00:00:06
- MALE NARRATOR:
The 8th of February, 1990, Riverside, California. The half-naked corpse
of a woman was found
00:00:14
in a grapefruit orchard
on the outskirts of the city by two local workers. - STEVE:
We didn't know who she was.
00:00:21
We lift up her shirt, and right
in the middle of her chest were four very distinct
stab wounds.
00:00:29
- NARRATOR: Forensic scientists
later identified the woman as 35-year-old sex worker
Carol Miller.
00:00:35
Her stab wounds were
a calling card of the so-called Riverside Prostitute Killer,
who'd already slain three women.
00:00:43
Thirty-nine-year-old Bill Suff would go on to take
another nine victims. - CHRISTINE: I would tell
the girls, "Stay off the streets
00:00:51
"for a while, it's not safe. There is a serial murderer
out there." - NARRATOR: But by day,
Suff was a model employee
00:00:58
for the local county. - PAUL: He was very friendly. He was the guy next door. He was a chameleon.
00:01:04
He could become this monster, and brutalize these women
horribly. - NARRATOR:
The Jekyll and Hyde killer
00:01:13
even attacked his own children. - I was not wanting to believe
that he would kill our child.
00:01:21
There was no rhyme or reason
for it. - NARRATOR: Suff beat his
two-month-old daughter to death.
00:01:28
He brutally killed
and mutilated 12 women. He spread fear across
the county of Riverside,
00:01:35
making Bill Suff one of the world's
most evil killers. - ♪ ♪♪ - ♪ - NARRATOR:
The 23rd of December, 1991,
00:02:04
Riverside, California. A workman made
a shocking discovery. He found the body of
39-year-old Eleanor Casares
00:02:14
lying in orange groves. She'd been strangled, stabbed,
and mutilated, and was the 13th victim of
the man who'd later become
00:02:23
known as the Riverside
Prostitute Killer. - ♪ - ELIZABETH: When we look at
this particular murder,
00:02:30
it was very violent. And if we look at what he did
with the victim's breast, he mutilated it and he threw it
some 40 feet away.
00:02:39
He's just discarding this woman's body part
like it's trash. And I think that's how he saw
these victims.
00:02:45
- NARRATOR: In an act of
bravado, the killer dumped Eleanor's body
just a block away
00:02:50
from the
Riverside Police Department. Local detective
Christine Keers Sheffield had warned Eleanor about
00:02:58
a serial murderer on the loose
only days earlier. - When we saw it was Eleanor,
I was just like, "Oh my God.
00:03:06
"You know, we just
had this talk. We just had this talk." And I knew she had
little children.
00:03:12
You fight back your emotions
and say, "We gotta get this solved. - NARRATOR:
Knowing a serial killer
00:03:17
was on the rampage shocked
the county of Riverside. - The fear was rampant. It affected people's willingness
to go out at night
00:03:26
and just walk
in their neighborhoods. And the papers
played up to that. There was a great deal
of building pressure on us--
00:03:35
law enforcement--to find
this individual. - ♪ - NARRATOR:
This killer's story begins
00:03:42
on the 20th of August, 1950. William Lester Suff was born
in Torrance, California.
00:03:49
- ♪ - ELIZABETH: From the outside, his family did appear
to be very traditional.
00:03:54
He was the oldest
of five siblings. But there was an incredibly
abusive relationship
00:03:59
that went on
between Suff's parents. And when a child grows up
in an environment like this,
00:04:05
they learn violence is a way
of getting what you want, violence is a way of maintaining
feelings of control.
00:04:11
And those are very toxic
things, but they take root. - His mother, Elizabeth,
was domineering,
00:04:18
overbearing. His father, William,
rather remote. I'm not suggesting for a moment
there was abuse.
00:04:25
But there was certainly a very
poor male role model anywhere around him. - NARRATOR: At the age of 16,
00:04:31
Suff's father
walked out on the family. And his mother was left bringing up five children
on her own.
00:04:38
Suff had to work part time
to support his family, who were in dire straits. - Well, Suff had to take on
quite a considerable role
00:04:48
looking after his siblings. He had a lot
of responsibility. He was essentially an adult
in this house.
00:04:54
And I think that impacted
upon his own development, to make him quite an isolated
and quite a solitary individual.
00:05:01
- Elizabeth starts up
another relationship with a man she was eventually
to go on and marry.
00:05:06
Now, he was the opposite,
if you like, of Suff's father. He was firm, disciplinarian,
very tough, I think,
00:05:16
on Suff. - NARRATOR: At school,
young Suff was an unremarkable student, but he held his own
amongst his peers,
00:05:24
achieving average grades. He also developed an interest
in music and learned to play the trumpet.
00:05:33
- He was in the
high school marching band. As a matter of fact, um, in his
senior year in high school,
00:05:38
his high school marching band
had been selected to participate in the Rose Parade, which is
quite an accomplishment.
00:05:46
- NARRATOR: It was here,
playing with his band, that the 18-year-old Suff
met his first love--Teryl,
00:05:52
who was just 15. - TERYL: Well, me and my friends
from school, we went to the game,
and Bill was there,
00:06:00
and he was kinda cute. And so naturally,
we all flirted. At the time, I was
infatuated.
