Randy Kraft: The Southern
California Strangler
by J. J. Maloney
There are those who call Randy Kraft the
''Freeway Killer'' and they are wrong. William Bonin, executed at San
Quentin in 1996, was the Freeway Killer.
There are police agencies who say the media were
wrong to name Bonin the Freeway Killer – that that 'title' belonged to
Kraft, whose murder spree began before Bonin's. They too are wrong.
Dennis McDougal's 1991 book Angel of
Darkness touts Kraft's murders as ''...the most heinous murder spree
of the century.'' That is wrong. McDougal's book is compelling, shocking,
detailed, well written and inaccurate.
You cannot discuss the murders Randy Kraft
committed without also discussing the Freeway Killer case.
The story began in 1972 when bodies of young men
– often Marines – began to be found in Southern California – specifically
from the city of Long Beach, through Orange County and into San Diego County.
There were several ''signatures'' to the killings: the victims were
frequently burned on their left nipple with an automobile cigarette lighter,
some of them had their left testicle cut out while they were alive, some had
objects shoved into their rectums (in some cases something on the order of a
tree branch, in other cases a single sock). The real link to these cases was the
use of drugs, the most common being Valium, ingested with alcohol.
The murders were truly horrific. In one instance
the victim's eyelids were cut off to prevent him from closing his eyes during
the torture.
Not every case carried the signatures of all
others – which resulted in differences of opinion from one police agency to
another as to whether all of the killings were by the same person.
After a rash of killings through 1975, there was
only one such murder in 1976 and one in 1977. The news media did not know about
these latter two murders, so it was widely believed the series of killings had
stopping in 1975.
Then, in 1978, the murders renewed with a
vengeance – with 14 murders occurring between Apr. 16, 1978 through Dec. 13,
1979.
On Dec. 6, 1979, Tim Alger, a young police
reporter for the Orange County Register wrote a story that a new killing
spree had begun. Significantly, although police in earlier years had been
willing to divulge details of the murders – such as burned nipples,
emasculation, etc. – they had stopped providing any details whatever, other
than name, rank and serial number of the victims.
The following paragraph is an example of what
Alger was up against: ''The investigators refuse to give many details of the
murders that may link a single suspect to several – or all – of the
killings. They talk of ''possibilities'' and ''possible leads''
and, when asked about links between the murders, a detective responded,
''That could be. I can't say one way or another. But it's always a
possibility.''''
Alger's story was a lone voice in the
wilderness. The Los Angeles Times ignored the killings, as did the
television stations.
On Jan. 10, 1980, the Register hired me as an
investigative reporter. It seemed obvious that a major serial killer was at work
in Orange County and the surrounding areas, whether or not the police cared to
admit it. Marv Olsen, the metro editor, assigned me to work on the story
full-time.
Since the police wouldn't say there was a
serial killer at work, I enlisted the aid of Dr. Albert Rosenstein, a forensic
psychologist. On March 24, 1980, the Register ran a story that covered
the top third of the front page, titled, '''Freeway Killer' Cruises For
Murder.''
Olsen had agreed that giving the killer a 'name'
would make him less abstract to the public. It worked. The radio and television
stations jumped on the story, and from that point on the killer was a reality to
the public. The only major media outlet to shy away from the story was the Times.
My story contained some of the same types of
flaws Alger's story had contained. Since the police were withholding details
of the murders, Dr. Rosenstein had no way of knowing there were two killers
working at the same time, but with different M.O.s. And Rosenstein, in an excess
of confidence, had insisted on linking the killer to Patton State Hospital –
believing the killer had been incarcerated there as a sex offender.
In his book, McDougal lionizes Orange County
detective Jim Sidebotham. When the Register ran its ''Freeway
Killer'' story, Sidebotham expressed misgivings about the usefulness of a
multi-agency task force, such as had been assembled to catch the Hillside
Strangler. Sidebotham argued that, since many of the Freeway Killer victims were
unidentified, a multi-agency task force would serve no good purpose. In fact, 10
years after William Bonin was captured, Sidebotham still expressed this view
(page 367 of book).
Yet, as McDougal's book demonstrates, a closer
relationship between the investigating agencies might have uncovered Kraft much
sooner. He was arrested in 1975 in connection with one of the murders, but an
assistant prosecutor refused to file charges. Also, a number of victims were
known to frequent Ripples, a gay bar where Kraft was a well-known customer.
McDougal adopts the view of some in law
enforcement that the Register was ''irresponsible'' in calling
Bonin the Freeway Killer, when – they argue – that title belonged to Randy
Kraft.
That is untrue. The name ''Freeway
Killer'' was coined to describe the serial killer who was in a killing
frenzy in early 1980, and that was William Bonin – who murdered 21 young men
between August 1979 and his capture on June 11, 1980. In fact, 48 hours before
the Register's Mar. 16 story broke, two bodies were found, resulting in
a bulletin in the middle of the page one story, that read: ''Two bodies
found at noon Saturday between the lower San Juan Campground and Ortega Highway
in Cleveland National Forest may be the 30th and 31st
victims of the Freeway Killer. The victims were teenaged boys; both were
strangled and one was homosexually molested, according to confidential police
sources.''
The fact is, long before my story was printed,
the police had compiled a 52-inch wall chart, titled, ''The Southern
California Strangler(s)'' – a designation apparently unknown to McDougal
more than 10 years after the fact. The Los Angeles Police Department on Jan. 31,
1979 issued the first issue of that chart, before Bonin had killed his first
victim. Updated versions were issued on May 1, 1979 and July 20, 1979, also
before Bonin began killing.
So Randy Kraft is the Southern California
Strangler, and William Bonin is the Freeway Killer.
Bonin did not torture or emasculate his victims,
while Kraft is accused of that. The most telling difference, however, was that
Bonin would stop his vehicle and dump his victims out, while the Southern
California Strangler shoved his victims out of a fast-moving vehicle, often
leaving long trails of flesh on the highway.
For the story of serial-killer William Bonin,
click
here to read J.J. Maloney's article ''The Freeway Killer.''
