The Evil Within - A Top Murder Squad Detective Reveals The Chilling True Stories of The World's Most Notorious Killers (39 page)

During the next three years, Stano went on to confess to more murders. It is unknown how many he actually committed and some began to wonder if he was confessing to some he had only heard about through the grapevine. Police continued to collect names, but no further charges were ever brought.

On 22 May 1986, the governor of Florida signed Stano’s first death warrant. After many stays of execution and appeals, Stano was finally executed in the electric chair on 23 March 1998. Gerald Stano said nothing to the guards as they escorted him down the path to the death chamber. As the guards strapped him into the chair, Raymond Neal waited anxiously behind the witness-viewing window, approximately 3ft away from the man who had murdered his sister. Neal later told reporters. ‘The power slammed into him and he jerked as much as he could and that was it. I saw the life going out of his hands. I felt like a ton of bricks had been lifted off my back. Afterward, me and my brothers smoked cigars to celebrate. I can’t express the feeling. I felt so much better. I’m so glad Florida has the guts to keep the electric chair. At least there was a split-second of pain. With lethal injection, you just go to sleep.’ In the end, Gerald Stano had confessed to the murders of 41 women. Several of the victims have yet to be identified. Most police officials now consider the cases closed.

Very little is known about William Suff’s early life. According to classmates at school, Suff (b. 1950) was a friendly person. However, the image of the friendly personality was brought crashing down in 1974 when Suff, then 24, and his former wife were arrested and later convicted of beating their two-year-old daughter to death. Suff was sentenced to 70 years in prison, but earnt his parole in March 1984, after serving only 10 years. His wife served a mere 20 months before having her conviction overturned.

When paroled, Suff appeared to revert to his old self. Friends described him as a mild-mannered man, who kept to himself and
spent his free time writing stories and cookery books. On at least one occasion, his chilli recipes won him first prize at a local cooking competition. However, this mild-mannered man had a dark secret, which was soon to surface.

On 30 October 1986, a local man was wending his way through the streets of an industrial estate a short distance from Riverside, California, near Agua Mansa Road and Market Street, when he noticed the body of a young woman wedged in a drainage ditch. The woman was lying on her back, her blouse and shorts ripped to shreds. She was covered in blood and it looked as though her genital area had been mutilated. The young woman was later identified as 23-year-old Michelle Yvette Gutierrez, a former resident of Corpus Christi, Texas. A post-mortem revealed she had suffered severe trauma to the anal and vaginal areas and multiple stab wounds were discovered on her face, chest and buttocks. Ligature marks on her neck suggested that she had been strangled as the gruesome mutilations took place. Police had a brutal murder on their hands and few clues to follow.

On 11 December, police were called to the scene of another murder. The victim was 24-year-old Charlotte Jean Palmer, a transient from Anna, Illinois. Her body was discovered near Highway 74 in Romoland, approximately 25 miles away from the Gutierrez murder site, and it was not immediately apparent whether the two deaths were related. To make matters worse, Palmer’s body was so badly decomposed the coroner was unable to determine the cause of death.

In January 1987, the naked and mutilated body of 37-year-old Linda Ann Ortega was found along a dirt road in Lake Elsinore. She had been dead for at least three days and high levels of alcohol and cocaine were found in her blood. Ortega, a part-time fast-food worker, had convictions for drugs and prostitution.

Police now had three similar murders and were beginning to wonder if they had a serial killer on their hands. Their worst fears were confirmed on 2 May 1987, when the body of 27-year-old
Martha Bess Young was discovered in a ravine not far from the Ortega murder site. She was discovered naked and in a spread eagled position. As with Ortega, she had convictions for prostitution and high levels of drugs were found in her body. The County Coroner later determined that she had been dead for approximately three weeks and had died from a combination of being strangled coupled with a lethal dose of amphetamines that had been administered to her.

It was almost two years before the killer’s evil deeds surfaced again. This might have been due to the fact that the killer had found a new location or locations for disposing of the bodies or perhaps another reason forced him to stop temporarily.

