William Bonin - Serial Killers With Similar Modus Operandi

Serial Killers With Similar Modus Operandi

On July 1, 1977, Patrick Kearney, a suspect in a series of killings of young men known as the Trash Bag Murders, surrendered to Riverside Police. Kearney had been a fugitive for two months, following his being forensically linked to the murder of a 17-year-old named John LaMay—a youth confirmed as a victim of the Trash Bag Murderer. Kearney subsequently confessed to the murders of 28 boys and young men; many of whom he had discarded alongside freeways in southern California. In contrast to Bonin, Kearney dismembered and discarded the majority of his victims' bodies in trash bags. Although primarily known as the Trash Bag Murderer, Kearney is also known as the Freeway Killer.

Three years after the arrest of William Bonin, police arrested a 37-year-old Long Beach IT specialist named Randy Steven Kraft for a series of linked killings—also known as the Freeway Killer murders—which had begun in December 1972. Kraft had initially been apprehended for driving in an erratic manner as he attempted to discard the body of a 25-year-old Marine from his car in Mission Viejo. After his arrest, police discovered in the trunk of Kraft's vehicle a coded list depicting cryptic references to his victims, leading Kraft to becoming known as the Scorecard Killer in addition to the Freeway Killer.

Although his disposal method had been similar to that of William Bonin, Kraft is known to have both drugged his victims before he killed them and to have used differing torture methods upon their bodies, including the burning the victims' chest with an automobile cigarette lighter. In addition, many of Kraft's victims had been aged in their early- or mid-twenties—a small number of whom had been dismembered.

Collectively, Bonin, Kraft and Kearney may have claimed up to 131 victims.