00:00:05
FRED DINENAGE: In
1985, 24-year-old Wayne Adam Ford was
discharged from the US Marines due to his behavior.
00:00:15
GEOFFREY WANSELL: He's
become insubordinate. He doesn't take
orders from anybody.
00:00:21
He's belligerent. FRED DINENAGE: Ford found
work as a long distance truck driver, transporting
goods up and down California.
00:00:31
He would pick up sex
workers along the route, before murdering them and
dismembering their bodies.
00:00:37
JUDY HO: This is somebody
who's dangerous because they can't control their behaviors.
00:00:43
FRED DINENAGE: Ford disposed
of his victims' body parts in different locations,
but sometimes he
00:00:50
kept souvenirs from his kills. VICTORIA REDSTALL: He
cut off the breasts, he melted the
breast in the oven.
00:00:59
Then he drained the oil
and put it in a coffee can. GLENN PUIT: You have to be
a cold-blooded brutal person
00:01:07
to do something like that
and to be able to stomach it. FRED DINENAGE: As investigators
from different jurisdictions
00:01:13
pieced together the
gruesome evidence, Wayne Adam Ford was revealed
to be one of the world's
00:01:19
most evil killers. [music playing] In November 1998, 36-year-old
Wayne Adam Ford and his brother
00:01:48
spent the day together
reliving their youth. JUDY HO: Ford had just spent
some time with his brother
00:01:54
doing somewhat fun
childhood activities like going to the zoo, and
everything seemed fine.
00:02:00
FRED DINENAGE: To the
shock of his brother, Ford told him that he
had hurt some people,
00:02:06
but wouldn't elaborate
any further details. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
His brother says, you have to go to the police.
00:02:12
You have to hand yourself in. FRED DINENAGE: Ford agreed
to turn himself over to the authorities,
but nobody was prepared
00:02:21
for what happened next. BOBBY CHACON: Ford appeared at
the Humboldt County Sheriff's
00:02:25
Office, during which he
produced from his pocket a Ziploc bag with a woman's
severed breast in it.
00:02:31
GLENN PUIT: A serial killer had
walked into a Sheriff's office and produced a woman's
body part to prove that he
00:02:39
was a cold-blooded killer. FRED DINENAGE: The unexpected
confessions to follow would shock the world and
reveal the true extent of Wayne
00:02:49
Adam Ford's gruesome crimes. This killer's story begins
on the West Coast of America
00:03:00
in a city in the San
Francisco Bay Area. GLENN PUIT: Wayne Adam
Ford was born in 1961
00:03:07
in Petaluma, California. Very scenic area, and
that's where he grew up in. His father was an
American citizen,
00:03:21
his mother was an
immigrant from Germany. FRED DINENAGE: Ford
also had a brother who
00:03:27
was two years older than him. JANE MONCKTON-SMI: Ford
seemed to have a fairly normal
00:03:33
childhood, although
there was a question over the state of
the relationship between his parents.
00:03:43
GLENN PUIT: When he was
10, his parents divorced. It was a very traumatic
experience for him.
00:03:51
And he was very angry
over it, by all accounts. Angry at his mother
over the divorce.
00:04:00
His mother basically
left her two sons behind in the
care of Wayne's father and traveled the world.
00:04:10
JUDY HO: This was thought to
be very difficult for Ford because he was probably still
the closest to his mother,
00:04:16
and he was kind of left
without parental supervision or somebody who could
really care for him.
00:04:22
BOBBY CHACON: Not having a
particularly close relationship with his father, Ford found
this period of his life
00:04:28
particularly difficult. FRED DINENAGE: Although Ford
carried on with his studies,
00:04:33
he didn't graduate from school. So instead in 1979 at the age
of 17, he looked to a career
00:04:42
in the US Marines. BOBBY CHACON: He enlisted
in the US Marine Corps, taking his job seriously.
00:04:48
He worked hard,
he was dedicated, and he advanced in rank. GLENN PUIT: For
the most part, he
00:04:54
was viewed as a good
soldier, a good Marine. FRED DINENAGE: In October
1980 when he was 19,
00:05:02
Ford met a woman the same
age as him on a blind date. JUDY HO: They started
a very quick courtship,
00:05:08
they got married
but their marriage was tumultuous from the start. They broke up a lot
then got back together.
