The Trash Bag Killer — Conclusion

kearney3-209x300At the end of July 1977, Patrick Kearney was indicted in Riverside county and pleaded innocent to the murders of Albert Rivera, 21, Los Angeles; Arturo Marques, 24, Oxnard, and John O. LaMay, 17, El Segundo. Kearney’s attorney, Jay Grossman, requested that the transcript of the Riverside County indictment proceedings be sealed. His co-counsel, Steven Harmon, requested a gag order.

A few months went by and in November Kearney’s request to plead guilty and become his own attorney was turned town in Riverside Superior Court pending a psychological evaluation. It took only a couple of weeks for the results of Patrick’s psych evaluation to be completed. The multiple murder suspect was allowed to represent himself. He began by waiving a probation report and requesting immediate sentencing.

Superior Judge John Hews obliged by handing down a life sentence, with the possibility of parole in seven years, for the three Riverside victims.

Suspected of nearly 20 other slayings in Los Angles, Orange, and San Diego Counties, Patrick’s legal problems were far from over. Any one, or all, of the other counties could file murder charges against him.

Reporters interviewed the confessed killer in the courtroom following his sentencing, but Patrick declined to comment saying, “I can’t allow myself to think about it much. It’s too painful.”

The gag order was lifted once Patrick was sentenced, and for the first time many of the details of the slayings were revealed. He told prosecutors and investigators that he had killed “coolly”. He also said that he got ideas from reading the coverage of the serial rape/torture murders of at least 28 boys in Houston in the early 1970s. The crimes, committed by Dean Corll, Elmer Henley and David Brooks were known at the Houston Mass Murders. At the time, the Houston murders were consider the worst serial murders in American history. Patrick said that when he realized that the authorities were getting close to arresting him he removed all of the literature about the Houston murders from his home.

In January 1978, Patrick gave Los Angeles authorities the names of four more victims: David Rogers, 27, a Camp Pendleton Marine; Michael McGhee, 13, who vanished from Redondo Beach on June 11, 1976; Merle Chance, 8, whose decomposed body was found on May 26, 1977 in the Angeles National Forest; and finally Ronald Dean Smith, 5, whose body was found in Riverside County on October 12, 1974.

SEVENTEEN MORE COUNTSAlready serving a life term in Chino for the “trash bag murders” of three young men in Riverside County, in February 1978 Patrick was changed with 17 additional counts of murder. The complaint against Patrick was the largest ever filed in Los Angeles County. Two Sheriff’s homicide detectives, Al Sett and Roger Wilson, gathered the evidence on the cases using information provided by Patrick himself.

Just when they thought that they had finished filing murder charges against Patrick, one more victim was added to the death count. Detectives Sett and Wilson had placed an advertisement in the South Bay Daily Breeze. The ad referred to a teenager Patrick said he had shot to death in the fall of 1976. A woman answered the ad and gave the detectives enough information to convince them that the previously unnamed victim was 17-year-old Robert William Benniefiel of Redondo Beach.

As he had done in the three Riverside cases, Patrick Kearney pleaded guilty to 18 more counts of homicide on February 21, 1978. At least Ronnie Smith’s mom knew the name of the monster who had killed her son. But neither she, nor any of the other relatives of the dead, would learn why Patrick had committed the murders.

Judge D. Tevrizian addressed Patrick, “I feel I have some obligation to the 18 people whom you have silenced. the families of those victimes want to know why. Can you tell us why?”

Patrick replied, “I prefer not to.”

DAILY BREEZE PHOTO_1

Photo courtesy of Daily Breeze

The likely reason Patrick declined to discuss his murders is that he was a necrophiliac. He’s not the only serial killer who preferred not to discuss his necrophilia–Ted Bundy similarly didn’t want to talk about his personal preference for sex with the dead.

After he entered his pleas in municipal court on the 5th floor of the criminal courts building, Patrick was taken to the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Paul G. Breckenridge for sentencing. The judge imposed a concurrent life sentence and then he said, “This defendant has certainly perpetrated a series of ghastly and grisly crimes. . . I can only hope the community release board will never release Mr. Kearney. He appears to be an insult to humanity.”

So far Judge Breckenridge’s wish has been granted–Patrick Kearney remains incarcerated.

The Trash Bag Killer, Part 2

KEARNEY_HILL_PICSIn late June 1977, Sheriff’s officers announced that they were seeking Patrick W. Kearney, 38, and David D. Hill, 34, formerly of Redondo Beach, as suspects in the sex murders of 8 young men. Investigators said that they had found evidence near the body of John Otis LaMay that lead them to issue warrants for the two men–but they wouldn’t reveal what it was they had found.

EVIDENCE NEAR BODYThe victims tentatively linked to the wanted men ranged in age from 12 to 24–none were as young as 5-year-old Ronnie Dean Smith, who had been dead for nearly 3 years. Maybe the detectives were mistaken in their earlier hunch that the boy’s slaying was connected to the others.

Newspapers printed photos of the wanted men and, because it was a different time, frequently referred to them as “admitted homosexuals”. Along with photos and physical descriptions of the fugitives some details of the crimes were revealed. All eight victims had been nude when discovered, all had been shot and four of them were stuffed into heavy trash bags. As far as detectives could determine, the victims had been picked up in El Segundo or downtown Los Angeles and then dumped in several different counties.

