Murders
Between 1971 and 1983, Randy Kraft is believed to have killed a total of 67 victims. All of Kraft's suspected victims were males between the ages of 13 and 35, the majority of whom were aged in their late teens to mid twenties. Kraft was charged with—and convicted of—16 of these homicides, all of which had occurred between 1972 and 1983. Many of Kraft's victims had been enlisted in the Marines and most of his victims' bodies bore evidence of high levels of both alcohol and tranquilizers in their blood systems, indicating they had been rendered insensate before they had been abused and killed.
Kraft's victims were typically lured into his vehicle with an offer of a lift or alcohol. Inside Kraft's vehicle, the victims would be plied with alcohol and/or drugs. They then were bound, tortured and sexually abused before they were usually killed by either strangulation, asphyxiation or bludgeoning, although some victims had also ingested fatal doses of pharmaceuticals and at least one victim was stabbed to death. The victims would then be discarded, usually—though not exclusively—alongside or close to various freeways in southern California. (Photographic evidence found at Kraft's home indicates several of his victims were driven to his house before their murder.)
Many of Kraft's victims were burned with a car cigarette lighter, usually around the genitals, chest and face, and several victims were found with extensive blunt force trauma to their face and head. In several instances, foreign objects were found inserted into the victims' anus while other victims had suffered emasculation or mutilation and dismemberment.
The majority of Kraft's murders were committed in California, although some victims had been killed in the neighboring state of Oregon, with two further known victims being murdered the northeastern state of Michigan in December 1982.
Read more about this topic: Randy Steven Kraft
Famous quotes containing the word murders:
“Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
—John Adams (1735–1826)
“Many people I know in Los Angeles believe that the Sixties ended abruptly on August 9, 1969, ended at the exact moment when word of the murders on Cielo Drive traveled like brushfire through the community, and in a sense this is true. The tension broke that day. The paranoia was fulfilled.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1935)