00:05:17
He had a lot of demands for her. And he was very
controlling towards her. And essentially
some of his demands
00:05:23
included being in the
traditional housewife role, cooking for him
three times a day,
00:05:28
basically tending to any
of his desires and whims. FRED DINENAGE: In November
1980, a traffic incident caused
00:05:40
Ford serious physical problems. VICTORIA REDSTALL: The
car side sweped him, threw him into a ditch
which then damaged
00:05:48
the frontal lobe of his brain. So he ended up in a coma. As he said, it was a coma
for a number of days.
00:05:55
JANE MONCKTON-SMI:
A lot of people say that that appeared
to be the point when his behavior seemed to change.
00:06:02
And that is quite plausible. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He was
troubled before but now he became a real time bomb.
00:06:12
Plenty of aggression,
plenty of depression all rolled into one very,
very troubled young man.
00:06:20
JUDY HO: But aside from
this traumatic brain injury, there were also earlier
warning signs already
00:06:26
of his decompensating
mental health. FRED DINENAGE: In June
1983, his wife finally
00:06:33
asked him for a divorce. Ford was still in the
Marines at this point and his behavior didn't go
unnoticed by those in charge.
00:06:43
BOBBY CHACON: Ford begins
to decline psychologically and starts having
trouble with work,
00:06:48
to the point where Ford's
superiors recommended that he be psychologically evaluated.
00:06:53
And he was sent to a
psychological facility, and the doctors
that evaluated him diagnosed him with
depression and alcohol abuse.
00:07:03
JUDY HO: Certainly for Ford it
appeared that a big part of it was anger and anger
towards others,
00:07:09
thinking that others are
out to harm you in some way, not being able to
trust other people,
00:07:13
and having a lot
of ups and downs in all of his
interpersonal relationships he had at the time.
00:07:20
GEOFFREY WANSELL:
He was never calm. There was nothing
about Wayne Ford that you could say
was steady or solid.
00:07:28
He was always trembling on the
edge of something dreadful, something extraordinary.
00:07:35
FRED DINENAGE: Ford was sent to
the Naval Psychiatric Hospital in Long Beach by the Marines
to deal with the issues
00:07:43
that he was exhibiting. BOBBY CHACON: The
doctors deemed him a possible threat to
himself because he
00:07:49
had suicidal tendencies. And he was further
evaluated by doctors and put on drug therapy.
00:07:55
FRED DINENAGE: Ford seemed
to recover enough to return to active duty. And in 1984, he was sent
on an assignment to Japan.
00:08:05
GEOFFREY WANSELL: But
that really doesn't work. He's become insubordinate. He doesn't take
orders from anybody.
00:08:15
He's withdrawn, he's sulky,
he's belligerent, he's-- all this mixture of
things that are going on
00:08:22
inside his personality
all bubble to the surface and make him incredibly
difficult to control.
00:08:32
JANE MONCKTON-SMI:
He became violent. And eventually he was
diagnosed as having borderline personality
disorder, which now we're
00:08:42
getting into the kind of
territory where we might think, yes, this man's got
some serious problems
00:08:50
and they might be played
out on other people. And he was honorably discharged
from the Marine Corps
00:08:57
after that. FRED DINENAGE: But
at the age of 25, Ford was involved in an
incident with a sex worker
00:09:05
in Garden Grove in
Southern California. BOBBY CHACON: He
came into contact with the Garden Grove
Police for beating
00:09:13
and raping a prostitute. Those charges were never
filed because the victim refused to press charges.
00:09:20
JUDY HO: I think that
he felt like perhaps he was above this
person and he could
00:09:25
do whatever he
wanted to this person because she was a sex worker. FRED DINENAGE: That
same year, Ford's
00:09:32
reckless and aggressive behavior
came to light once again. GLENN PUIT: There
is also a case where
00:09:39
he was in a dispute
with a neighbor, and he pulled out
a handgun and shot and killed the neighbor's dog.
00:09:49
He was arrested and
convicted of that crime, and spent 10 days
in jail for it. FRED DINENAGE: Ford
was 26 years old
00:09:58
and had already exhibited
deviant and dangerous behavior towards humans and animals.
00:10:05
And the man who was
living on the edge was showing no signs
of slowing down. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He
becomes fascinated
00:10:15
with sexual perversion, and
particularly both exhibitionism and teenagers. He becomes extremely
promiscuous.
00:10:28
JANE MONCKTON-SMI: He was
accused of being sexually inappropriate with young women.