Regardless, by 1989, two years since his last known murder, the killer had struck again. On 27 January 1989, the body of 37-year-old Linda Mae Ruiz, a known prostitute, was discovered on the beach of Lake Elsinore. The victim’s head was buried in the sand and the post-mortem revealed large quantities of alcohol in the blood. Sand was found in the victim’s throat and the cause of death was listed as acute asphyxiation. Five months later, on 28 June 1989, the body of 28-year-old Kimberly Lyttle was discovered in Cottonwood Canyon. Again, she was a known prostitute and drug user. Her bruised and battered body was taken to the County Coroner’s office, where a post-mortem revealed the presence of alcohol and drugs. The official cause of death was listed as asphyxiation. A forensic examination revealed several pubic hairs and fibres, unrelated to the victim herself, on her body. This evidence alone told them very little about the killer, but if a suspect were to emerge, the samples could play a major role in identifying him. On 11 November 1989, the bludgeoned and mutilated body of 36-year-old Judy Lynn Angel was found near Temescal Canyon Road, just northwest of Lake Elsinore. She had arrests for prostitution and possession of drugs. During the post-mortem, the coroner discovered several deep gashes on the victim’s hands. The injuries appeared to be defence wounds, which meant she had tried to
fend off her attacker. The victim had also suffered several blows to the face, which ultimately crushed her skull.

On 13 December 1989, a month after the discovery of Judy Lynn Angel’s remains, the body of 23-year-old Christina Leal was found in Quail Valley. Unlike previous victims, she was fully clothed and did not appear to have suffered serious abuse or mutilation prior to death. Like the other victims, though, she had previous arrests for drugs and prostitution. A crime scene examination revealed tyre tracks and the police made several impressions that could later be used to compare with a suspect’s vehicle. The victim’s hands were encased in paper bags to preserve anything that might be under the nails.

Later that day, during the victim’s autopsy, the County Coroner discovered that the victim had been stabbed directly in the heart. Due to the victim’s clothing, the wound was not immediately noticeable, which suggested the killer had dressed her after the murder. The knife wound, while potentially fatal, was not the immediate cause of death. The victim had died as a result of asphyxiation by strangulation. Several pubic hairs and fibres were also removed from the body, which would later be matched to the ones discovered on Kimberly Lyttle. Then, as the coroner inspected the victim’s genital area, he made a startling discovery. The killer had pushed a light bulb up into the victim’s womb, something no investigator had ever seen done before. The killer’s crimes were escalating. The murders were becoming more perverse and the time between the killings was getting shorter. There was no doubt that he would strike again, but without a single suspect to pursue it was impossible to know where to focus the investigation.

On the morning of 18 January 1990, in Lake Elsinore, a jogger had stumbled upon the half-naked body of a female, whom police soon identified as a 24-year-old prostitute named Darla Jane Ferguson. She had died as a result of strangulation, which was so severe that she had nearly bitten off her own tongue. As with the previous crime scene, police found tyre
tracks and made several impressions. These were later matched to those taken from other crime scenes.

Less than a month later, on 8 February 1990, farmers working at an orchard in High Grove discovered the naked body of 35-year-old Carol Lynn Miller. Another known prostitute and drug addict, Carol had gone missing one month earlier. The cause of death was listed as multiple stab wounds to the chest and asphyxiation. The coroner also made note of a wound near Carol’s right nipple. Pubic hairs were discovered on the victim, which were later matched to the ones on file from the previous murders.

On the afternoon of 6 November 1990, a man working at an industrial plant on Palmyrita Avenue in northeast Riverside, not far from the location where Miller was found, discovered the naked and mutilated corpse of a female hidden under some tree branches. This was by far the killer’s most brutal crime yet. The victim, 33-year-old Cheryl Coker, a prostitute and drug user, had suffered severe mutilations to her body and, most shocking of all, the killer had removed her right breast and placed it next to her. Police found shoe prints at the scene and took several photographs and impressions before transporting the body to the mortuary. It was later determined that the victim had died as a result of strangulation.

On 21 December 1990, a handyman was emptying dustbins at a factory complex on Iowa Avenue when he discovered the naked and carefully posed body of a young woman. Police identified the victim as 27-year-old Susan Tenfold, a local prostitute and drug addict. There was no evidence of mutilation and the County Coroner later determined that she died of strangulation.

