The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers (29 page)

restaurant in Falls Church, Virginia. Ten weeks later, on Born James Clayton Vaughn Jr. in Mobile, Alabama, October 21, another interracial couple came under Franklin was the eldest son of an alcoholic drifter who attack from the itinerant gunman in Oklahoma City: abandoned his family for months or years at a stretch.

Jesse Taylor was hit three times with a high-powered Siblings remember that James Vaughn Sr. would cele-rifle before he expired; a single round through the chest brate infrequent homecomings by beating his children, killed Marian Bresette as she ran to the aid of her com-with James Jr. absorbing the worst punishment. As a mon-law husband.

youth, Franklin went for food fads and fringe religions, Franklin struck twice in Indianapolis during January dropping out of high school after an incident left him 1980, killing black men with long-distance rifle fire in with severely impaired eyesight.

two separate attacks: 22-year-old Lawrence Reese died The injury was a two-edged sword, exempting

in another restaurant shooting, on January 12; two Franklin from military conscription, and he married in days later, 19-year-old Leo Watkins was killed at a local 1968 at an age when many young men were sweating shopping mall. On May 3, Franklin allegedly killed a out the draft lottery, fearful of the war in Vietnam.

young white woman, Rebecca Bergstrom, dumping her Soon after their wedding, Franklin’s bride noted a body near Tomah, in central Wisconsin. On June 6 he change in his personality “like night and day.” He surfaced in Cincinnati, killing black cousins Darrell began to beat her, emulating the father he hated, and on Lane and Dante Brown from his sniper’s perch on a other occasions she would find him inexplicably weep-nearby railroad trestle. Nine days later, in Johnstown, ing. About the same time, their all-white neighborhood Ohio, Franklin shotgunned a black couple—Arthur was racially integrated, and Franklin began to veer hard Smothers and Kathleen Mikula—as they crossed a right, into the realm of pathological bigotry.

downtown bridge. On August 20, black joggers Ted The next few years were marked by ugly racial inci-Fields and David Martin were cut down by rifle fire in dents and sporadic arrests for carrying concealed Salt Lake City, Utah.

weapons. Franklin was increasingly drawn to the Amer-Arrested in Kentucky on September 25, 1980 (and ican Nazi Party, lapsing into the segregationist move-recaptured a month later after escaping to Florida), ment full-time after his mother’s death in 1972. Moving Franklin faced a marathon series of state and federal to Atlanta, he joined the neo-fascist National States trials with mixed results. In 1982, he was acquitted of Rights Party, simultaneously holding membership in the federal civil rights charges in the May 1980 shooting
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“FREEWAY Murders”

that left civil rights leader Vernon Jordan critically their murders to an unknown “Freeway Killer.” Of 11

injured in Fort Wayne, Indiana (although jurors said victims slaughtered prior to 1976, most were known or they were convinced he shot Jordan and Franklin later suspected homosexuals, their deaths lending credence confessed). Utah juries subsequently convicted him of to the notion that the murderer himself was gay. While two murders and civil rights violations; Franklin was strangulation was the favored mode of death, some vic-serving life on those counts in 1983 when he confessed tims had been stabbed with knives or ice picks, and the 1978 sniping that crippled Hustler magazine pub-their bodies bore the traces of sadistic torture. Homi-lisher Larry Flynt in Gwinnett County, Georgia.

cide investigators noted different hands at work in sev-

(Franklin was indicted for that crime but never tried, eral of the murders, but they finally agreed that 21 were since he already faced stiffer penalties in other states.) almost certainly connected. (Sixteen others would be More convictions followed: for the Chattanooga solved in 1983 with the arrest of “Scorecard Killer”

bombing; for the double murder in Wisconsin,

RANDY KRAFT.)