00:10:35
And this then does
start to be a predictor that this person is on a journey
that we don't want to escalate.
00:10:44
FRED DINENAGE: But while
all these was going on behind the scenes,
Ford was presenting
00:10:49
himself as a completely
different person in public. GLENN PUIT: He was
really a chameleon.
00:10:57
If he were to walk in
the room right now, you would have no
indication that he is
00:11:01
a very dangerous human being. Good looking guy, big, strong,
muscular guy, former Marine.
00:11:08
Kind of that
All-American look to him. So his appearance
was very disarming. And that allowed him
to prey on people.
00:11:18
FRED DINENAGE: In October
1994 when Ford was 32, he married a woman who would
become his second wife.
00:11:29
BOBBY CHACON: But it's not
long before cracks start developing in the relationship.
00:11:35
Early in the
marriage, Ford becomes controlling and abusive. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
In particular she
00:11:41
doesn't realize the levels
of sexual promiscuity he indulges in and,
indeed, encourages
00:11:48
her to take part in too. To some extent
Wayne Ford's puppet, and she quickly
comes to learn it.
00:11:58
BOBBY CHACON: In 1995 when his
wife was five months pregnant, she left to go live
with her mom in Nevada.
00:12:04
But during the course
of the pregnancy, they began to have an on
again, off again relationship.
00:12:11
FRED DINENAGE: In 1995,
their son was born. And for a while
Ford and his wife tried to work through
their problems.
00:12:20
GEOFFREY WANSELL:
In a sense, that was one reason why they
wanted to try again, a new life in Las Vegas,
but it didn't work.
00:12:27
And in the summer
of 1996, she takes her son away and
announces that's the end of their marriage.
00:12:36
GLENN PUIT: There was a lot of
tension in the relationship. And when the couple divorced,
he accused his ex-wife
00:12:44
of keeping their son from him. He repeatedly said that he
was denied access to his son,
00:12:50
and he hated his ex-wife for it. FRED DINENAGE: It was a
claim his ex-wife denied.
00:12:56
After the breakdown
of their marriage, Wayne Adam Ford moved over
700 miles away from Nevada
00:13:03
to Northern California. GLENN PUIT: He ended up living
in a mobile home trailer park
00:13:10
in the Arcata California area. While he was in Arcata, he
found work as a truck driver.
00:13:22
VICTORIA REDSTALL: So he was
able to go up and down the five freeway, so he was in
Lodi, he was in Vegas,
00:13:28
he was in Southern California,
Northern California, up to the Oregon border. So that was his
stretch for his job.
00:13:36
FRED DINENAGE: The town of
Arcata where Ford was living, lay North of Arcata Bay.
00:13:41
And the town of Eureka
lay on the other side, seven miles away. Many waterways weaved around
the area, and one of those
00:13:51
was the Ryan Slow. BOBBY CHACON: In October 1997,
a kayaker on the Ryan Slow noticed what he
thought was a mannequin
00:14:00
stuck along the riverbank. Upon closer
inspection, he realized that it was a human torso.
00:14:08
GLENN PUIT: It was a truly
shocking discovery in that the body of the female
had her head removed,
00:14:17
her arms removed,
her legs removed. And she had been cut up
the center of her torso
00:14:24
and basically disemboweled. GEOFFREY WANSELL: She
had 30 stab wounds. She's been mutilated,
dismembered.
00:14:35
A killing of the
most extreme rage and the most violent depravity. JUDY HO: Because there were no
special markings on the torso,
00:14:47
the police could not
identify the body. The torso was also disemboweled
and had been there for at least
00:14:56
three to four days
before it was discovered. JANE MONCKTON-SMI: There
are very clear problems
00:15:03
for the police in
beginning investigations when bodies are found like this. First of all, there is an
issue of identification.
00:15:14
Second, there is the issue
of what is the relationship of this person to the killer.
00:15:22
FRED DINENAGE: With no way
to know who the victim was, police could only
refer to her as Jane
00:15:28
Doe, a placeholder name for
when an identity is unknown. And with no way to
trace who killed her,
00:15:36
their investigation stalled. BOBBY CHACON: In June
1998, another woman's body is found floating in
the California Aqueduct,
00:15:43
near the town of Bottom Willow. Fingerprints were able to be
obtained from this victim.
