True Crime Thursday – Unsolved Murders Linked to Freeway Killer, Now 80

Photo credit – John Snape Wikimedia.com CCA SA 3.0

by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

From 1972 to 1983 in southern California, bodies of young male hitchhikers were being dumped near freeways, on beaches, and in parking lots. Many had lethal levels of alcohol and drugs in their systems, and had been tortured, mutilated, sexually assaulted, and strangled.

The so-called “Freeway Killer” eluded law enforcement because of the difficulty of linking the murders with no witnesses and little evidence.

In 1977, Patrick Kearney turned himself into the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office and confessed to more than 30 murders. He was given 21 life sentences. The public breathed a sigh of relief that the Freeway Killer had been stopped.

But murders continued.

In 1980, William Bonin was arrested when police found him inside his van, raping a handcuffed 17-year-old runaway boy. A scrapbook detailing numerous murders was found in his glovebox. Blood and other evidence led to a confession to more than 20 murders, some with the help of accomplices.

Despite multiple prior convictions for sexual assaults on minor boys, Bonin had repeatedly been released from custody. At those times he was deemed no longer a risk to society.

At trial, he was convicted of 10 murders and sentenced to death. Another trial in a different jurisdiction resulted in conviction and death sentences for four additional murders. Again, the public was relieved that the Freeway Killer had been caught.

But murders continued.

In 1983, California Highway Patrol officers pulled over a car for driving erratically. Randy Steven Kraft stumbled out with a bottle of beer and his pants unzipped.

Inside the car officers found the body of a Marine with his pants pulled down. He’d been strangled and sexually assaulted. In the trunk they found a binder with more than 60 coded entries that corresponded to murders Kraft had apparently committed. Evidence also included Polaroids of strangled, bound young men who appeared unconscious or dead.

This Freeway Killer was additionally dubbed the Scorecard Killer because of the binder full of notations about his victims.

Although Kraft never confessed, the evidence against him was overwhelming. He appeared to enjoy the attention at trial and his case dragged on for many months, costing $10 million, the costliest criminal case in Orange County at the time. He was convicted of 16 murders and sentenced to death. Additional murders in Oregon and Michigan were linked to him since he had traveled for work to those states when more bodies, violated in similar ways, had been found.

Kraft is now 80 and back in the news because DNA finally identified the remains of a body found near I-5 in Oregon back in 1980.

Larry Eugene Parks was a 30-year-old Vietnam veteran at the time of his death. His family had lost touch with him. Another dead man, Marine Corporal Michael O’Fallon, had been found in a nearby location a day before. Investigators believed the two murders were connected but couldn’t prove it and the cases went cold.

According to a USA Today story from  May 12, 2025:

Last year, an Orange County Sheriff’s Department investigator contacted the Oregon State Police’s cold case unit, offering to help identify Parks’ remains with the use of forensic genealogy. Possible family members were contacted and submitted DNA samples for comparison, leading to Parks’ definitive identification.

Similarly, in October 2023, Orange County investigators used the technology to identity Michael Ray Schlicht of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, whose body was found in 1974 in unincorporated Laguna Hills, now the city of Aliso Viejo, California. Detectives are likewise working to determine whether Kraft is linked to Schlicht’s death.

This L.A. Times article from November, 2023 describes Schlicht’s identification also by forensic DNA.

Per this May 9, 2025 AP story, Oregon State Police spokesperson Kyle Kennedy says about Parks:

“There’s some evidence that we’re processing to determine that link [to Randy Kraft],” Kennedy said. “We are very confident that we have the correct person of interest.”

In the 1970s and 80s, three different serial murderers, each called the Freeway Killer, terrorized California.

Patrick Kearney, 85, remains incarcerated at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, CA.

William Bonin was executed by lethal injection in 1996.

Randy Kraft, 80, received a death sentence that was not carried out. The last execution in California happened in 2006. Kraft remains in prison at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center.

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Thank you to TKZ regular Kathy Ferguson who brought the story to my attention.

