SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO, Ca. (Sept. 22, 2020) – Distracted driving is a dangerous and illegal behavior the Sheriff’s Department is working to deter drivers from doing. On Thursday, Sept. 24, deputies will focus their efforts on drivers that are talking, texting, using an app or any other action on their phone that is not hands-free and violates California’s cell phone law. A violation is subject to a $162 fine for the first offense, and at least $285 for a second offense.
Forensic History: How the OC Crime Lab helped evidence mount against serial killer Randy Kraft
On a non-descript stretch of freeway during a routine traffic stop, one of the nation’s most prolific serial killers was caught.
Randy Kraft, convicted of murdering 16 men but suspected of having more than 60 victims, was arrested at about 1 a.m. May 14, 1983 after California Highway Patrol Officers observed him swerving on the 5 Freeway in Mission Viejo.
A failed sobriety test landed him in handcuffs, but the motionless body of the man in the passenger seat was the beginning of the end for a man who terrorized Orange County’s freeways, picking up unsuspecting hitchhikers only to torture and murder them.
“How’s my friend?” Kraft reportedly asked the officers who pulled him over that night; his tone composed and emotionless.
The officers tried to rouse the man they thought was sleeping but when they removed the jacket covering the passenger, they discovered the man was dead. The victim was a 25-year-old Marine corporal who had hitched a ride with Kraft to meet friends at a party.
Kraft is believed to have killed more than 60 men in at least three states from 1971 to 1983. He earned the moniker, “The Scorecard Killer” for the morbid catalog of his victims’ names he scrawled on a white sheet of paper. Others called him “The Freeway Killer” -- a nod to his M.O. Kraft was known for targeting young male hitchhikers, many times along the freeway. After torturing then killing his victims, he discarded their bodies near freeway interchanges, in parking lots and, at times, in remote locations.
Five years into his killing spree, Orange County deputies responded to a remote area in Silverado Canyon where they found a murdered young man with shards of glass from a vodka bottle littered around his body.
Pieces of the bottle were collected and forensic scientists with the Orange County Crime Lab methodically fit together the dozens of jagged fragments. After reconstructing what remained of the bottle, they were able to collect fingerprints.
Those fingerprints were later matched to Randy Kraft after his 1983 arrest.
This critical piece of evidence helped build the case against Kraft, who was convicted in May 1989. The 75-year-old currently remains on death row at San Quentin state prison.
MEDAL OF COURAGE & LIFESAVING: Deputies stop man with machete
On January 19, 2018 at 4:15 p.m., Deputies Anthony Garza, Robert Tomasko, Jason McLennan, Paul Chiron and Charles Johnson responded to Walmart in Lake Forest reference a suspect wearing a mask and carrying a machete.
Before deputies could arrive, the suspect left Walmart in his vehicle. Dispatch received another call stating the same vehicle was at another business down the street. The suspect then ignited a briefcase in the business parking lot, where it later exploded. The suspect left and drove to another business location on the west side of Lake Forest, where he was now armed with a gun, as well as the machete. The suspect robbed the business of a glass pipe and fled the scene.
The suspect then drove his vehicle to a residential neighborhood where he parked and began walking around. The suspect approached a man that was walking his dog and began brandishing his firearm and machete. The man immediately ran to his backyard to warn his wife. Unfortunately, his wife was opening the front door when he was in the backyard and she was confronted by the suspect. The suspect attacked his wife causing a laceration to her head and then forced entry into the home. The suspect ran through the home, into the backyard, jumped over the backyard fence and ran to the end of a cul-de-sac.
Deputy McLennan arrived and immediately confronted the suspect in the street, ordering him to drop his gun and machete. Deputies Garza, Johnson, Tomasko and Chiron arrived to assist. The suspect refused all commands from deputies and a shooting occurred.
Deputies immediately secured the suspect and began life-saving measures. They were able to stabilize the suspect, who was taken to the hospital and survived his injuries.
They were honored at this year’s Medal of Valor Ceremony with the Medal of Courage and the Medal for Lifesaving for their actions that day.
Forensic History: The man that was freed thanks to science
For 16 years, Kevin Green maintained he didn’t do it.
It was someone else, he said, who had entered his pregnant wife’s bedroom in 1979, bludgeoned her into a coma, killing the couple’s unborn daughter.
When Green’s wife, Dianna D’Aiello, recovered from her coma, albeit with significant memory loss, she testified in the case that helped convict her husband of attempted murder and second-degree murder for the death of their unborn child. Green was sentenced in 1980 to 15-years-to-life in prison.
Around the time D’Aiello was attacked, several other women in Orange County were sexually assaulted and brutally murdered by an assailant investigators called “The Bedroom Basher.” At the time, however, the cases weren’t linked and the murders in Tustin and Costa Mesa eventually ran cold.
Investigators with the Tustin and Costa Mesa continued to work the unsolved murders and, in the 1990s, learned of a new technology for genetic testing knows as Short Tandem Repeats (STR), a type of DNA analysis effective for identifying individuals. At the time, the Orange County Crime Lab was one of only three labs in the nation capable of this type of analysis.
Tustin PD and Costa Mesa PD investigators submitted DNA from the Bedroom Basher murders and the STR method was used to match DNA of convicted individuals through a computer database called CODIS (Combine DNA Index System).