00:15:58
And it was determined that
she was Tina Renee Gibbs, 26. And she had worked
as a sex worker
00:16:04
in Las Vegas in the
months leading up to her disappearance. FRED DINENAGE: Glenn Puit was
a crime reporter in Las Vegas
00:16:13
during the period
Tina had gone missing, but her disappearance
had gone relatively
00:16:19
unnoticed at the time. GLENN PUIT: When Tina
Gibbs was reported missing, it was barely a blip on the map.
00:16:29
Literally in Las Vegas dozens
of people go missing every day, and the vast majority of them
are found safe and sound.
00:16:37
JUDY HO: Tina Renee
Gibbs was 26 years old when she was murdered. And she actually sounded like
she had a lovely upbringing.
00:16:43
It was very close to her mom. They used to do each
other's hair and makeup. And her mom described
her as just a person
00:16:50
with a sunshine personality. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
She fell into what I suppose we would
describe as a bit of a rum
00:16:57
group, the wrong crowd. And in particular
got a boyfriend that her mother didn't approve
of, and there was a separation.
00:17:09
Tina went off with
the boyfriend, and hadn't been in
touch with her mother for six months leading
up to her discovery
00:17:16
before her body was found. JUDY HO: It was clear from
the forensic investigation
00:17:21
that the person had
died from strangulation. Strangulation is a very close up
method of killing that involves
00:17:30
the person not only
overpowering the victim, but also being able to
see all of their emotions
00:17:38
and all of their
reactions very very close. FRED DINENAGE: Only three
months later in September 1998,
00:17:49
another body was discovered
again near the I-5 highway. But this time the woman was
found naked in an irrigation
00:17:57
ditch at the side of the road. GLENN PUIT: She was
stabbed repeatedly, multiple stab wounds.
00:18:04
And the authorities
actually thought that she had possibly
been discarded from a moving vehicle.
00:18:12
JUDY HO: Dissimilar to
the other two bodies and how they were found, it
seemed like this was a much
00:18:17
less meticulous
disposing, almost like it just been done on a whim. And it may show us that if
this is the same killer,
00:18:23
that their mental capacity was
not only decompensating more but that they were starting to
do things that were truly more
00:18:29
impulsive and in
the moment rather than carrying out with something
that was planned in advance.
00:18:35
BOBBY CHACON: The autopsy
determined that the woman was dead for several
days, had been strangled,
00:18:40
had a puncture
wound in her breast, and was likely thrown from a
moving vehicle into that ditch.
00:18:47
FRED DINENAGE: The
victim was identified as 25-year-old Lanette
White, a resident of Fontana
00:18:54
in Southern California. And it was thought she was last
seen at a nearby truck stop.
00:19:00
JUDY HO: She was the
mother of a nine-month-old, and her mother thought that she
had just started a new career
00:19:07
in interior design
when police actually told her that she had fallen
into working as a sex worker.
00:19:15
BOBBY CHACON: Her mom maintains
that she went out one night going for groceries,
going for milk
00:19:19
for her nine-month-old
baby and never returned. FRED DINENAGE: The discovery
of Lanette's body revealed more
00:19:29
about the changing mindset
of this deadly predator who was killing innocent
women across California.
00:19:37
GLENN PUIT: He had
killed a third woman. He was simply
dumping the victims on the side of the
road, so the chances
00:19:46
of them being discovered
and identified were great. So you see that as time
progresses, with each crime
00:19:55
he gets sloppier and sloppier. And you see almost
like a laziness as far as taking the steps necessary
to get away with it.
00:20:03
FRED DINENAGE:
The killing seemed to be escalating
and with less effort to dispose of the bodies.
00:20:10
As the victims were being
found in different parts of California, it
would be harder to know
00:20:16
if the murders were linked. JUDY HO: Committing
crimes in one state and then depositing the
remains in another state could
00:20:24
on the face seem like
a very clever way to try to evade police
investigations because then all
00:20:30
of the jurisdictions
would be split up in terms of the investigations,
and they may
00:20:33
or may not even be
talking to each other or connecting the dots. GLENN PUIT: Could be
more than one killer
00:20:39
going across county lines. So it was a real difficult case. And there was a very
real possibility
00:20:49
that they might go unsolved. FRED DINENAGE:
There seemed to be little that could
be done to track
00:20:55
down this brutal murderer. And on the 23 of October,
1998, the nude body of a woman
00:21:02
was found floating in an
aqueduct near Hesperia, California, not far
from the I-15, a highway
00:21:10
heavily used by trucks. It was determined that this
woman was named Patricia Anne
00:21:15
Tamez, a resident of Hesperia. JUDY HO: She was 29 years
old when she was murdered.
