William Lester Suff

William Lester Suff , also known as Riverside Prostitute Killer or Lake Elsinore Killer (born August 20, 1950 in Torrance , California , USA ) is an American serial killer .

biography

Early life

Little is known about the childhood and adolescence of Suffs. In his school days he was considered a mediocre student. In 1974 he was put on record because at the age of 24 he and his wife had to answer for the manslaughter of their two-month-old daughter in court. Although he was sentenced to 70 years in prison, he was released for good conduct after 10 years in San Quentin State Prison . His wife, who was convicted as an accomplice, was able to leave the prison after just 20 months.

1986 began a drunken stupor, as a warehouse worker for a magazine of Los Angeles County to work. Friends described him as a friendly, more introverted man who wrote stories and cooked books in his spare time. His chili con carne won first prize at a local cooking competition .

Series of murders

On October 30, 1986, a scrap collector found the body of a woman on an industrial site near Riverside . This could later be identified as the 23-year-old Michelle Yvette Gutierrez, who moved from Corpus Christi to California. Gutierrez is said to have been raped several times and then strangled with a belt.

On December 11, 1986, Charlotte Jean Palmer, 24, from Anna, Illinois, near Romoland , near Highway 74, was found dead. Her body had been so badly tortured with knife wounds and blows that the coroner could not determine the exact cause of death. Since the two crime scenes were only about 40 km apart, the investigators assumed that both cases were about the same perpetrator.

In January 1987, the body of 37-year-old Linda Ann Ortega was found in Lake Elsinore , who had been dead for at least three days. The high alcohol level and the cocaine that could be detected in Ortega's blood were noticeable . Since appropriate IDs were found on her, it became apparent that Ortega was earning a living as a prostitute . The police now assumed a series of murders.

The fourth victim died in mid-April 1987. On May 2, 1987, strollers found the naked body of the strangled 27-year-old prostitute Martha Bess Young from Albuquerque in a ravine near the Ortega crime scene . She had been dead for at least three weeks; An overdose of amphetamines was also found in her blood .

A task force was established by the Riverside County Police Department headed by Police Commissioner Linford Richardson and Sheriff Al Hearn. In addition to Captain Bill Reynolds, Lieutenant William H. Caldwell and Sheriff Cois Byrd, the task force also included 14 FBI employees . This was the largest special commission that was ever established in Riverside County to solve crimes.

More than a year and a half passed and no bodies were found. It was already suspected that the series of murders had come to an end when another prostitute was found dead on January 27, 1989. 37-year-old Linda Mae Ruiz, like Linda Ann Ortega, was killed on Lake Elsinore. She was murdered particularly cruelly by the serial killer, he buried the head of his heavily drunk victim in the sand and left it to death by suffocation.

Six months later, on June 28, 1989, the body of 28-year-old Kimberly Lyttle was found in Cottonwood Canyon , who, like most of the victims, was a drug addict and came from the red light district . She too had been raped and strangled. What was noticeable at the scene of the crime was that the murderer had made mistakes for the first time and left pubic hair and fibers of his clothing on the victim, thus providing the investigators with the first clues.

On November 11, 1989, Suff murdered 36-year-old prostitute Judy Lynn Angel on the road that leads into Temescal Canyon . Angel had been killed with a knife. She must have defended herself so that her body had deep cuts on her hands. Her skull had also been smashed.

On December 13, 1989, a month later, the body of 23-year-old prostitute Christina Leal was discovered in Quail Valley , who had already been sentenced to several prison terms for drug possession. Since Leal's body showed no signs of a fight, the investigators assumed that she had had consensual sexual intercourse with the perpetrator. This had stabbed her in the heart and then strangled her.

The investigators were under pressure because the serial killer was now killing at ever shorter intervals. On the morning of January 18, 1990, they were called to a crime scene near Interstate 15 on Lake Elsinore where a jogger had found the body of the strangled 24-year-old prostitute Darla Jane Ferguson. For the first time, the police officers were able to secure tire tracks at the crime scene that could have come from the perpetrator.

The series of murders claimed their tenth victim at Highgrove on February 8, 1990 ; this was Carol Lynn Miller, 35, an occasional prostitute who was reported missing by relatives a month earlier. She was raped and suffocated. As with the other victims before, pubic hair and fibers of the perpetrator were also seized.

Around November 6, 1990, Suff struck again in northeast Riverside. On Palmyrita Avenue, a man found the body of severely abused 33-year-old Cheryl Coker, who had severed her right breast with a knife on an industrial site. Thereupon the investigators offered the special commission a bounty of 100,000 dollars to catch the perpetrator.