00:06:08
I thought he was a cute guy. He asked me for my phone number,
and I gave it to him.
00:06:13
And then, uh, I heard from
him a couple of months later. He was going into the Air Force.
00:06:19
- NARRATOR: Suff wrote to Teryl
from his Air Force base in Texas, where he was
training to be a medic.
00:06:26
And just over a year later,
in May 1969, he asked for
her hand in marriage. But Teryl had suffered
a devastating event.
00:06:36
- TERYL: I had been raped,
got pregnant. And I said,
"No, I can't marry you," you know, circumstances,
and told him what happened,
00:06:47
and he says, "Well, I wanna
marry you anyway." So we did. - Although Suff had accepted
that Teryl had been raped
00:06:57
and that she was
carrying the child, ironically, he didn't
accept the child. - NARRATOR: Suff lied and told
Teryl that the Air Force didn't
00:07:05
allow children
to live at the base. She was forced to leave the baby
with Suff's mother
00:07:10
and stepfather in California, and make the move
to join him in Texas alone. - ELIZABETH: For him, it was
an opportunity
00:07:18
to exert control
over somebody else. Teryl was someone
who was quite vulnerable,
00:07:23
who had been through
quite a lot. So, I think he took
advantage of that situation.
00:07:29
- TERYL: Pretty much
his behavior started changing when I moved to Texas, 'cause
then he felt like he had
00:07:35
complete control over me. He started to get physical. And that was only
six months in.
00:07:42
- NARRATOR:
In early winter 1970, Suff was discharged
from the Air Force. The following November,
the couple had
00:07:50
their first child--
William Jr. - GEOFFREY: Suff himself at this
point is 21, a new, young
00:07:57
father, struggling to realize
what being a father means. I think fatherhood was
a dreadful shock to him.
00:08:05
- NARRATOR: The couple stayed
in Texas, but Suff drifted from job to job
until he found work
00:08:11
as a parking attendant. Even then, he was fired for
stealing a client's car. So, Teryl had to work in a
restaurant to pay their bills.
00:08:21
- So, when he loses his job and Teryl becomes
the main breadwinner, this causes quite a lot
of conflict in him,
00:08:26
because it compromises
those feelings of control that he has over this family. Suff has some very fixed views
about men and women.
00:08:34
Men should be breadwinners,
women should be caregivers. So, I think this causes quite
a lot of conflict for him.
00:08:42
- NARRATOR: In July 1973, the
couple had their second child-- a daughter called Dijianet.
00:08:48
Affectionately known
as Didi. Whilst Teryl went out to work,
the volatile Suff was left at home alone with
Didi,
00:08:57
and their newborn bore the brunt
of his frustrations. - When somebody's abusive and
they're used to
00:09:04
getting what they want
through being violent, and they try and use that tactic
on a baby, it doesn't work
00:09:09
in the same way
that it would work on an adult. If anything, it's gonna make
the baby cry more,
00:09:14
it's gonna make them
scream more. And this is just a really
toxic environment to bring a child into.
00:09:19
- ♪ - NARRATOR: But soon, the angry
and possessive Bill Suff would break into a rage that would
spiral out of control.
00:09:28
Before long, the little life
he held in his hands would be in mortal danger. On the 25th of September, Teryl
receives some alarming news
00:09:38
about their two-month-old baby. - ♪ - Suff rings his wife at work
and says, "You must come home
00:09:46
at once, because, uh,
Didi's not breathing." Teryl rushes home to discover
that her newborn daughter
00:09:54
is indeed not breathing. - When we look at the abuse
that their daughter was subject to,
it is really horrendous--
00:10:02
broken ribs, broken wrists,
cigarette burns. It was really awful. - GEOFFREY: Suff tries to
explain her injuries by saying
00:10:12
that his son, William Jr., had
been too aggressive in hugging and kissing her. Bizarre, I would've said,
because I don't think any
00:10:22
toddler is capable of inflicting
those kinds of injuries. But that was Suff's story.
00:10:28
- I was not wanting to
believe... ...that, uh,
he would kill our child. And, uh, when he was arrested,
I was trying to still
00:10:41
work in my mind how he
could've done it or why. There's no rhyme or reason
for it.
00:10:48
- NARRATOR: When the doctors
examine Didi, they also found evidence of old injuries,
00:10:53
which suggested she'd been
abused over a period of time. Teryl's world was turned
upside down even further
00:11:01
when she, too, was arrested
on charges of murder. Their son was taken
into care.
00:11:07
And on the 11th of April, 1974,
both parents were sentenced to 70 years for
killing their daughter.
00:11:15
- TERYL: I didn't have my son. I'd lost my daughter. And...I really had nothing.
00:11:23
You know, I was just
devastated, destroyed. And I wasn't sure how I was
gonna actually make it through.
00:11:32
- ♪ - NARRATOR: 20 months
into her sentence, Teryl was granted
an appeal hearing.
00:11:41
The court was not satisfied
with the evidence against Teryl and exonerated her. - TERYL: I walked outside
the courtroom and just screamed.