00:21:22
She had been working as a
sex worker for a long time and also had drug
habits, as well as
00:21:29
known mental health concerns. And her death appeared to
be particularly grueling,
00:21:35
and that there were
several physical traumas that were found on her
body before she died.
00:21:40
GEOFFREY WANSELL: She had,
in fact, been strangled. And when her body was found,
one breast had been removed.
00:21:50
FRED DINENAGE: This was the
fourth body in two years to be discovered in
similar circumstances
00:21:56
along California's
transportation routes. Less than two weeks after
the latest discovery,
00:22:03
truck driver Wayne Adam
Ford was staying at a resort in Trinidad, North California.
00:22:09
It was from here that he made
a phone call to his brother. GLENN PUIT: He simply had told
his brother that I've been
00:22:17
drinking all day, I'm drunk. And I just want to tell
you that I've hurt people. And his brother was kind of
shocked by this and said,
00:22:26
well, what do you mean? And Wayne wouldn't elaborate. FRED DINENAGE:
Ford's brother was
00:22:32
so worried by the phone call
that he drove for five hours to be with him. VICTORIA REDSTALL: So
his brother came along,
00:22:40
and they spent that
day doing everything they used to do as children. They went to the zoo, they
ate at the restaurant,
00:22:45
they walked around Eureka
in Humboldt County. JUDY HO: His brother really had
to piece everything together
00:22:52
because Ford was being very
abstract in talking about how he had hurt these
people because he
00:22:56
didn't share any other
details like who they were or when or how. GLENN PUIT: Over time, Wayne's
brother convinced him--
00:23:04
without knowing
the full details-- that if he had done something
that was truly wrong,
00:23:09
he needed to turn himself in. FRED DINENAGE: On the
advice of his brother, Ford agreed to go to
the Sheriff's office.
00:23:17
His brother was
still unaware of what Ford was claiming to have done. But what happened when
they arrived at the station
00:23:25
was something that nobody
could have predicted. JUDY HO: On November 3,
1998, Wayne Adam Ford
00:23:32
walked into the Humboldt
County Sheriff's office and made a shocking
revelation to the officers
00:23:40
behind the desk. He proceeded to confess
to killing four women. And as proof, offered up a truly
horrifying piece of evidence,
00:23:52
which was he produced a
ziploc bag with a woman's severed breast in the bag. And turned it over to
the authorities and said,
00:24:01
see, I'm telling the truth. BOBBY CHACON: I'm sure they
were quite shocked that he
00:24:08
actually brought this in. I mean, confessions
are kind of rare. Legitimate confessions
are kind of rare.
00:24:13
And when the person
brings evidence of their own guilt with
them through their voluntary
00:24:19
interrogation, it's unusual. FRED DINENAGE: 36-year-old
Wayne Adam Ford then confessed to the murders of
the four women, Lanette White,
00:24:29
Patricia Anne Tamez, Tina
Renee Gibbs, and the victim known only as Jane Doe. BOBBY CHACON: He
gives great detail
00:24:39
and goes on at length about
how he killed these women and what he did
with their bodies.
00:24:44
And this is a treasure trove
of a confession for police. GLENN PUIT: The MO was almost
always the same, picking up
00:24:56
prostitutes, drug addicts,
people who would let down their guard, be willing
to get in a stranger's
00:25:03
truck for money. And once they were inside, he
would be their worst nightmare. He would violently
assault and torture
00:25:11
them oftentimes for days. And would take them to his
trailer, brutalize them. Ultimately culminating with a
sexually motivated homicide.
00:25:24
It's very disturbing,
his behavior. And clearly this is someone who
took pleasure in sadistically
00:25:33
assaulting and killing women. FRED DINENAGE: When asked why
he decided to hand himself in,
00:25:40
Ford claimed it was because
of his hatred for his ex-wife, the mother of his child.
00:25:47
JUDY HO: Eventually he
confessed his crimes because, according to him, he was
afraid that the next target
00:25:54
was going to be his ex-wife. And although he had a lot of
anger and hatred towards her,
00:25:59
he didn't want to leave
their son an orphan. BOBBY CHACON: I think that
Ford's claim of being angry
00:26:08
at his ex-wife is
an excuse for him to carry out his compulsion-- these compulsive
acts that he had.