Forty-two-year-old Kathleen Leslie Milne was discovered on 19 January 1991. A passing motorist spotted her body alongside the road northwest of Lake Elsinore. According to the
post-mortem
report, she had been rendered unconscious by several blows to the head and then strangled. She had been dead less than 24 hours. As the killer’s body count continued to rise, so did
the demands for justice. There was public outrage about the faceless killer. People were claiming that the police were not putting much effort into the investigation due to the victims being prostitutes. In an effort to find the killer, all available law enforcement personnel began combing the area. At one point, the manhunt grew to include more than 20 law-enforcement agencies. Regardless of the spotlight on him, the killer was undaunted and continued to elude identification and capture.

On the morning of 27 April 1991, a tramp stumbled on the body of 24-year-old Cherie Michelle Payseur, a part-time maid and prostitute. Her lifeless body had been left in a flowerbed in a bowling alley car park. She had been raped and strangled and was found with a toilet plunger protruding from her vagina. On 4 July 1991, picnickers near Railroad Canyon Road discovered the remains of 37-year-old Sherry Ann Latham, a known prostitute and drug user. Her hand was wrapped around some nearby branches, suggesting that she was still alive when the killer left. She had made one last feeble attempt to crawl away before succumbing to her injuries. The post-mortem revealed that she had been strangled. Feline hairs were discovered on her corpse. According to her friends, she did not own a cat, leading police to wonder if her killer did.

Just when it seemed the police were never going to get a break, they had some luck. On 15 August 1991, a man driving a grey van picked up a prostitute near the University of California. The woman later told police that everything was going fine at first, but then the man suddenly became angry and began assaulting her for no reason. Luckily, the girl managed to jump out of the vehicle and run down the street. The man quickly sped off, but stopped at a nearby corner and picked up the girl’s friend, a 23-year-old prostitute named Kelly Marie Hammond. Later that same night, investigators found Hammond’s naked body near the intersection of Sampson Avenue and Delilah Street. The victim had been strangled and her body was still warm. Police had just missed the killer they so desperately
sought. The woman who escaped the killer’s clutches was able to help investigators create a composite sketch of the suspect and his vehicle. Police quickly released details of the van and the driver to the newspapers and television.

On 13 September 1991, a construction worker found the body of 30-year-old Catherine McDonald, a known drug user and prostitute, near a building site in Tiscany Hills. Police first thought the murder might be unrelated to the others. The victim was African-American, whereas all the previous victims had been Caucasian. However, on closer inspection they noticed that the victim’s right breast had been removed. But, unlike Cheryl Coker’s mutilation, it was not lying next to the victim’s corpse. Apparently the killer had taken it with him. Investigators surmised that the killer had heard the recent broadcasts stating that the killer was probably a white male who preyed exclusively on white women. The murder of a black woman was to show the media he had no fear.

The following month, on 30 October 1991, a man was driving along Summerhill Drive when he spotted something he thought was a mannequin by the roadside; a closer inspection showed it to be the body of a woman. The victim was 35-year-old Delilah Zamora Wallace, a prostitute, drug addict and mother of five. The coroner listed the cause of death as asphyxiation. The death toll was now at 18 and investigators still didn’t have one viable suspect. The killer was striking at least once a month now. Investigators knew it was only a matter of time before he killed again and with each new killing he was becoming more brazen.

Two days before Christmas 1991, Eleanor Ojeda Casares’ naked body was found near Victoria Avenue, close to the Riverside police station. The 39-year-old drug addict and prostitute had been strangled and her right breast was missing. The proximity of the body to the police station angered police, who were convinced that the killer purposely placed her there in order to embarrass them.

On the night of 9 January 1992, Officer Frank Orta was
patrolling University Avenue, an area known for prostitution and drugs, when he suddenly noticed a van, matching the description of the suspect’s van, making an illegal U-turn. When Orta flashed his lights and siren, the 1989 Mitsubishi pulled off to the side and stopped. The driver was a man by the name of William Suff. He was polite, but on running his name through the computer, Orta discovered that Suff’s driving licence was suspended and his vehicle registration had expired. The suspect was then transported to the Riverside police station for questioning.