00:11:50
[chuckles] 'Cause now I can try to move on. And I immediately started
divorce proceedings.
00:11:59
And it was one of the best days
of my life. - NARRATOR: Meanwhile, her
ever-manipulative ex-husband was
00:12:07
making his own plans
for an early release. - When Suff's in prison, he
demonstrates the kind of
00:12:13
behavior that officials
want to see. He's compliant. He appears to be someone
trying to better himself.
00:12:21
- He volunteered
for the prison library. He took two degrees, caused
no trouble whatever.
00:12:28
Suff is such a model prisoner
that he serves only 10 years of his sentence
and is released in 1984.
00:12:38
- NARRATOR: On the 6th of March,
33-year-old Suff was awarded parole. He moved back to California
and found a job
00:12:46
in the county of Riverside
selling Greyhound bus tickets. - He appeared to be a real
pillar of the community.
00:12:55
And it diverts attention
away from him, he blends in,
he's the average Joe. - NARRATOR: In October 1986,
Suff got a new job
00:13:04
as a supply clerk
for Riverside County. He'd started dating a teacher
called Bonnie
00:13:10
and moved in with her
to help care for her elderly grandmother. - He's effectively creating
the persona--the quiet man
00:13:19
who doesn't mind helping,
very ordinary, but within him, something
quite different was happening.
00:13:26
- CHRISTINE:
People at work loved him. He was good to everybody
on the outside. He had this façade going on
about him that, um,
00:13:34
you could trust him, that he
was kind and giving person, but at the same time, had
that secret devil within him.
00:13:42
- NARRATOR: Suff split up from
his girlfriend, Bonnie, after he admitted stealing money
from her grandmother.
00:13:49
He often spent nights cruising
the local red light districts, looking for casual sex.
00:13:54
He developed a hatred for the
women he saw on the streets. - I think he reserved that
particular distaste for
00:14:01
sex workers because he saw them
as less than women. He saw them as women who weren't
fulfilling the roles
00:14:07
of the caregiver
and the nurturer, and he had some very rigid ideas
about who women are
00:14:12
and how they should behave. - NARRATOR: Soon, this seething
resentment would escalate.
00:14:18
In January 1989, 38-year-old
Suff was driving his van down Main Street in Lake Elsinore,
00:14:26
when he spotted a young woman
called Rhonda Jetmore. They agreed on $20 for sex, and
she demands the money upfront.
00:14:35
- GEOFFREY:
But it's extremely dark. Suff hands her the bill, and
she switches the flashlight on
00:14:41
to look at it, and instead of
it being a $20 bill, it's a $1 bill. Now, she's furious.
00:14:47
"I'm not doing this
for a dollar bill." She is angry. Suff launches himself
at her in attempt
00:14:54
to begin to strangle her. - NARRATOR: Rhonda fought back,
smashing Suff around the head
00:15:00
with her flashlight
and made her escape. - GEOFFREY: I think it taught
Suff something very specific:
00:15:09
never let them survive. If you attack them,
they must be killed. You cannot afford to have
another Rhonda.
00:15:18
- NARRATOR: Six months later,
on the 26th of June, 1989, single mother Kimberly Little
was soliciting sex
00:15:26
along Main Street. Suff was one of
her regular clients. He picked her up. - GEOFFREY:
Put her into his van,
00:15:34
take her to an isolated spot, rape her, stab her,
strangle her, and he put some of his clothes
on her.
00:15:43
He demonstrated an extraordinary
lack of DNA awareness. He left semen at the scene.
00:15:49
He left pubic hair
at the scene. - BOB: She was clothed,
and she was wearing a man's Western-style shirt,
she had pants on,
00:15:59
but she had a long, blue
bath towel that covered her. Now, this was significant
to the profiler,
00:16:06
because he felt that
the suspect knew her. There was a sign or
an indication of remorse.
00:16:13
He couldn't look at her. He covered her,
he left her there. - NARRATOR: Any remorse Suff
may have felt soon disappeared.
00:16:22
Six months later, on the
12th of December, 1989, Suff returned to Lake Elsinore's
red light district again.
00:16:32
He picked up 23-year-old
Tina Leal, then strangled
and stabbed her. She was dumped off
a quiet road in nearby Paris.
00:16:41
And a couple discovered
her body the following day. - BOB: She was wearing
men's clothing.
00:16:47
The suspect had mutilated her
body. But the evidence showed that
she was dressed
00:16:55
after she was killed. - STEVE: We noticed that she had
very distinct stab marks towards the middle of her chest.
00:17:03
Not the typical kind of
stab marks that you'd see when somebody's in a rage. These were very controlled,
very clean-looking stab marks
00:17:12
that would indicate somebody
had control over their senses, their emotions at the time.
00:17:19
- NARRATOR: It wasn't until
the autopsy later that day that the detectives discovered
the true horror of Suff's
00:17:25
final act of humiliation
against his victim. - The pathologist discovered that a 95-watt light bulb
00:17:36
had been inserted into
her vaginal vault. Now, according
to the pathologist, he felt
00:17:44
that the suspect had to take
quite a bit of time with her, because the light bulb
was intact, it hadn't broken.