00:26:14
I think that had
he not been caught or had he not been persuaded
to turn himself in,
00:26:20
he might have continued
killing people and not killed his ex-wife. FRED DINENAGE: The breast
that Wayne Adam Ford presented
00:26:28
to the police had been cut from
his last victim, Patricia Anne Tamez. JUDY HO: Ford seemed
like he had some type
00:26:37
of obsession or fixation on
breasts and essentially harming breasts. And it appears that there was a
part of him that really wanted
00:26:45
to injure something
that was really associated with femininity. And that was possibly his
way of asserting dominance
00:26:54
over women to begin with. JANE MONCKTON-SMI: Ford had
sometimes what we call trophies
00:27:01
from the bodies of his
victims, and sometimes he kept the bodies in his
truck for days afterwards.
00:27:13
Serial killers are
driven by this kind of internal sexual motivation. So they will want to relive
what they have experienced.
00:27:28
The ritual part of
it, they will want to relive time and time again. So sometimes taking
a trophy will
00:27:35
help them relive that moment. FRED DINENAGE: The breast
wasn't the only memento that Ford had kept as
investigators would discover
00:27:45
when they searched his home. GLENN PUIT: When the
authorities went to his trailer,
00:27:52
they found a coffee can with
human flesh and fat in it. And they believed
that that was used
00:28:01
to contain the breasts
and other body parts of his first victim Jane Doe. He had also taken body
parts from his first victim
00:28:11
and parts of her thighs and
stored them in his freezer. Even for a killer,
it's horrible.
00:28:20
You have to be a
cold-blooded brutal person to do something like that
and to be able to stomach it.
00:28:28
FRED DINENAGE:
Police interviewed Ford about these new findings. BOBBY CHACON: During
these interrogations,
00:28:36
Ford went into detail about what
he did with some of the missing body parts, including throwing
some of them in the Mud River.
00:28:44
Ford described going to
a campsite in Trinidad and burying some of
those body parts there.
00:28:50
FRED DINENAGE: Ford claimed
he'd buried the head of Jane Doe in the banks of the Mud River,
but this couldn't be found.
00:28:57
Meaning that another opportunity
to identify his unknown victim was lost. GLENN PUIT: One
factor of this that
00:29:05
always sticks with me is the
way he disposed of the bodies. He discarded these
women like trash.
00:29:12
Dismembering, dumping
people, trying to conceal their identities,
it's very troubling.
00:29:20
And so it's heartbreaking
to know that one human being could treat another this way.
00:29:26
FRED DINENAGE: On the
6 of November, 1998, Wayne Adam Ford was arraigned at
Humboldt County Superior Court,
00:29:35
but he was only
charged with one count of murder, that of Jane Doe. VICTORIA REDSTALL:
It was difficult
00:29:41
because these women were
found in different counties. It made it difficult to
bring it to trial, where were
00:29:47
they going to have the trial? FRED DINENAGE: Ford
would have to be tried for the other murders
in the counties
00:29:53
where the bodies were
found, making convictions much more complicated. Then two months
after Ford's arrest,
00:30:01
a new serial killer
law was enacted. Meaning prosecutors could
combine all of the murders
00:30:07
into a single trial. GLENN PUIT: He ultimately was
prosecuted under that law, in a single jurisdiction.
00:30:15
So they could try him for
all four murders at once. This was really important
to getting justice
00:30:23
because otherwise you
would have to have four different
trials in possibly four different counties.
00:30:30
FRED DINENAGE: Ford
had been transferred to West Valley
Detention Center in San Bernardino in August 1999.
00:30:38
And due to delays
in the legal system, he wouldn't stand trial
until six years later.
00:30:45
But before this,
in November 2003, there was another issue
that could jeopardize
00:30:51
the entire murder trial. GLENN PUIT: When Wayne Adam
Ford first started to confess,
00:30:57
he referenced a desire
to have a lawyer. In the United States, once you
invoke your right to a lawyer,
00:31:04
that's it. The cops can't talk
to you anymore. But in this case there was a
back and forth with the police.
00:31:11
Are you sure? Are you sure you want a lawyer? And he retracted it and
said, no, I changed my mind.