Within a day or two of the warrants being issued for their arrest, Kearney and Hill walked into the Riverside County Sheriff’s headquarters, pointed to their pictures on a wanted poster, and surrendered. They were booked on suspicion of two murders; but Los Angeles County Sheriff’s investigators said that “there may be as many as 30 to 35 more bodies”, but they qualified the statement: “none of this has been confirmed.”KEARNEY_HILL_SURRENDER

Immediately following the July 4th holiday, Kearney and Hill were arraigned for the “trash bag” killings and bail was set at $500,000 each.

Detectives from five Southern California counties reviewed their John and Jane Doe cases to see if there were other possible victims that matched the “trash bag” M.O., and they found several that appeared similar.

HILL INNOCENT SAYS MOMDavid Hill’s mother, Edna, was interviewed in her hometown of Lubbock, Texas: “My David would do anything like that. I know the Lord’s going to help. He’ll take care of him.”

Hill had had a had a rough childhood. He was one of 9 kids and his father, J.W. Hill Sr., hanged himself in late 1948, leaving his family to struggle. Hill seemed always to be at loose ends. He never finished high school and was rarely employed. Finally, as many rootless young men do, he enlisted in the U.S. Army. He completed his basic training at Ft. Ord, California and never went back to Lubbock to live. He occasionally visited his family and reconnected with his  high school sweetheart, whom he married. He met Kearney in 1962 and his wife divorced him in 1966.

Nobody was surprised that Hill’s mother defended her son, but what came as a complete surprise was that Kearney did the same. Soon after surrendering Kearney began to talk. He revealed the location of a victim he had buried between two garages at the rear of a triplex he and Hill had shared in 1968. Lt. Ed Douglas of the L.A. County Sheriff’s Department said that Kearney knew the victim only as “George”. The skeleton was unearthed and there was a hole in the skull, likely caused by a gunshot.HILL RELEASED HEADLINE

On July 14, nine days after they had surrendered themselves to the Riverside Sheriff’s Department, charges against Hill were dropped. To spare him from having to gun a gauntlet of reporters and photographers Hill was secretly taken from the jail. He may have gotten a “get out of jail free” card, but his attorney wisely counseled him to keep mum because there was a chance he could be recharged.

The Riverside County Grand Jury indicted Kearney for murder. He lead detectives to George’s grave in Culver City–would he lead them to other victims?  What about Ronnie Smith? His murder didn’t fit the M.O.–was he a victim of the Trash Bag Killer?  His family still needed answers.

NEXT TIME:  At last–more answers than questions.

The Trash Bag Killer, Part 1

On August 24, 1974 five-year-old Ronald Dean Smith failed to appear for dinner. Ronnie had been playing with a friend at a local park. The friend was accounted for, but nobody knew where Ronnie was. It wasn’t like him to miss dinner and it was odd that nobody knew where he was.  His grandmother, Mrs. Shirley O’Conner, was babysitting her grandson while his mother was out of town. When she couldn’t find him she called the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lennox Substation.

Sheriff’s deputies talked to Ronnie’s friend. He told them that he and Ronnie had gotten into a “…sand fight” and he’d gone home to clean up leaving his friend, in tears, in the sandbox.

Teams of Sheriff’s detectives searched the eight-square-mile park and went door-to-door interviewing people but, according to Lt. Ray Gott, “No clues–nothing. The boy has just disappeared.”

joann_picSeven days after his disappearance his mother, 22-year-old Joann O’Connor (she and Ronnie’s father were divorced) talked to the press in the squad room of the Sheriff’s station.

She made a gut-wrenching plea to the unknown person(s) who had her son.

“The reason we wanted you all to come here is to tell whoever had Ronnie how much we want him back. We definitely do feel in our hearts that he’s alive and OK and that he’s safe. I just want to tell whoever he’s with now that he’s very important to me, that he’s…”

Joann stopped for a moment, took a breath and composed herself as best she could, then she continued:

“…he’s all I’ve got. And that I love him so very much. I know that whoever took Ronnie took him because they wanted a little boy to love, and I know you took him because he’s so beautiful and that you won’t hurt him…”

On Sunday, October 13, 1974 a group of kids were collecting old beer cans along Ortega Highway near El Cariso Village in Riverside County, when they discovered a body. The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department was notified.  They immediately checked the missing persons reports and found a description of Ronnie. The body they had was too badly decomposed to be identified by its features, but the clothing matched that of the missing boy. An autopsy confirmed everyone’s worst fears.

As hard as they tried, Sheriff’s investigators failed to turn up any suspects.

In late April, 1977, nearly three years following Ronnie’s death, the remains of 17-year-old El Segundo High School senior, John Otis LaMay, were discovered wrapped in plastic bags in an 80-gallon can in Temescal Canyon. He’d been missing for about a month.

El Segundo Police Detective Roger Kahl noted that there were similarities between LaMay’s death and the deaths of numerous other victims, all young men, whose nude bodies had been found near highways in four Southern California counties since April 1975. However, he said that LaMay was the only one who had been dismembered.

Despite the anomaly, Sheriff’s offices in Riverside, Los Angeles, Orange, and San Diego Counties, along with the LAPD, were sharing information in the belief that the murders were connected.

NEXT TIME: The body count climbs. Two suspects are identified.