On December 21, 1990, the caretaker of a factory on Iowa Avenue in Riverside found the body of the 13th victim, 27-year-old prostitute Susan Sternfeld. The body of 42 year old Kathleen Leslie Milne was found on January 19, 1991 by a motorcyclist on Lake Elsinore. The more victims the serial killer's series of murders claimed, the more intensely the police and the media searched for him; for example, the cases were featured on America's Most Wanted television program . The number of investigators was also increased, so that up to 20 law enforcement authorities and private companies were involved. Still, all efforts to catch the killer did not seem to be fruitful.

On the morning of April 27, 1991, the body of 24-year-old Cherie Michelle Payseur was discovered in a flower bed in a bowling center parking lot . Payseur was also a prostitute who had been raped and strangled.

The murderer's 15th victim was 37-year-old Sherry Ann Latham, whose body was discovered by trippers on July 4, 1991 in Railroad Canyon . For the first time, the perpetrator made a major mistake when he left hair on the scene that did not come from a human but from a domestic cat . Latham himself, according to her friends, did not have a cat.

On August 15, 1991, the investigators achieved the first breakthrough. That day, near the University of California , a man took a prostitute, whom he introduced to himself as "John", into his gray van . Said "John" insulted the prostitute and brutally beat her. At the last moment she managed to open the passenger door and escape. "John" stopped his vehicle on a street corner where an acquaintance of the woman who had just escaped was also waiting for clients. Kelly Marie Hammond, 23 years old, could not react quickly enough when the driver dragged her into the car and drove away with her. Hammond's body was discovered on the corner of Sampson Avenue and Delilah Street that same day . Nevertheless, the description of the escaped woman gave the police a phantom of the perpetrator and a description of the vehicle. Both were communicated to the public on television and in daily newspapers.

Despite the partial success of the police, the Riverside Prostitute Killer continued to murder and struck again on September 13, 1991. The victim was 30-year-old prostitute Catherine McDonald, who was discovered by a construction worker on a construction site in the Tuscany Hills. With this murder, Suff deviated for the first time from his pattern of murdering white women, since McDonald was an African American . As with Cheryl Coker, he had severed McDonald's chest, but not disposed of it in the immediate vicinity of the crime scene. Suff apparently wanted to put a wrong lead, as a profile of the serial killer had been published on television shortly before, according to which the serial killer was a white man, whose preferred victims were white women.

A month and a half later, on October 30, 1991, a man on Summerhill Drive found the body of 35-year-old casual prostitute Delliah Zamora Wallace, who had been strangled.

On December 22, 1991, the body of 39-year-old Eleanore Ojeda Casares was discovered on Victoria Avenue . Her body was also mutilated. Casares was the 19th and last victim in the series of murders.

arrest

On the night of January 8-9, 1992, Officer Frank Orta was on patrol on University Avenue, an area where prostitution and crime were common. He suddenly noticed a van that matched the description of the one used five months ago in the Kelly Hammond murder. Orta turned on his siren and made the driver of the van stop. Upon inspection of the car and its driver, a man by the name of William Lester Suff, it was found that Suff's driver's license had expired and his vehicle documents were invalid. He was taken to the Riverside Police Department for further questioning. Here Suff initially denied having anything to do with the murders. But blood and DNA tests showed that it was his pubic hair and fibers that had been seized from some of the victims. It was only after hours of interrogation that Suff made confessions in all 19 murders.

process

The first hearing before Judge Becky Dugan took place on February 28, 1992. Although Suff's attorney Floyd Zagorsky pleaded "not guilty" in two of the 19 murders his client was charged with, Judge Dugan ruled that Suff should be tried. It was another three years before the trial of Suff could be opened on March 25, 1995. Judge W. Charles Morgan presided; the public prosecutor's office was represented by Paul E. Zellerbach. Due to the complexity of the case, Suff was defended by two lawyers: Randolph K. Driggs and Frank S. Paisly. Suff has only been tried in 13 murders. In the case of the remaining six women’s corpses, no clear evidence could be found that the alcohol was the culprit.

While prosecutor Zellerbach tried to portray Suff as a sadistic sex murderer aroused by the murder of women, Suff's attorney Peasley described his client as a man who was "in the wrong place at the wrong time". The trial, at which over 30 witnesses testified, lasted 54 days. The jury held another four days of deliberation before Judge Morgan pronounced the verdict on August 17, 1995. In twelve of the thirteen murders, William Lester Suff was found guilty and sentenced to death. Investigators also assumed that in addition to the known 19 murders, he had murdered three other women in the early 1970s; however, this could not be blamed on him as there were no clear traces.

Suff has been in San Quentin State Prison since 1995, awaiting execution . To this day he is fighting for his rehabilitation as he regards himself as a victim of justice and a scapegoat. Even today there is no apparent motive for his actions.

literature

• Peter Murakami, Julia Murakami: Lexicon of serial killers. 450 case studies of a pathological type of killing. Ullstein Tb, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-548-35935-3 .

Web links

• Bill Suff in the Crime Library (English)