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Serial killers are covered in Debbie Burke’s new book The Villain’s Journey – How to Create Villains Readers Love to Hate. 

Publication date July 13, 2025.

Preorder link

The Private Eye Who Nabbed Bluebeard

by James Scott Bell
@jamesscottbell

“La Barbe Bleue” (Bluebeard) is a French folk tale, first published in 1697. It tells the story of a rich man with an odd, bluish beard who marries women, slits their throats, and hangs their bodies on hooks in the basement of his castle.

Thus, Bluebeard became the sobriquet for a murdering husband. Of which there have been many.

Like James P. Watson of Los Angeles, who was nabbed by the Nick Harris Detective agency in 1920.

Who was this guy?

James P. Watson

Well, he was no looker. But somehow he managed to charm women into marriage, first by placing classified ads that said “Would be pleased to correspond with refined young lady or widow. Object, matrimony. This advertisement is in good faith.”

And he got lots of letters in response. He would go through them and weed out the ones he thought were not “quality,” then set up appointments with the others. It would be in a fancy hotel, and the well-dressed Watson would entice them with promises of a home, world travel, the finer things in life.

Those who took the bait headed to the altar, usually within weeks. As soon as the happy couple got into a home, Watson would announce that he had to be away for awhile on business….because he worked for the government trying to nab diamond smugglers. Then he’d go visit some of his other wives, and dispatch a few of them.

It was a game to him.

According to a story by reporter Katie Dowd:

In 1918, he took at least three wives, two in Canada and one in Seattle. Marie Austin of Calgary was the first to die. On a vacation in Coeur d’Alene, he bludgeoned her to death then weighted her body with rocks, sinking her to the bottom of a lake. The Seattle wife was next to go — and fast. For their honeymoon, they took a trip to see a waterfall near Spokane. As she admired the view, her husband came up behind and gave her a firm push. 

Sweet guy.

In 1920 he brought a new wife, a widow named Kathryn Wombacher, to settle in Hollywood. Shortly thereafter, he went on one of his “work trips.” Kathryn grew suspicious, and went to the Nick Harris Detective Agency.

Nick Harris (1882-1943) had been a reporter on the police beat for the L.A. Daily Journal who did such a good job he was offered a sergeant’s desk on the force. This he kept until 1906 when he opened his own detective agency.

He became famous, resulting in some screenwriting gigs and later a radio show about his exploits. For 21 years he did a weekly broadcast aimed at the youth, ending with the phrase that became part of our lexicon: “Crime doesn’t pay.”

So Harris assigned a couple of his men to surveil Watson. When he left on a “work trip” they searched the house and found a locked bag they proceeded to open. Inside they found numerous marriage licenses, wills, jewelry, and letters from women on his list to marry. They turned the evidence over to the police

When Watson returned he was arrested and charged with bigamy.

He then told them there was more going on the met their eyes. He confessed to numerous murders and led the police to one of the bodies.

Why did he so easily offer himself up? Later profilers would opine that he had reached “burn out.” He was tired. And, in true sociopathic style, was proud of demonstrating how he fooled the cops for years.

Watson pled guilty was given life in San Quentin.

Women still wanted to see him.

He wrote love poems and submitted them, without success, to the magazines. One of them was titled “My Ideal Wife.”

He died of pneumonia in 1939.

Nick Harris died of a heart attack in 1943. His agency is still in operation.

As is the first private detective firm, the Pinkertons.

The “private eye” was born in 1850. Private eye is not a colloquialism for private investigator, or PI. Alan Pinkerton, a Scottish immigrant and “cooper” (a worker of wood for barrels, buckets and the like), became a detective for a local police station in Illinois. From there he founded his agency and went national, with a high degree of success. The logo of the Pinkertons was an eye, with the saying, “We never sleep.”

That’s why they are called “private eyes.”

