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C H A P T E R SI FR0MC614,1973. An autopsy shwed thevictim ha d been bound, cas-trated IS to 30 minutes beforedeath, suffocated and thenthrown from a moving vehicleI -tmto the road,-r^The victim was of average:i3Bight, probably between 16 andyears old, with shoulder^-Heiigth brown hair and numerous:3it too s: A swastika, a 13, a:ao ss, a spider. Members of the:Zpng Beach gay community rec-ognized his face but couldn't re-call his nme. He was wearingblue trousers sim ilar to thoseworn by a gas-station attendant.To date, the body never hasbeen identified.Another victim, James DaleI^ieeves, 19, of Cypre ss, went to adinner at a gay communitychurch on the afternoon ofThanksgiving Day 1974. He left,saying he was going to a moviein Orange County. His car laterwas found in a parking lot in the^I mo nt Shore area of LongBeach. The next afternoon, hisl ^ y was found on BarrancaRoad in Irvine.Malcolm Eugene Little, a 20-year-old from Selma, Ala., hadt^wn visiting his brother Wil-liam in Long Beach. His brotherdropped him off at the entranceto the Garden Grove Freeway sohe could begin his trip home.His body w as discovered June 2,1974, under a tree near a bridge^ on Highway 86 in Imperial. County. His killer strangled him^ with ts bare hands and sexually

mutilated him.Z Ronnie Wiebe, 20, was a blue-^ collar worker from FuUerton.- He had a wife from whom hehad recently separated and a small child. He left a neighbor-hood bar i n Los Alamitos where^ he was a regular at 1:45 a.m. onthe morning of July 28,1973. Po-- lice believe he attempted to.hitch a ride after discovering his; {r wouldn't start. He had beendead two days when his bodywas found on a freeway ramp in

Seal Beach. He had been stran-gled.Roger Edward Dickersoo, 19,a Marine statkmed at CampPendleton, was in B ud's CoveBar in San Gemente the ni ^t oiJune 21,1974. He told his friendshe had a ride to Los Angeles andwould return the next morning.He did not say who was givinghim the ride. His nude body wasfound the next evening on adead-end street in South L a-guna. He had been strangled andsexually assaulted.Investigators knew little aboutthe killer or killers. According toTroup's m emo, they thought atleast a pair of killers were work-ing together because of the diffi-culty involved in dumpin g thebodies. It was a theory that,many years later, the prosecu-tion in the case against RandyKraft would reject. Trou p alsonoted that the killer o r k illershad plugged two of the victims'noses with tissue, a procedureused in the military for handlingbodies.Over the next 12 years, a num-ber of killers who used the free-ways for their bloody acts werearrested and convicted, includ-ing WUliam Bonin, the "freewaykiller"; Angelo Buono Jr. andKenneth Bianchi, the "hillsidestranglers"; and Patrick WayneKearney, perpetrator of the"trash-bag m urders."Scores of cases were closed.Meanwhile, another list of mur-ders continued to grow. Theirstyles did not fit the others. Var-ious law-enforcement agenciesmet again and again to comparenotes and wait for what it usu-ally takes to solve such cases: astroke of luck.On May 14,1983, two CHP o ffi-cers pulled over the driver of aweaving car on suspicion ofdrunken-driving. The driver wasidentified as Randy Kraft. Laterthat year, Kraft w as ordered tostand trial for the mu rders of 16men and eventually was linkedto the deaths of 21 others. Longbefore that, he would have a bi-zarre brush with the LongBeach police.