00:17:52
- NARRATOR: With at least two
victims under his belt now, Suff was becoming bolder.
00:17:58
Just over one month later,
on the 18th of January, 1990, he struck again, strangling
another sex worker,
00:18:06
Darla Ferguson, after sex. - Her body was found in a
remote area along a dirt road
00:18:13
just outside of Lake Elsinore. Now, the unique thing with
Darla Ferguson was that
00:18:19
she was nude, she was strangled
just like the other victims, but her upper torso was covered
in a very large black bag--
00:18:27
a trash bag, and it was
tied at the waist. - STEVE: We did not look
at the first murders
00:18:34
as being connected at all. They were like independent
events that happen. The only similarity that
we knew at the time--they were
00:18:42
in the Elsinore area and they
were female prostitutes. - NARRATOR: But soon, a pattern
would begin to emerge
00:18:49
for investigators. Just over two weeks later,
on the 6th of February, Suff had identified a hunting
ground closer to home.
00:18:58
He picked up 35-year-old
Carol Miller from Riverside's red light district,
University Avenue.
00:19:06
He stabbed and strangled her,
then dumped her in a grapefruit orchard on
the outskirts of the city.
00:19:13
She was discovered
two days later by agricultural workers. - STEVE: Well, I went out to
the Carol Miller scene,
00:19:20
and she was naked,
except that she had a-- her shirt over her face. Next to her was a partially
eaten and peeled grapefruit.
00:19:31
And we lift up her shirt, and
right in the middle of her chest were four very distinct
stab wounds.
00:19:39
I was aware of the Tina Leal
case where she also had four distinct stab wounds that
seemed to be very deliberate.
00:19:46
Carol Miller had the same,
and that was atypical. Just not what we normally see.
00:19:52
- NARRATOR: Steve Secofsky
was also drawn to something else that the killer's van
had left at the scene.
00:19:59
- STEVE: There were hundreds
of feet of tire tracks. So we took, literally,
hundreds and hundreds
00:20:06
of pictures to document them, see if they matched
anything else. - NARRATOR: Questions were
now starting to be asked
00:20:14
about whether this series
of killings could in fact be linked. - Tina Leah, Darla Ferguson,
and Carol Miller--
00:20:22
they had occurred
in consecutive months. So, we didn't really know
what was gonna happen,
00:20:29
and we didn't know if we
were gonna expect another case. So it's like, "Did we have
a serial killer?"
00:20:35
So now, the object was, "Well,
let's analyze the evidence and see what we can
come up with."
00:20:40
- NARRATOR: Whilst investigators
poured over the evidence he left behind, serial killer
Suff had made his mark,
00:20:47
killing the sex workers
he so despised. Despite having killed
at least four sex workers,
00:20:54
his rampage had only
just begun. At night, Suff stalked
the streets in his van looking for his next victim.
00:21:02
But by day,
the local county clerk was a pillar of the community. - Riverside County was promoting
a rideshare program
00:21:13
to conserve energy. And interestingly enough,
Mr. Suff was the poster boy for the program.
00:21:21
He was on the front page
of the newsletter. And the headline said,
"Take a ride with Bill."
00:21:27
And he was standing next
to his van that he had killed, kidnapped, and murdered and
assaulted all these women in.
00:21:33
- NARRATOR: Things were going
well for Suff. Not only was he
a model employee, he'd started
a new relationship.
00:21:42
- CHRISTINE:
He meets Cheryl. And there's got to be at least,
oh, I would say, 20 years' difference
in their age.
00:21:50
- ELIZABETH:
She was only a teenager. Abusive and controlling men
tend to target younger women,
00:21:56
because they are easier
to manipulate, they're easier to isolate,
they're easier to shape and
00:22:01
mold, and to chip away
at their sense of identity. - GEOFFREY:
Whirlwind romance.
00:22:09
He rushes her off to Las Vegas,
they get married. She really doesn't know
anything about him.
00:22:13
She's a child compared to
this mature adult, who also happens to be
a serial killer.
00:22:19
Cheryl becomes pregnant. - NARRATOR: Despite being
a newlywed, Suff could not suppress
his need to kill.
00:22:26
So, he came up with
a clever ruse to tell his new
and expected wife. - He was telling her that he did
00:22:33
the disaster preparedness
program for the County of Riverside and
that's why he was out late
00:22:38
'til 1 or 2 in the morning. He had disaster preparedness
pamphlets. I don't know if he ever
passed any of 'em out, but he
00:22:46
convinced her that that's what
he was doing at nighttime. - NARRATOR: Just seven months
after getting married,
00:22:52
Suff was looking
for his next victim. On the 30th of October, he
returned to University Avenue
00:23:00
in the city of Riverside,
where he picked up 33-year-old Cheryl Coker. After sex, he strangled her,
00:23:08
then placed her body
into a dumpster. She was Suff's fifth victim. And in his final depraved act,
he sliced off her right breast.
00:23:19
- ELIZABETH: He's making
judgments about them as women, because breasts are obviously
a part of nurturing children.