00:31:18
I don't want a lawyer. But what that ended
up doing was creating a legal malaise, so to speak,
of should these confessions
00:31:26
be allowed in court? FRED DINENAGE: Wayne Adam
Ford had handed himself in and confessed to
four brutal murders.
00:31:35
But if those
confessions were ruled to be inadmissible in
court, Ford may never face
00:31:41
justice for his heinous crimes. Crime reporter Glenn Puit
covered the case at the time.
00:31:47
GLENN PUIT: It ended up
causing a lot of legal issues because if he had, in
fact, requested a lawyer
00:31:53
and they had denied
him access to counsel, then everything
they said after that would be inadmissible in court.
00:32:01
FRED DINENAGE: In January
2004, a superior court judge ruled that most of Ford's
confessions were, in fact,
00:32:09
admissible at trial. And on the 13 of March, 2006,
44-year-old Wayne Adam Ford finally went on
trial for his crimes.
00:32:20
JUDY HO: Ford at first
admitted guilt to his crimes, but then during the
course of the trial
00:32:26
changed his plea to not guilty. FRED DINENAGE:
Throughout the trial, a number of mitigating
circumstances
00:32:34
were suggested by Ford
and his defense team. JANE MONCKTON-SMI:
He put forward that he was feeling a rage
against his former wife
00:32:46
and the fact that she wouldn't
allow him access to his son. And this just feels
like I'm going
00:32:54
to blame anybody except myself. BOBBY CHACON: He said
that he was angry that he was denied
visitation to his son,
00:33:04
and that he took it out
on these sex workers. And he would really
escalate his violence
00:33:10
when one of these
sex workers may have mentioned their own children. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He said,
I can't stand it when
00:33:17
they talk about their children. Now, I think that
that was because he was very conscious that he was
isolated from his own child.
00:33:25
GLENN PUIT: The
trial was actually where we found out many facts
that we didn't know previously.
00:33:31
The full scope of his
depravity was not revealed until the actual trial. And, interestingly, he
had claimed at some point
00:33:41
that he didn't really
remember all of the violence. And that was, however, disproven
during a point of his trial.
00:33:51
VICTORIA REDSTALL: A
man gets on the stand-- I believe it was a father
of one of the victims--
00:33:55
and said how this
killing happened. And he shouts, no, it didn't. Didn't happen like that.
00:34:01
And that's just sunk
him right there. It sunk him because clearly he
knew what happened because he
00:34:06
was there, he was conscious,
and he didn't black out on any of the killings. FRED DINENAGE: Even more
attempted justifications
00:34:14
were raised in the courtroom. GLENN PUIT: His
defense attorneys would later claim that there
was a real sense of abandonment
00:34:20
there. That his mother had left her
two sons alone in the world. I'm sure that not
having his mother present
00:34:31
was a risk factor for Ford to
not be able to feel connection. And maybe it was a
lacking an opportunity
00:34:40
to learn about
socialization and empathy. But there are many people who
have absent mothers and fathers
00:34:50
and, of course, don't go on
to commit aggressive crimes or kill people. FRED DINENAGE: During
the trial, a witness was
00:35:00
called to testify against Ford. GLENN PUIT: A sex worker who
was assaulted by Wayne Adam Ford
00:35:07
actually survived an
encounter with him. And her story was that he
seemed like a normal guy
00:35:13
to start but once he
got her in his truck, he changed and he turned
into a different person
00:35:23
and beat her, strangled
her, and raped her. And before he was
about to kill her,
00:35:29
he pulled out of his pocket a
photo of his ex-wife and son and showed this woman the photo
and told her, this is why.
00:35:38
This is why I do this. And she was able to
escape and get away, and he did not kill her.
00:35:45
But that tells you a little
bit about how he did it and what was his motivation.
00:35:51
VICTORIA REDSTALL: She
found an escape area. At the back of his truck
there was a small door,
00:35:56
and then she escaped
when he slowed the truck down or came to a truck stop. FRED DINENAGE: After
a three month trial,
00:36:07
the jury started
their deliberations. And on the 27 of June, 2006,
they returned their verdict.
00:36:16
GEOFFREY WANSELL:
The jury concludes that he was in
control of himself, he knew what he
was doing, and he
00:36:22
was capable of distinguishing
between right and wrong. The jury of seven women and
five men found him guilty.
00:36:29
And they convicted him of all
four first degree murders. FRED DINENAGE: 44-year-old
Wayne Adam Ford
00:36:37
was sentenced to death and
taken to San Quentin Prison to serve out the rest
of his days behind bars.
