• You must be logged in to see or use the Shoutbox. Besides, if you haven't registered, you really should. It's quick and it will make your life a little better. Trust me. So just register and make yourself at home with like-minded individuals who share either your morbid curiousity or sense of gallows humor.

DivineRAiN

Active Member
A.K.A.: "Southern California Strangler"

Classification: Serial killer
Characteristics: Rape - Mutilation
Number of victims: 16 +
Date of murders: 1972 - 1983
Date of arrest: May 14, 1983
Date of birth: March 19, 1945
Victims profile: Young men
Method of murder: Strangulation
Location: California, USA
Status: Sentenced to death on November 29, 1989

On the outside Randy Kraft was a normal fellow, a succesful computer programmer operating in sunny Southern California. On the inside Kraft was a lethal sexual sadist tht may have committed at least as many as fifty or sixty murders.

His killings are believed to have begun in the early 1970's and stretched until his arrest in 1983. His victims were all male, mostly homosexuals, who Kraft would torture and mutilate, sometimes while his victim was still alive. Apparently Kraft had a great deal of problems coming to grips with his own homosexuality, to say the least.

On a summer morning in 1983 Orange County officers pulled over a driver for weaving.

The driver, Randy Kraft, got out of his car and began walking to the cruiser in a polite manner. The suspicious officers walked Kraft back to his car and found the body of Terry Gambrel slumped over dead in the passenger's seat. He had be strangled with a belt.

Searching Krafts home they found photo's of three men whose deaths were still unsolved in Southern California. Robert Loggins had been found dead in September 1980, and photos of his body were found in Krafts' home. Roger De Vaul, and Geoffrey Nelson were last seen in February of 1983, and their bodies were discovered days apart. Photos of the two friends were also found in the house. Fibers from a rug in Kraft's garage matched fibers found on the body of Scott Huges, who was found alongside the Riverside Freeway in April of 1978. Items belonging to a man found dead near Grand Rapids, Michigan were also found in his home. Kraft had worked for a Santa Monica based aerospace firm between June 1980 and January 1983, and had traveled to offices in Oregon and Michigan during times of some unsolved murders in each state.

Prosecutors eventually cracked the code in Krafts notebook. "2 in 1 Hitch" referred to the murders of Nelson and De Vaul. "Marine Carson" referred to Richard Keith, a marine last seen in Carson, California, and whose body was discovered in Laguna Hills in 1978. "Jail Out" referred to a murder he commited hours after being released from jail on June 11, 1978. "Parking Lot" referred to the murder of Keith Crotwell, an eight-year-old boy whose severed head was found by a group of fisherman. His body turned up a while later. Kraft was questioned in this case, and admitted meeting Crotwell in a parking lot the day he vanished. Kraft was considered a "Score-card killer".


The story began in 1972 when bodies of young men – often Marines – began to be found in Southern California – specifically from the city of Long Beach, through Orange County and into San Diego County. There were several "signatures" to the killings: the victims were frequently burned on their left nipple with an automobile cigarette lighter, some of them had their left testicle cut out while they were alive, some had objects shoved into their rectums (in some cases something on the order of a tree branch, in other cases a single sock). The real link to these cases was the use of drugs, the most common being Valium, ingested with alcohol.

The murders were truly horrific. In one instance the victim’s eyelids were cut off to prevent him from closing his eyes during the torture.

yea, he had some issues. I remember reading a book on him that just got worse n worse. Whatta sick man
[doublepost=1462132599,1462132565][/doublepost]http://murderpedia.org/male.K/k/kraft-randy.htm
 
Nude and bound to a sapling, he had been sodomized and tortured prior to death: his legs slashed with a knife; his eyes, face, chest and genitals burned with a cigarette lighter; a cocktail swizzle stick jammed through his penis with such force that it entered the bladder; his genitals severed and stuffed into his rectum, along with dirt and leaves. Hall’s blood alcohol was seven times the legal limit, probably a fatal dose, but the killer had made sure by packing more leaves and dirt in his throat.

yeah, it just gets worse n worse.. the guy was fuckin nuts. Couldn't remember his name, but I remembered he was pulled over with a murdered victim in the front seat (that's wot I googled to find him)
 
Back
Top