00:23:24
And I think this is perhaps
his way of saying, "These women, "in my opinion, are not
fit to be mothers.
00:23:30
They are not fit to be women." - CHRISTINE: From where
the body was located, there was an embankment.
00:23:36
And when he sliced her breast
off, he tossed it like a Frisbee
that went all the way
00:23:42
up the embankment
on the top up there. So, that was rather unusual. - ♪ - Once again, he leaves
DNA and fiber evidence behind.
00:23:53
He's not grown any more aware
of forensic proof than he was before. - NARRATOR: Just seven weeks
later, on the 21st of December,
00:24:03
another sex worker,
Susan Sternfeld, was found
strangled in a dumpster close to the location
of the previous killing.
00:24:13
- CHRISTINE: When you're
starting to find women that are placed
in dumpster areas,
00:24:16
you start
to do a little bit of a tie-in. So, in my mind, I'm thinking
that there's somebody out there
00:24:24
that feel that these women
are nothing more than trash. And so, we're gonna treat
them like trash.
00:24:30
After we kill them, we're
gonna dump 'em in the trash. - NARRATOR: Now Suff,
The Prostitute Hater,
00:24:36
was picking up pace
with his murders. Barely a month later,
on the 18th of January, 1991,
00:24:44
42-year-old Kathy Puckett
vanished whilst working University Avenue
in Riverside.
00:24:51
She was found strangled
the next day by a motorist at the side of a dirt road
30 miles away.
00:24:57
Forensic scientist
Steve Secofsky attended the scene and made an
important discovery.
00:25:05
- STEVE:
I saw dozens of tire tracks. And I noticed that there was
one that struck
00:25:10
a familiar cord to some of
the tire tracks in the Carol Miller case. We have, finally, some
physical evidence that would
00:25:17
link at least two of the cases. That was the first time that
we now had some evidence,
00:25:24
forensically, that said, "We've
got a serial killer going here." - NARRATOR: When Steve Secofsky
started looking for
00:25:30
other evidence linking the spate
of sex worker killings, his suspicions were confirmed.
00:25:36
- I started looking at
all the trace evidence, the fibers,
and saw some commonalities.
00:25:42
I saw fibers that were
gray in color from one victim to the next
to the next. And so, we were starting
to build up some idea
00:25:50
that, in effect, we do
have a series going on, this serial killer. We had to put a stop to it.
00:25:57
- To us, it was not that
they were prostitutes, it was--they were human beings
being killer.
00:26:01
Women are being killed and dumped in places
all over the place. So, we need to make a tie-in
here somehow.
00:26:09
- NARRATOR: Now that there was
conclusive evidence confirming that a serial killer was on
the loose, a task force was
00:26:16
created linking the various
law enforcement agencies investigating the killings
in both
00:26:22
Riverside and Lake Elsinore. They put out posters appealing
for locals to come forward
00:26:28
with any relevant information and offering a reward
of $11,000. By the 27th of April, they had
an 8th case of a dead sex worker
00:26:39
on their hands--
24-year-old Sherry Pacer. For the forensic team, gathering
evidence at this crime scene
00:26:47
proved much more difficult. - We were in the process of
looking at the body to see if
00:26:54
there were any fibers on it,
we already saw a shoe print, and the sprinkler system
came on.
00:26:59
It was just a small, little
garden area behind... the bowling alley. We're standing on top of,
literally, sprinklers
00:27:08
coming up on us to keep
the water off the body, and yelling, "Have 'em shut
the sprinkler system off!"
00:27:15
- NARRATOR: With the sprinklers
washing away potential evidence, it reduced
the amount of information
00:27:21
forensics could gather. However, they did find traces
of semen on Sherry's body.
00:27:28
Despite having a heavily
pregnant wife, Cheryl, at home, on the 3rd of July,
Suff struck again,
00:27:35
taking his next victim--
37-year-old Sherry Latham. The whole task force is
starting to feel pressure,
00:27:43
because we have these bodies
that are appearing. And I didn't feel any closer
to identifying or providing
00:27:50
that kind of information
to catch the guy. - NARRATOR: Three weeks later,
Suff became a father once again
00:27:58
when Cheryl gave birth
to their daughter. Whilst he was forced to spend
some time at home,
00:28:05
the task force were making
every effort to close in on him. - One of the deputies was
assigned to try
00:28:12
and identify some shoe
impressions that were left
at several of the scenes. So what he did was is he took
a photograph
00:28:19
of the shoe impression, and was
blown up to a 1:1 ratio, which means it's the actual
size of the impression.
00:28:26
What that deputy did is he went
to all the different shoe stores, picking up shoes,
looking at the bottom,
00:28:32
at their soles, to try and find
the same pattern. And after many hours, he was
successful.
00:28:39
He found that shoe. So now we had a shoe
identified. And we have
a shoe size identified.
00:28:46
- NARRATOR: Meanwhile, Forensic
scientist Steve Secofsky's hard work had started
to pay off.
00:28:52
He'd been analyzing
the tire marks found at the scenes of Carol Miller and
Kathy Puckett's killings.