described by prosecutors as “the closest thing to killing The first “definite” victim was 14-year-old Thomas for sport”; for the murder of Gerald Gordon, killed Lundgren, abducted from Reseda on May 28, 1979, leaving a Clayton, Missouri synagogue in 1977 (his first and discarded the same day near Malibu. Mark Shel-death sentence); for the June 1980 double murder in ton, 17, was next, reported missing from Westminster Cincinnati; for the 1978 murder of William Tatum, on August 4, his body recovered a week later at Cajon shot while talking to a white woman outside a Chat-Pass. The day after Shelton’s disappearance, 17-year-tanooga restaurant. Other crimes confessed by Franklin old Marcus Grabs was kidnapped in Newport Beach, without further convictions include the 1978 shooting his violated corpse discovered at Agoura on August 6.

of an interracial couple in Atlanta (one victim died, the Donald Hyden, 15, was also found in Agoura, on other remains paralyzed); the separate 1979 murders of August 27—the same day he disappeared from Holly-a black man and a white woman in Decatur, Georgia; wood. On September 7, 17-year-old David Murillo the 1980 murders of two female hitchhikers in West vanished from La Mirada, his body found in Ventura Virginia; the 1980 murder of an interracial couple in five days later. The remains of Robert Wirotsek were Johnstown, Ohio; and the 1980 murder of an interra-found off Interstate 10, between Banning and Palm cial couple in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Overall, investi-Springs, on September 27, but 11 months would pass gators believe Franklin is responsible for at least 18

before he was identified. Another “John Doe” was dis-murders and five nonfatal shootings in 11 states, plus covered in Kern County on November 30, with 18-two bombings and 16 bank robberies. On April 29, year-old Frank Fox murdered at Long Beach two days 2001, the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Franklin’s later. The killer’s last victim for 1979 was another appeal of his conviction in the George Gordon murder.

unidentified male, aged 15 to 20, his violated body One confession with unexpected repercussions was found on December 13.

Franklin’s admission that he shot 26-year-old Vicki The new year began badly for southern California, Durian and 19-year-old Nancy Santomero on June 25, with 16-year-old Michael McDonald abducted from 1980, while they were hitchhiking to the Rainbow Fes-Ontario on January 1, 1980, found dead two days later tival in West Virginia’s Monongahela National Park.

in San Bernardino County. Charles Miranda, 14, disap-Suspect Jacob Beard was convicted of the so-called peared from Los Angeles on February 3, his body dis-Rainbow murders in 1993 and received two sentences carded in Hollywood later that day. On February 5, of life imprisonment without parole. Franklin upset 12-year-old James McCabe was kidnapped in Hunting-that verdict with his confession that he shot the girls ton Beach, his body recovered three days later in Gar-because they favored interracial dating. “One of them den Grove. Ronald Gatlin, 18, disappeared in Van told me she had dated blacks and all that,” he said.

Nuys on March 14, found dead the next day in Duarte.

“And the other one told me she would if she had a Fifteen-year-old Russell Pugh was reported missing chance so I just decided to waste them at that time.”

from Huntington Beach on March 21, his body found Beard was released on $150,000 bond, pending retrial next day at the Lower San Juan Campground, along of his case, and a second jury acquitted him of all with the corpse of 14-year-old victim Glen Barker.

charges on May 31, 2000.

Three days later, police found 15-year-old Harry Turner slain in Los Angeles proper.

The killer claimed two victims on April 10, 1980,

“FREEWAY Murders”

abducting 16-year-old Steven Wood from Bellflower, Between December 1972 and June 1980, authorities in rebounding to snatch 18-year-old Lawrence Sharp from seven southern California counties recorded the violent Long Beach hours later. Wood’s body was found April deaths of at least 44 young men and boys, attributing 11 at Long Beach, but Sharp remained missing until
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“FREEWAY Murders”

ping and raping a 14-year-old boy. Bonin had been paroled in October 1978, seven months before the death of Thomas Lundgren.

Officers established round-the-clock surveillance on Bonin, striking paydirt after 24 hours. On the night of June 11, 1980, their suspect was arrested while sodomizing a young man in his van and was booked on suspicion of murder and various sex charges. Held in lieu of $250,000 bond, Bonin was still in jail when police picked up 22-year-old Vernon Butts on July 25, charging him as an accomplice in six of the “freeway” murders. Between July 26 and 29, Bonin was formally charged with 14 counts of murder, 11 counts of robbery, plus one count each of sodomy and mayhem.

