:23
months earlier, and they hadn't seen or heard from him since. In talking to his friends, detectives learned that Gregory
01:05:30
had said he was hitchhiking to California, quote, "because he wanted to see Disneyland." Oh,
01:05:35
>> but he also indicated that he might look for work as a dishwasher while he was
01:05:38
there. That broke my heart. >> Yeah, that's absolutely heartbreaking. >> Like truly broke my heart. He was only
01:05:43
19. >> Yeah. The victim's injuries, particularly the removal of the genitals, were what led investigators to
01:05:49
suspect he was definitely one of the victims. Um, years later, several items belonging to Jolly, were discovered in
01:05:56
Brandy Craft's home. >> Which confirmed their suspicions later. Uh during their investigation,
01:06:02
detectives learned that Gregory was quote known to wear military clothing and tell people he was a marine, which
01:06:07
is probably how he came in contact with Craft in the first place. >> Oh no. In the following months after
01:06:14
Jolly's murder, several young men matching Craft's preferred victim profile went missing or were murdered in
01:06:20
and around Los Angeles. At first, investigators on the inter agency task force considered whether more than two
01:06:26
dozen new victims could be attributed to this unknown killer, but eventually only
01:06:31
one of the victims, 19-year-old Mark Allen Marsh, is believed to have been killed by Craft.
01:06:36
>> Okay. >> Like many of the other victims, Marsh was a Marine stationed at a base in El
01:06:40
Toro, just outside Irvine. The last time anyone saw him, he was hitchhiking in the direction of Buena Park, a city in
01:06:47
Orange County. It's about 20 miles, I think, south of Los Angeles. Yeah. >> On February 18th, 1980, his body was
01:06:54
found alongside the I5. The killer had cut off his head and hands and quote, "A large object had been stuffed into a
01:07:02
body cavity." >> Oh, I'm unfortunately going to leave you there. Um because I need a minute.
01:07:09
>> Yeah. >> After that, and we will get to part three where Randy Craft will be discovered and arrested.
01:07:17
>> Um and this will all come to an end. So, he was like a little bit apprehended,
01:07:21
but it didn't really work out this time. >> But it's going to work out next time.
01:07:24
>> It's going to work out next time. There's hope. Um, that was a lot. >> That was a lot of bodies. That was a lot
01:07:31
of victims. A lot of young men who were just going about their business one night. This is just
01:07:38
>> just like some of their stories, too. Like the like the ones who like didn't have a great relationship with their
01:07:42
family, just kind of like setting off on their own. Yep. This poor fellow who was
01:07:47
just going to see Disneyland. >> Disneyland. >> It's heartbreaking. >> Like the poor guy who was literally just
01:07:53
here as a tourist. >> Like that's the thing. It's like what the [ __ ] >> I just
01:08:00
>> That's heavy. This is a heavy case. >> It's a heavy case. And it's >> it's just upsetting. It really is. And
01:08:07
the way it was reported on is upsetting. The things that come out of some of the
01:08:11
investigators mouth is upsetting. the things that come out of some of these employers mouths is upsetting. And it's
01:08:16
just like the fact that I didn't I mean maybe I'm maybe I'm in the in the like minority here that I didn't know about
01:08:24
this case and I feel very remiss that I didn't >> but I feel like this this isn't talked
01:08:29
about a lot. I haven't seen this. >> I've never I've never heard it covered before.
01:08:33
>> It's very upsetting. >> Yeah. But it's it's a lot. >> Yeah. So, take a minute after that uh
01:08:39
read for Ledger or something, you know, just do something fun. >> Have some hot cocoa.
01:08:44
>> Go watch Bravo. >> I know it's like 90° out. >> Hug someone you love. >> Yeah. Do something that isn't.
01:08:48
>> Manifest the fall. >> Manifest the fall with us. >> Let's all manifest the fall. I'm really
01:08:53
manifesting early fall. >> Same. Especially right now. >> And you should too. >> Um but take a beat and we'll we'll get
01:08:59
back to you with the third third and final part of the series. So in that case, we hope you keep listening and we
01:09:06
hope you keep it weird, >> but not so weird that you decompress [Music] [Music] [Music]