00:28:58
And he, too, had made
a breakthrough. - I was able to identify
what kind of tire it was.
00:29:04
It was an Armstrong Ultra-Trac. Had a very unique kind of
tread design or pattern.
00:29:12
And so, I would take this
picture with me wherever I would go. I remember one time, I went
to a restaurant with my dad
00:29:18
and my two youngest kids, and
I'd be looking at the cars in the parking lot to see if I
found a similar tread design.
00:29:26
They're going, "Dad,
what are you doing?" - NARRATOR: The task force were
so determined to catch this
00:29:31
killer that many were unable to
leave their work at the office. - CHRISTINE: Many times, I would
take my casebook home
00:29:39
and lay it out on the bed
and say, "What are we missing? "Is this somebody that knows
these girls?
00:29:44
"Is it somebody that works
down here? Is it somebody coming in
from out of town?"
00:29:49
And it was rather, uh,
disturbing to me, to say the least. So, I started putting
all my effort into it.
00:29:56
- NARRATOR: But an even
bigger break would come for the task force
on the 15th of August.
00:30:01
At 10 p.m., serial killer
Bill Suff was once again cruising Riverside's
red light district.
00:30:09
- Suff goes out searching
for prey again, and comes across a young woman
called Kelly Whitecloud.
00:30:15
She is spirited, and not one to
suffer fools gladly. They make a deal. - She got in his van, and
went with him to McDonald's,
00:30:27
because she wanted him
to buy her a hamburger. - NARRATOR: Once they got
back in his van, Suff said
00:30:34
he wanted to take Kelly out
to nearby orchards for sex, but she refused. An argument broke out.
00:30:43
- She felt uneasy. And so, ultimately,
when they drove out of McDonald's parking lot,
00:30:49
she bolted from the van
and ran away. - NARRATOR: As Kelly recovered
from her encounter with Suff,
00:30:56
she witnessed him pick up her friend
and fellow sex worker, Kelly Hammond, further down
University Avenue.
00:31:04
- Whitecloud is shouting
to her down the street, "Don't get in the van.
Don't get in."
00:31:11
Hammond ignores it,
gets into the van, and becomes
Suff's next victim. - NARRATOR: Suff had sex with
Kelly in the back of his van,
00:31:20
and then strangled her
with a ligature. - GEOFFREY: He dumped her
nude body in an alleyway
00:31:26
and posed it
with her legs in the air. Which meant, almost for
the first time in his spree,
00:31:32
that she was found
relatively quickly. Her body was still warm
when it was discovered.
00:31:37
- NARRATOR: Suff had taken
the lives of at least nine sex workers. But a witness had seen
the predator on the prowl.
00:31:45
The net would soon close in
on the killer. - ♪ - NARRATOR: On the 16th of
August, an office worker found
00:31:55
Kelly Hammond's body
and called the police. Detective Christine
Keers Sheffield had previously gone undercover
as a local sex worker,
00:32:06
so she investigated
the latest murder using her contacts
on the street. - I knew, because I had
a rapport with the girls, that
00:32:14
Kelly Hammond was a good friend
of Kelly Whitecloud's. So, I went
to University Avenue,
00:32:20
and I looked
for Kelly Whitecloud, and I found her, I said, "Get in the car, Kelly."
00:32:25
And I asked her, "When's the last time you saw
Kelly Hammond?" She goes, "Oh, I saw her
last night. Why?"
00:32:30
And I said, "Well, man,
I'm gonna tell you this." I go, "Kelly was murdered
last night."
00:32:35
And so she, of course, became
hysterical and was crying. - NARRATOR: Kelly told
Detective Keers Sheffield about
00:32:43
her altercation
with the client in the van, and how the same man had
picked up her friend.
00:32:49
With this breakthrough of
finally finding a witness, the task force rushed in
a forensic artist
00:32:55
to create a sketch
of the suspect. - CHRISTINE: And Kelly told her,
he's a white guy
00:33:01
with a chubby face,
he's wearing glasses. And she really gave
an awesome description.
00:33:06
I--I was ecstatic. I just felt that we--we were
getting closer now. We were getting closer.
00:33:12
We had something. - BOB: So we now have a drawing
of a suspect. We have the type of vehicle
and color that he was driving.
00:33:22
We're excited about this. This is the best type of
information that you can hope for.
00:33:26
- NARRATOR: By now, the police
had drawn up a profile of their serial killer. Detective Keers Sheffield was
asked by her superiors
00:33:35
to update them
on the investigation. - I said, "This guy, you know,
he starts off,
00:33:40
"he's only doing white females. "And now we're getting
Hispanic females. But he's never done
an African-American female."
00:33:49
The following day, um,
my chief of police decided to do a press release. And he put the information out.
00:33:58
And it came out
in the newspaper. - NARRATOR: So,
on the 12th of September, Suff had a sinister surprise
in store.
00:34:06
He picked up
a black sex worker, 30-year-old Catherine McDonald, stabbed and strangled her,
then left her on a deserted
00:34:15
building site 40 miles south,
in Lake Elsinore. - CHRISTINE: I think he was
thumbing his nose at us,
00:34:22
saying, "You don't know
what I like. "You can't guess who I'm
gonna do next. And I'm a free man
out here."