00:36:46
GLENN PUIT: It was
an important case to cover, to let people
know that there are very
00:36:51
dangerous people out there. And Wayne Adam Ford is
the perfect example. FRED DINENAGE: Investigative
journalist and true crime
00:36:58
author Victoria
Redstall interviewed Ford while he was locked up. She described how Ford
revealed gory details
00:37:07
about what he'd done with
the various body parts. VICTORIA REDSTALL: He
cut off the breasts,
00:37:13
as he did with most
of them, and then he melted the breasts in the oven. Then he drained the oil
and put it in a coffee can.
00:37:24
And he tried to
bite into the breast to see what it would taste
like, and it was too tough.
00:37:29
You can't say he's a cannibal
but he just tried it because it was there, he wanted
to see what it would
00:37:33
be like to eat the
bodies and he just didn't want to swallow them. Wayne had put that
head in his fridge,
00:37:41
and it got frostbite
on the nose. So he did some bad things
to that head, I know that.
00:37:55
FRED DINENAGE: In
June 2023, 25 years after the torso of
a woman was found, advances in DNA
sequencing finally
00:38:05
helped to identify
who Jane Doe was. BOBBY CHACON: They
determined that the torso
00:38:12
belonged to 25-year-old
Kerry Ann Cummings. Kerry Ann Cummings left
her home in Eugene, Oregon
00:38:20
and began couch surfing, living
a fairly transient lifestyle for several years. GLENN PUIT: The family
never knew what happened.
00:38:31
And so it took a quarter
century to get answers. And they were actually
very appreciative
00:38:37
of knowing versus not knowing. And even though it's
a horrible fate, at least they have
some sense of knowledge
00:38:47
of what happened and why. FRED DINENAGE: Those
involved in the case believe there could be more
victims of Wayne Adam Ford
00:38:55
than are already known about. GLENN PUIT: When you look at
the MO and the behavior pattern,
00:39:01
you have someone who
is a compulsive killer. Someone who is out
of control and who
00:39:08
is driven by the blending
of sex and violence. So those type of people
are rare and they're
00:39:16
also very dangerous. And more often than
not, they cannot stop. VICTORIA REDSTALL: I think
he's killed a lot more.
00:39:26
There are some
serial killers that want to add to their crimes and
they want to show off about it,
00:39:30
Wayne was the opposite. But Wayne was definitely
very, very ashamed of it. So the only ones he admitted
to were the ones where
00:39:39
his DNA are on the bodies. FRED DINENAGE: Former
FBI agent Bobby Chacon revealed there's now a truck
stop serial killer database
00:39:49
that the FBI maintains. BOBBY CHACON:
Because oftentimes we have found a lot
of serial killers
00:39:56
roaming these truck
stops because they are multi-state in nature. These drivers go from
state to state to state.
00:40:04
The women that frequent these
truck stops as prostitutes are often very transient.
00:40:07
Nobody even knows
their real name. So the FBI began the truck
stop serial killer database
00:40:13
to start matching
up women that go missing along these very,
very common long haul
00:40:19
trucking routes. FRED DINENAGE: Wayne
Adam Ford will remain behind bars until he
dies, and will never
00:40:27
prey on another victim again. This is somebody who's
dangerous and needs to be kept behind
bars because they
00:40:34
can't control their behaviors. JANE MONCKTON-SMI: You
look at Ford's motivations
00:40:40
and the people
that he really hurt and the way that he
hurt them and the fact that it gave him pleasure,
and he would have carried
00:40:51
on and on and on if there
hadn't been that intervention by his brother. VICTORIA REDSTALL:
I believe if he
00:41:01
was to be released,
within six months he would kill again because
it's a driving force in him.
00:41:07
It's not to be stopped. It's impossible to stop. Well, I think he would kill
again if he was on the outside.
00:41:18
FRED DINENAGE: Wayne Adam Ford
drove up and down California when he was working
as a truck driver,
00:41:25
preying on vulnerable
women along the way. Once in his truck, he
would rape and torture them
00:41:31
before killing them and
dismembering or discarding their bodies like trash. He admitted he would
have carried on killing
00:41:39
if he hadn't turned himself in. For the sheer brutality
of his crimes, Wayne Adam Ford
will be remembered
00:41:47
as one of the world's
most evil killers. [music playing]