Early Life
He was the youngest of three sons and was raised in a reasonably stable family. His early life was not without some trauma, however; as a thin and sickly child, he was often a target for bullies at school. In his teens, he became withdrawn and fantasized about killing people.
Born in East Los Angeles, Kearney also lived in Texas. Kearney moved back to California after a brief marriage ended in divorce, and eventually worked as an engineer for Hughes Aircraft. It was from his experiences in his early years in California that Kearney cultivated his skill as a gay pickup artist. Kearney mostly sought out partners in San Diego and in Tijuana, Mexico, where he used his fluency in Spanish and keen interest in Latin American culture as a basis to connect with potential partners. Kearney claimed to have killed his first victim around 1965, a hitch-hiker he picked up and murdered in Orange, California. He claimed several more victims, mostly transients, before moving to Redondo Beach, near Los Angeles, in 1967 with a younger man named David Hill, who became his lover.
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