00:34:29
I think he was taunting us. - NARRATOR: Suff repeated
many of the hallmarks he used
00:34:34
in his previous killings so that
the police could be in no doubt as to whose handiwork
this was.
00:34:41
But in his haste to show off,
he also unwittingly left clues. - Where Catherine McDonald
was laid was an area
00:34:51
that had a lot of fresh dirt,
which is very conducive to cars driving over it and leaving very good tire track
impressions.
00:34:58
Forensically, there was a lot
of information just in the tire tracks
and shoe prints.
00:35:03
- NARRATOR: What investigators
didn't realize was that on the very same day,
their serial killer
00:35:08
was hiding in plain sight. Two newly appointed members
of the task force were visiting
00:35:15
the council warehouse
Suff worked at to collect new office furniture
when their pagers went off.
00:35:22
- BOB: They asked Bill Suff if
they could use his telephone to call dispatch,
and Bill Suff said sure.
00:35:28
And while Bill Suff
was nearby watching them, these investigators were
taking down notes
00:35:34
on the very body,
on the very person--the victim-- that he had killed
the day before.
00:35:40
You can just imagine
the euphoria that he felt, the feeling that he was
smarter than us,
00:35:47
and we had no idea
that it was him. - NARRATOR: Whilst the smug
killer relished watching
00:35:52
the police run
around in circles, trying to work out who was
behind the slayings,
00:35:58
at home,
things were beginning to slip. Suff was, once again, struggling
with being a father.
00:36:06
- ELIZABETH: So, history
almost repeats itself here. And this is a very toxic,
a very dangerous environment
00:36:13
into which to bring a child,
because he doesn't possess those feelings of attachment
and warmth and love
00:36:19
that make most fathers put
the needs of their child first. - NARRATOR: Cheryl threatened
to leave Suff
00:36:25
because of the abuse he'd
subjected their daughter to. But manipulative as ever,
he asked for one more chance
00:36:33
to change his ways, and she
decided to stay. - BOB: Bill was pleading with
Cheryl to get back with him.
00:36:40
He was making all kinds
of promises. They had gotten a apartment
now in the city of Colton.
00:36:45
And she decided
to go back with him. When she did, in her own way
of offering him a present,
00:36:52
she had bought a pair of
Converse shoes for him for Christmas. And she had given him
those shoes
00:36:58
as an early Christmas present. - NARRATOR:
But there was no sign of Suff the serial killer
stopping.
00:37:05
Seven weeks later,
on the 30th of October, he took his 11th
known victim-- 35-year-old sex worker
Delliah Zamora.
00:37:15
Then, barely 2 months later,
on the 23rd of December, Suff lured 39-year-old
Eleanor Cassares into his van
00:37:24
in broad daylight. - He's becoming incredibly
brazen, that the fear of getting caught
00:37:30
does not seem to be something
that is on his radar. He's really engaging in
some quite risky behavior.
00:37:37
- NARRATOR:
Suff killed Eleanor, and took her to an orange grove just a street away from
the Riverside Police Station.
00:37:45
He left her body there to taunt
the task force investigators. - Yet again, strangulation.
00:37:51
Yet again, dumped. And now, part of the signature: her breast is cut off. - NARRATOR: Just two hours
later, her body was found
00:38:01
by an orchard worker. And the police
were called to the scene. Once again, though,
Suff slipped up,
00:38:08
leaving footprints and
tire tracks in the dirt. He'd been wearing the new shoes
Cheryl had given him as a gift.
00:38:16
- I was able to identify that
these are Converse tennis shoes, because that's how good
the impression was.
00:38:23
And from there, I was able
to tell that there were three different types
of tires on this vehicle
00:38:28
and where those tires
were located, where the different types
were. - NARRATOR: Having known
Eleanor personally,
00:38:35
this was a particularly
difficult time for Detective Keers Sheffield. - I wanted to make sure that
I was there with the coroner
00:38:43
when he told the mother
and the children. And the brothers were
absolutely out of their minds.
00:38:49
They wanted to grab guns
and hit the streets. And I said, "Please don't." I said, "I considered
Eleanor a friend.
00:38:56
"So I'm asking you, just let us
handle this for the next few weeks and
let's see what we can do."
00:39:02
- NARRATOR: Detective
Keers Sheffield was determined to get the extra resources
necessary to finally
00:39:08
get this killer
off her streets. - Had it been college students,
there'd been at least
00:39:15
100 detectives on this case. All power would have been
out there on it. I just felt it was a slap in
the face, because it's like
00:39:23
saying, "Well, okay, it's
just a prostitute, "so we'll give it our best shot, but we're not gonna
give it 100%."
00:39:30
And I...was absolutely
livid. I went to the chief
and I said, "Listen, here's what we need to do."
00:39:40
- NARRATOR: Her chief agreed
to launch a weeklong, intensive police operation in Riverside's
red-light district.
00:39:48
- CHRISTINE: We decided to
call it Operation Apprehension. I put a picture of the suspect.