And on a coincidental note, it was 183 years ago yesterday that the first true “detective story” was published: “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” by Edgar Allan Poe. It set up some tropes (see Kris’s post) that are still with us: the eccentric-thinker detective (Poe called this “ratiocination”), the sidekick-narrator (Dr. Watson, anyone?), and crossing swords with the local police. And, of course, the great puzzle mystery solved at the end and explained. [On a side note, I say it’s also an example of the big cheat, because there is no way to figure out how the murders were committed without a great big dose of implausibility supposedly made plausible, and in so ridiculous a fashion that I have a theory Poe meant this story to be something of a joke.]

The private eye became a fixture in American literature when a former Pinkerton detective, Dashiell Hammett, wrote The Maltese Falcon, serialized in the famous pulp magazine Black Mask in the late 1920s. Sam Spade was first played in a movie version in 1931 by Ricardo Cortez, a Jewish actor who changed his name and parlayed his “Valentino looks” into movie stardom (short-lived, as his acting was less than stellar). Bogart, of course, immortalized the role in the 1941 version directed by John Huston.

Wave after wave of private sleuths hit the pulps, but none so successfully as Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe. Ross Macdonald’s Lew Archer caught on in the 50s and 60s, followed John D. MacDonald’s Travis McGee. Also hugely popular was Shell Scott in a series written by Richard S. Prather.

In the 70s along came Spenser by Robert B. Parker, breathing new life into the private eye genre.

In the 80s, women got into the act via Sara Paretsky’s V. I. Warshawski and Sue Grafton’s Kinsey Millhone.

In the 90s, Walter Mosley gave us the African American L.A. detective Ezekiel “Easy” Porterhouse Rawlins.

We could mention Tony Hillerman’s Joe Leaphorn, though technically he was a detective for the Navajo Tribal Police, and not a private eye. But he must be mentioned because of an early rejection Hillerman got on his first manuscript. An editor wrote, “If you insist on rewriting this, get rid of all that Indian stuff.”

Is there still a place for private eye fiction? Look at the bookshelves. But as Kris noted, “The trick, if it can be simplified as such, is that you have to take our beloved tropes and turn them into your own.”

Not easy but, for me, entirely worth it.

Keep writing.

And never sleep.

True Crime Thursday – Murderpedia

by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

 

Public Domain Review

Crime writers have—shall we say?—unusual research needs. We often joke that law enforcement could knock on our doors at any moment because of suspicious internet searches.

Recently, I ran across a site called Murderpedia. It claims to be the largest free database of serial killers and mass murderers around the world. It lists more than 5800 male murderers and more than 1000 female murderers going back hundreds of years in history.

It’s indexed alphabetically by both the killer’s name and by the country where the murder(s) occurred. Each entry chronicles the crime(s), method of death, and ultimate disposition of the case–hanging, firing squad, guillotine, life in prison without parole, etc. Additionally, there are photos, artists’ renderings, and illustrations to go with some stories.

At random, I chose a link to Bridget Durgan, an Irish housekeeper who was so horribly mistreated by her various employers that she vowed to kill them if she ever had the chance. In New Jersey in February, 1867, an opportunity arose. Durgan stabbed and clubbed her employer, Mrs. Mary Ellen Coriel, to death then set the Coriel house on fire, blaming the crime on robbers. Nobody believed her and she was found guilty at trial.

While in prison awaiting execution, Durgan revealed her sad life to the Reverend Mr. Brendan who published her story as a cautionary tale. The illustrated pamphlet was also likely sold to spectators at Durgan’s hanging.

Public Domain Review

Lurid pen and ink drawings show the mortally wounded Coriel still alive, lying on the floor near her baby, Mamey, and the wild-eyed Durgan standing over them. Durgan reportedly said she allowed Coriel to kiss her child goodbye before finishing her off.

Durgan was hanged in August, 1867.

After perusing the Murderpedia site for an hour (or three!), I was struck by the immense amount of work that had gone into researching and cataloging thousands of cases. Then I noticed the last update was in 2017.

What had happened to Murderpedia?

Down the rabbit hole I tumbled.

