|
Randy Kraft |
Shortly after 1 a.m. on May 14, 1983, two California Highway
Patrol officers stopped an apparent drunk driver on the San Diego
Freeway, in Mission Viejo, California. Instead of waiting in his
car, the motorist stepped out, dumping the contents of a beer bottle
onto the pavement as he emerged. His pants fly gaped as he
approached the patrol car. A glance at his driver’s license
identified the man as 38-year-old Randy Steven Kraft, of Long Beach.
Kraft admitted to drinking but swore he was sober. A field sobriety
test proved otherwise, and he was arrested for driving while
intoxicated.
|
So far, the stop seemed like another routine Saturday night DUI
arrest in Orange County. Then Sgt. Michael Howard approached
Kraft’s car and saw a man slumped in the passenger’s seat,
partially covered by a jacket, empty beer bottles scattered around
his feet. A folding knife lay in plain sight, on the driver’s
seat. Howard knocked on the window but got no response. Opening the
door, he tried in vain to rouse Kraft’s passenger. The man was
barefoot, with his pants unzipped and genitals exposed. He had no
pulse and his neck was ringed with red marks, as if he had been
strangled. Paramedics pronounced the man dead at 1:21 a.m.
Orange County sheriff’s deputies obtained a search warrant for
Kraft’s car, scouring the vehicle for evidence. In addition to the
beer, they found nine different prescription drugs, including Valium
and various painkillers. Beneath the lifeless passenger, the seat
cushion was stained with blood, although the dead man had no open
wounds. Underneath a floor mat was the most disturbing thing of all:
47 Polaroids of nude young men, who appeared to be unconscious or
dead. A briefcase in the trunk contained a sheet of yellow paper
from a legal pad, with 61 cryptic comments neatly printed in two
columns. They began with “STABLE” and ended with “WHAT YOU
GOT.” Soon, detectives would describe the notes as a coded list of
murder victims.
Kraft’s passenger was soon identified as Terry Gambrel, a
25-year-old Marine stationed at the nearby El Toro Marine Air Base.
His blood contained high levels of alcohol and the prescription
tranquilizer Ativan, one of the medications found in Kraft’s car.
Together, the beer and pills might have killed him, but an autopsy
confirmed death by ligature strangulation.
Searchers moved on to the home Kraft shared with gay lover
Jeffrey Seelig, uncovering a treasure trove of evidence. A couch in
the living room was the same one used to pose several of the nude
models in Kraft’s Polaroid collection. An old yellow rug in
the house appeared to match fibers retrieved from a corpse found in
Anaheim, in April 1978. In Kraft’s garage, police found an
odd cache of mismatched belts, chains, shoelaces and clothing. One
of the jackets belonged to a Michigan murder victim, slain in
December 1982. In days to come, detectives would identify three more
California murder victims depicted in Kraft’s Polaroids. His
fingerprints would match those found on shards of broken glass at a
December, 1975 murder scene.
Kraft was initially charged with just one murder, Terry
Gambrel’s, and held in lieu of $250,000 bond. He pled not guilty
to the charge on May 16, 1983, but Judge Gary Ryan thought him
dangerous enough to triple his bail, effectively confining Kraft
until his trial. At a bail reduction hearing one week later,
Kraft’s attorney called him “passive, nonviolent and
hard-working.” Prosecutor Bryan Brown responded by charging Kraft
with four more murders from early 1983, victims including
18-year-old Geoffrey Nelson, Robert Loggins,19, Rodger DeVaul, 20,
and 21-year-old Eric Church. Judge Robert Thomas accepted Kraft’s
not guilty plea on those counts and revoked bail entirely. A week
later, Kraft was charged with the 1975 torture slaying of
22-year-old Mark Hall.
|
William Bonin (AP) |
California was already reeling from “Trash Bag Killer”
Patrick Kearney and “Freeway Killer” William , who were linked
to 49 murders in 1978 and 1981, respectively. Now, homicide
investigators suspected that Randy Kraft might have claimed more
victims than Kearney and Bonin combined.
|