00:39:55
and I said, "He will be
on University Avenue. "If you see this individual, and he's tried to pick up
a prostitute, stop him."
00:40:04
- NARRATOR:
On the 9th of January, 1992, the operation paid off. A police motorcyclist followed
Suff's van
00:40:12
down University Avenue. A short while later,
he witnessed the vehicle make an illegal turn
and pulled it over.
00:40:22
- He gets
Suff's driving license, which is out of date. The vehicle registration
is out of date.
00:40:30
So...he then starts to take
a vague look in the van, where he discovers,
among other things,
00:40:37
a fishing knife with what
looks like blood on it, not to mention all kinds
of other stuff.
00:40:44
The traffic cop knows what
the police sketch of the possible
serial killer is. And Suff looks, well,
really quite like it.
00:40:52
So, now, he calls
for backup. - The phone call came,
and I asked the officer, "Tell me what the driver side
front tire was."
00:41:03
And he looked down,
and he told me. And I had a chart of exactly
what tire was in what position
00:41:09
on the vehicle. I then ask him to go to the
passenger-side rear vehicle and tell me
what the tire brand was.
00:41:19
When he did that, I said,
"Freeze the scene." - Now, Suff is
taken into custody.
00:41:26
And the interrogation begins. - ♪ - BOB: Early in the morning, I got a phone call
from my partner.
00:41:33
He goes, "Bob, we got him."
I said, "What do you have?" He goes, "We got him.
He's in custody."
00:41:38
And I couldn't believe it. I got goosebumps. I mean, it was just--it's one of
those feelings that I'm not
00:41:43
sure what you can equate it to,
but it was just enormous. - NARRATOR: Detective
Keers Sheffield confronted Suff
00:41:52
with the damning evidence that
proved he had been at the orange grove. - CHRISTINE: He goes, "Yeah, I
went out to pick some oranges."
00:42:00
"On your way to work?"
"Yeah." And as I'm interviewing,
he goes, "I found a body."
00:42:06
I said, "Oh, you found a body
out there in the orange groves?" "Yeah," he said,
"I found a body."
00:42:12
I asked myself,
"Who in their right mind, finding a body,
would go on to work?" - NARRATOR: Suff then decided
to stop talking
00:42:19
and never admitted his guilt. But when his apartment
was searched, the police found another
pair of sneakers that match
00:42:27
shoe prints left at some
of the other crime scenes. Most damning of all, the same
gray carpet from Suff's van
00:42:35
was linked to fibers found
on seven of the bodies. And his DNA matched profiles discovered
on eight of the women.
00:42:43
- We even had some cat hair
at some of the more recent crime scenes, and we ultimately
tied that to--into the cat
00:42:51
Mr. Suff had in his apartment at the time
that he was arrested. - NARRATOR: On the 25th
of March, 1995, Bill Suff
00:42:59
finally stood trial at
the Riverside Hall of Justice and pleaded not guilty
to 13 counts of murder.
00:43:07
Deputy District Attorney
Paul Zellerbach presented the case
for the prosecution.
00:43:14
- I called 271 witnesses
to testify during that trial. We had over 1,000
pieces of evidence.
00:43:22
The trial lasted seven months. And it was all out of
circumstantial evidence. - NARRATOR: But on
the 19th of July, 1995,
00:43:32
the jury finally delivered
their verdict, finding him guilty on 12
of the 13 counts.
00:43:39
He was also found guilty
of the attempted murder of Rhonda Jetmore. On the murder of Sherry Pacer,
00:43:46
they were unable
to make a unanimous decision despite Suff's semen
being found inside her.
00:43:53
The water from the sprinklers
at the garden where she was found had
potentially destroyed
00:43:57
vital evidence. On the 10th of October, 1995, Bill Suff was sentenced
to death. Despite a successful result,
Detective Keers Sheffield,
00:44:10
who'd been close
to some of the victims, couldn't help but feel
a sense of unease.
00:44:15
She firmly believed that
Suff was guilty of Sherry's murder, too. - That's the one case that
the jury hung on.
00:44:24
And they hung on it because
she had two deposits of semen. I was hugging
Sherry Pacer's grandmother,
00:44:30
and I whispered in her ear, "You and I know he did this. "You heard
all the physical evidence.
00:44:37
"So let your mind be rest
assured and let your heart "be at ease, because he's gonna
die for all the others.
00:44:43
And he'll die for her, too." - NARRATOR: Suff remains
on death row at San Quentin State Prison
in California.
00:44:53
- TERYL: I firmly believe
he's going to hell. There's too much dark in him. He had a look in his eyes
that just--
00:45:01
it was so scary. It was--it was an evil look. I'm basically the one
that got away.
00:45:08
- NARRATOR: Suff spread
fear amongst vulnerable women on the streets of Riverside.
00:45:13
He attacked his own children, brutally beating his
two-month-old daughter to death.
00:45:20
He murdered and mutilated
12 women, and the police suspect he had
many more victims.
00:45:26
That makes Bill Suff one of
the world's most evil killers. - ♪ ♪ ♪♪ - [whoosh]