Butts, facing six counts of murder and three counts of robbery, soon began “singing” to police, naming more alleged accomplices in the murder ring. James Michael Munro, 19, was arrested in Michigan on July 31 and was returned to California for trial on charges of killing Stephen Wells. Three weeks later, on August 22, 19-year-old Gregory M. Miley was arrested in Texas, waiv-ing extradition on charges of murdering Charles Miranda and James McCabe, plus two counts of robbery and one count of sodomy.

Orange County raised the ante on October 29, 1980, charging Vernon Butts with the murders of Mark Shel-

“Freeway Killer” William Bonin in manacles (Wide World API) ton, Robert Wirotsek, and Daren Kendrick, plus 17

other felony counts including conspiracy, kidnapping, robbery, sodomy, oral copulation, and sex perversion.

May 18 when his remains were discovered in Westmin-Greg Miley was also charged in another Orange mur-ster. Meanwhile, on April 29, 19-year-old Daren der, plus seven related felony counts. By December 8, Kendrick was reported missing in Stanton, his body suspect Eric Marten Wijnaendts—a 20-year-old Dutch recovered from Carson on May 10, with traces of chlo-immigrant—had been added to the roster, charged with ral hydrate (“knockout drops”) in his system. On May complicity in the murder of Harry Turner.

19, 14-year-old Sean King vanished without a trace in Under California law, a murder committed with

South Gate; he remains among the missing. Eighteen-

“special circumstances”—accompanied by torture, year-old Stephen Wells, the last to die, was kidnapped rape, or robbery—may be punished by death. In

in Los Angeles on June 2, his body discovered the next December, Bonin’s playmates started cracking, pleading day at Huntington Beach.

guilty on various felony charges and drawing life sen-Police got their break on June 10 when 18-year-old tences in return for their promise of testimony against William Ray Pugh (no relation to Russell Pugh) con-Bonin. They spelled out details of the torture suffered fessed “inside” knowledge of the murder series. Pugh by assorted “freeway” victims and the glee with which identified the killer as William George Bonin, a 32-year-Bonin inflicted pain. As one remarked, “Bill said he old Vietnam veteran and truck driver residing in loved those sounds of screams.” On January 11, after Downey. A glance at the record revealed Bonin’s 1969

telling police of Bonin’s “hypnotic” control, Vernon conviction in Torrance on felony counts of kidnapping, Butts hanged himself in his cell, finally successful in the sodomy, child molestation, and forcible oral copula-fifth suicide attempt since his arrest. With the new testi-tion. The charges stemmed from four separate attacks mony in hand, Orange County indicted Bonin on eight between November 1968 and January 1969, with

more counts of murder with 25 related counts of rob-Bonin diagnosed as a mentally disordered sex offender, bery and sexual assault.

committed to Atascadero State Hospital. He was William Bonin’s trial on 12 counts of murder opened released in May 1974 on the recommendation of psy-November 4, 1981, in Los Angeles. Greg Miley and chiatrists who found him “no longer dangerous.” Two James Munro testified for the state, describing how years later, he was back in prison, convicted of kidnap-Bonin—after his arrest—had urged them to “start going
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“FREEWAY Phantom”

around grabbing anyone off the street and killing them”

marks of strangulation were apparent when her body in a bid to convince authorities that the “Freeway was found six days later, discarded on Pennsylvania Killer” was still at large. A television reporter divulged Avenue, near the Maryland state line. At 18, Brenda contents of a jailhouse interview in which Bonin admit-Denise Woodward was the oldest victim, kidnapped ted participation in 21 murders. “I couldn’t stop from a Washington bus stop on November 15, stabbed killing,” the trucker had said. “It got easier with each to death, and dumped the next day on an access road one we did.”