They got multiple hits.
Forensic scientists matched the DNA from the Bedroom Basher murders to Gerald Parker, who was in custody for sexually assault a 13-year-old girl in Tustin.
Gerald Parker, a former Marine assigned to the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station in Irvine, confessed to attacking D’Aiello and murdering five other women in Orange County.
He was convicted in 1998 and sentenced to death in 1999. He remains on Death Row at San Quentin State Prison today.
Kevin Green was exonerated and was awarded $620,000 in restitution for his wrongful conviction and prison sentence.
DANA POINT, Ca. (Sept. 21, 2020) – The Sheriff’s Department will take part in a bicycle and pedestrian safety enforcement operation aimed at educating bicyclists, drivers and pedestrians on traffic laws, rules and responsibilities.
On Thursday, Sept. 24, deputies will be looking for violations made by bicyclists, drivers and pedestrians that put roadway users at risk. These violations include drivers speeding, making illegal turns, failing to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, failing to stop for signs and signals or any other dangerous violation.
Deputies will also look for pedestrians who cross the street illegally or fail to yield to drivers who have the right of way. Bike riders will be stopped when riding on the wrong side of the road, not complying with stop signs and signals, or other violation of the same traffic laws that apply to them as drivers.
Bicycle and pedestrian fatalities are rising at an alarming rate. In 2016, 138 bicyclists and 867 pedestrians were killed on California roads. Pedestrian fatalities are up nearly 33 percent from 2012, and the number of bicyclists killed are up nearly 25 percent over the past five years.
People walking should only cross the street using crosswalks or intersections, preferably with a stop sign or signal. People on foot should also look for cars backing up and avoid darting between parked cars, make eye contact with drivers and wear bright clothing during the day and reflective materials or use a flashlight at night.
Drivers should wait for pedestrians to cross the street, avoid distractions like using a cell phone, and be courteous and patient. All bike riders are reminded to always wear a helmet; helmets are required by law for those under 18. Bicyclists must travel in the same direction of traffic and have the same requirements as any slow moving vehicle.
The Sheriff’s Department supports the new OTS public awareness campaign, "Go Safely, California." To find out more about ways to go safely, visit gosafelyca.org.
Funding for this program is provided by a grant from the California Office of Traffic Safety, through the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
San Clemente, Ca. (Sept. 21, 2020) – The Sheriff’s Department will take part in a bicycle and pedestrian safety enforcement operation aimed at educating bicyclists, drivers and pedestrians on traffic laws, rules and responsibilities.On Wednesday, Sept. 23, deputies will be looking for violations made by bicyclists, drivers and pedestrians that put roadway users at risk. These violations include drivers speeding, making illegal turns, failing to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, failing to stop for signs and signals or any other dangerous violation.
DANA POINT, Ca. (Sept. 21, 2020) – The Sheriff’s Department will take part in a bicycle and pedestrian safety enforcement operation aimed at educating bicyclists, drivers and pedestrians on traffic laws, rules and responsibilities.On Thursday, Sept. 24, deputies will be looking for violations made by bicyclists, drivers and pedestrians that put roadway users at risk. These violations include drivers speeding, making illegal turns, failing to yield to pedestrians in crosswalks, failing to stop for signs and signals or any other dangerous violation.
Forensic History: The murders that made the case for Orange County’s Crime Lab
In an era when murder trials were a form of macabre entertainment for the masses, Orange County was home to one of the most sensational.
George Gollum and Beulah Louise Overell were accused of murdering Overell’s parents by staging an explosion aboard their yacht on March 15, 1947.
Beulah’s parents did not approve of her relationship with George and they threatened to disinherit her, so the young couple planned their murder out of frustration and greed, according to prosecutors.
When the yacht exploded in Newport Harbor, it initially was suspected that a gasoline leak was the culprit. However, investigators quickly set their sights on murder when they found more than 30 sticks of dynamite wired to an alarm clock detonator and attached to the boat’s battery. An autopsy of the Overells’ bodies also showed they were bludgeoned to death before the explosion occurred.
The case was highly publicized and garnered national attention, which prompted the State Attorney General to take over prosecution of the case.
Orange County did not have its own crime lab at the time, so the evidence was sent out, including the victims’ bodies, the suspects’ bloody clothes, a receipt for the dynamite found on the suspects and wire and tape collected from the suspects’ car that was similar to what was used in the explosion.
The evidence mounted against Beulah and George, but each time the prosecution presented a new piece of evidence in court, the judge would not allow it. Delays in processing ultimately led to the young couple’s acquittal.
The outcome of this trial prompted Orange County to form its own Crime Lab in 1948 so that analysis of important evidence would remain in Orange County.
A deputy-involved shooting occurred today in the city of Stanton at approximately 5:20 p.m. While on patrol at approximately 5:15 p.m., a deputy identified a stolen vehicle near the corner of Beach Blvd. and Chapman Ave. The vehicle was reported stolen today out of the city of Garden Grove. The deputy attempted to conduct a traffic stop and the vehicle failed to yield, leading to a short high-speed pursuit. The pursuit terminated near the area of Dale Ave. and Cerritos Ave. A deputy-involved shooting occurred. Deputies rendered medical aid to the subject, a male Asian in his 30s. He was pronounced deceased at the scene.