I found out that the curator/director was a Spanish criminologist and author named Juan Ignacio Blanco whose own story is nearly as strange as the cases he chronicled. In 1992, he investigated the triple murder of three teenage girls, known as the Alcasser case. He believed two men accused of the crimes were scapegoats who’d been set up by wealthy, politically-connected, Spanish power brokers to cover their own guilt and to divert attention from their other crimes, including pedophilia.

Blanco was branded a conspiracy theorist.

After he published a book about his findings, he was convicted of insulting and slandering officials in charge of investigating the case and served time in prison. His book was judicially seized in 1998 because it included autopsy photos of one victim without her family’s consent. Accusations swirled that Blanco and the father of another victim in the case had set up and operated a foundation that resulted in hefty profits to both of them.

Shortly before Blanco’s death from cancer at age 63, he appeared in a 2019 Netflix series that reexamined the Alcasser Murders.

Was Juan Ignacio Blanco a greedy opportunist who capitalized on a terrible tragedy or a courageous crusader against corruption seeking truth and justice?

Whatever he was, he left behind the vast library of Murderpedia, crammed with painstaking research that’s a fascinating resource for crime writers.

~~~

TKZers: What’s your favorite crime research rabbit hole?

~~~

 

 

If Hurricane Irma doesn’t kill Tawny Lindholm, a shady sports dealer will when she becomes the bargaining chip in a high-stakes gamble. The winner lives, the loser dies.   

Debbie Burke’s new thriller, Dead Man’s Bluff is now on sale at the introductory price of $.99. Here’s the link.

Villain week, continued: What I love about bad guys

By Kathryn Lilley

Yesterday Clare asked us to describe our notion of the ‘ideal’ villain in fiction.

I’ll be honest—when I pick up a thriller, I want the slayer to be super-sized. My killer’s got to be so cold and bad-ass, he’s doing the Monster Mash all over the page, leaving behind a trail of bloody footprints.

Fiction-wise, that makes Hannibal Lecter my kind of evil doer. Also Dexter Morgan of Darkly Dreaming Dexter—and Dexter’s actually likeable as he plunges the blade into his victims.

I don’t know why I prefer to read about fictional villains who are larger than life. Maybe it’s because I came of age in the seventies, an era when serial killers seemed to be stalking the nation’s youth as well as our collective psyche via the nightly news. Ted Bundy, David Berkowitz, John Wayne Gacy, and later the BTK Killer—each psycho’s saga chilled me to the bone. I started to dwell on all the ways I could possibly die at the hands of a cold sociopath. I probably got way too carried away with my projections, to the point that I’d scan the faces of charming, needy young men and smiling clowns, searching for signs of a hidden killer within.

It’s the recreation of that goose-bump factor that gets my reader’s juices flowing these days. But I also know that there’s no lack of chill potential in “everyday” murders. To do some research for today’s blog post, this morning I pulled a book off my shelf called Scene of the Crime, Photographs from the LAPD Archive. It’s a picture book filled with vintage images of murder victims and crime scenes.

One photo and its caption from 1951 haunted me all day. A platinum blonde is shown slumped in the passenger seat of an automobile. A black rivulet of blood streams from one ear. According to the caption,her name was Libby. She’d been shot four times by her boyfriend, who’d left a message written on the back of a check:

“She died instantly,” her sweetheart killer wrote. “…painlessly and mercifully, happy with joyous thoughts that could never be brought to reality…The back of her head faced me. I looked at her beautiful new silver blonde hair and I squeezed the trigger…I have no beliefs other than that the end fully justifies the means. And a few paltry dollars made her so happy!”

Now that’s chilling.

Breaking News: Last week’s winner of DYING TO BE THIN

Seanchai won last week’s contest for a copy of DYING TO BE THIN over at the Kill Zone!

Seanchai, send me your mailing address and I’ll mail you a signed copy this week! (I tried to post a notification to your blog but I couldn’t get it to post). Best, Kathryn