Chapter 4A Brush With the LawF r a while , police thought Keith Crotwell had drowned. ButMichael Ditmar refused to believe that about h is buddy."He was in good shape, a pretty good swim mer and bodysu r fe r , " D i t ma r r e me mb e r s .Crotwell was good at a lot of th ings, Ditmar said . He was amuscular 6 -footer and a natural ath lete . " I f he would have stuckwith it .he could have played semi-proor professional baseball,"Ditmar said. "He was prettygood."Instead, Crotwell got into dirtbikes. He and his buddies wouldgo to the country and ride onweekends. Du ring the week,they'd hang out in somebody'sgarage, work on their bikes andlisten to music.Ditmar remembers his friendas a quiet, shy high-school drop-out who looked older than his 19years. He was mechanically in-clined, always willing to help afriend or fix a car. "He had a lotof friends," Ditmar said.Back then, according toDitmar, they all did quite a bitof drinking and partying. "Noneof us were retdly thinking aboutwhat we were going to do in thefuture," Ditmar said recently.^ Crotwell and some of his!^.lriends went to Big John's, aLong Beach pool hall and gameTarcade, to hang out on Saturdaynight, March 29,1975. Ditmarwas there. So was 15 year-oldT Kent May, who'd come with a" new girlfriend . Between games,tjiey sneaked out to drink beer; stowed in the trunk of a car be-longing to one member of thegroup.

: : For M ay, the good time endedsometime after midnight. The..$20 in his pocket was spent, he! Q/as drunk, and he and his newgirl had parted company after a^at. He was sitting in the park-^ lot drinking and talking to^C rotw ell w hen a man dressed inLevi's jacket and cap walked up and tried to join their con-: -r .^ersation. In court testimony' 'years later, M ay identified theman as Randy Kraft.' - - Ma y and Crotwell at firstwere a little suspicious of Kraft,May testified. It's not often thata m an walks up to two strangersand starts shooting the breeze,"'he said. May and Crotwell asked: IKraft what he thought about the; ; gay me n who cruised the area.

When he said he disliked them,- they started to feel more com-: .fortable.: May said Kraft asked them if' they wanted to get high. Theysaid yes and the three went overto Kraft's black-and-white Mus-tang. Once inside, Kraft gaveMay a handful of yellow tablets,each inscribed with a 10, he tes-tified.Crotwell, who was a few yearsolder than May , td d bi friendto take seven of the tablets.

warning that too many w ouldcause him to pass out and missthe high. Crotwell kept about 10for himself, May testified. Theyput the pills in their m ouths andwashed them down w ith beer.Kraft didn't seem to be drinkingor taking any pills. May testi-fied.Things got fuzzy after that.They got onto a freeway, wentsomeplace in Seal Beach,maybe stopped in a park ing lot.May testified. The next thingMay realized, he was in his bedat home. It was early Sunday af-ternoon.Witnesses later told policethey had seen a drive r push anintoxicated Ma y out of the carand drive off with Crotwell inthe front seat. Crotwell ap-peared to be unconscious andwas leaning over the driver'sright shoulder, they said.On May 8,1975, a skull wasfound in the Long Beach Marina.It was identified as part of theremains of Keith Crotwell.Police tot Kraft goOn the afternoon of May 19,1975, Michael Dit ma r told LongBeach homicide investigator M i-chael C. Woodward he had spot-ted the Mustang that Crotwellhad been riding in. I t had beenparked at First and Gaviotastreets in Long Beach six daysearlier.Woodward found the Mustangand ran a check with the De-partment of Motor Vehicles todetermine ownership. The DMVtold him it was registered toRandy Steven Kraft. His addresswas listed in another nearbycity. Woodward asked a passingmailman about the name andwas directed to an address inthe 1700 block of Ocean Avenue.Woodward testified that hewas met at the door by a dark-haired, mustachioed man of av-erage build in his e arly 30s. Hefit the description of the drivergiven by Crotwell's friends. Hesaid his name was Randy Kraftand he invited Woodward in.Woodward asked Kraft aboutthe night of Crotwell's disap-pearance. According toWoodward's testimony, Kraftdenied picking up the two men.Woodward suspected K raftwas homosexual. He had a m aleroommate, and Woodward no-ticed what appeared to be a gaymagazine and a male photo onthe wall. He "spoke with a very

PleaM see CHAPTER 4/C8

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