Warning: Graphic content, readers’ discretion advised. This story contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some readers discretion advised.
Randy Kraft predated on dozens of young men in California, drugging them before committing sadistic acts of torture and murder.
when police discovered a handwritten list of 61 initials tucked in a suitcase in the back of randy craft’s car .
they were puzzled by what it meant.
later it became clear the list was a scorecard of men randy craft had murdered.
or more than a decade randy craft predit dozen of young men around southern california intoxicating them first with his charm .
then with alcohol and drugs
followed by the most sadistic acts of torture and murder ever to confront law enforces.
born in march 1946 randy steve kraft grew up in a homely environment with his parents and three older sisters
in a concervative middleclass neighborhood in orange county.
one of the most of intriguing things about randy craft, is when he became the killer that he was he had a really stable childhood, he had a doting mother , he had three elder sisters and they all doted on him .
kraft excelled at scchool while attending westminister high school he graduated among the top 1o out of 390 students. winning a scholarship to the prestigious claremont men’s college
he then enrolled in the reserve officer training corps and marched in support of thevietnamn war.
in the second year of university he was embrassing his sexuality entering into his first homosexual relationship .
in 1966 at a time when homo sexuality in california was still illegal ,craft was arrested for conduct witch another man in huntington beach.
he gratuaded with a degree in economics and few months later was accepted in the US air force statone at edwards air force base in southern california.he rose to the rank of airman first class that same year .
he came out to his family ,his mother was apparently understanding but his took a lot more longer to accept his son’s sexuality.
by july 1969 his blossoming air force career ended abruptly.
he hada good education, he was intelligent, he had everything going for him, and he tried various jobs, university, he went in the military ,did all the american things and it seems that his life really started to unravel when the military kicked him out because he came out as being gay
1969 they kicked him out the military cuz he he was gay and the next year 1970 the sexual assults started from him
randy kraft’s first known assault was on a 13 year old runaway called joey wh o he met at huntington beach boardwalk.
kraft enticed joe back to his apartment where he’d give him alcohol and pills before sodomizing him.
when kraft left his apartment to go to work next morning, joe fled barefoot and ended up in a hospital.doctors pumed his stomack .
police paid a visit of kraft’s apartment and as well as finding illegal drugs
they found 76 photos of kraft engaging in various sex acts with men . no charges were pressed, because police had searched his apartment without out a warrant.
two years after he was discharged from the air force . kraft enrolled at long beach state university, where he met and moved in with fellow student jeff graves.
allthough kraft was now in a steady relationship it did nothing to stem his desire to coax young men back to his place.
he would hold the bars- the gay bars he would pick up someone apparently he was really charismatic.he was intelligent he could hold conversations with people about any subject.
he liked military people cuz he’d been in the military before so he used to like young marines and he’d invite them back to his place afterwards
and they drink and they chat and they talk and some of them even mentioned that he was almost hypnotic without any suggestion at all that there was a sexual undertone into the pickup that he effectively just made.there was lot of people who escaped randy kraft so they’ve been able to took about it since.
what propelled kraft to unleash such torturous horrors upon so many young men remains a mystery. edward moore was a 20 year old marine he was last seen alive leaving his barracks on christmaseve 1972.
two days later his body turned up on 405 freeway, it had been thrown from a moving vehicle.
an autopsy however revealed the scope of horrors inflicted on him, he’d been bound . beaten , bitten ,and a sock was found force up his rectum
it would become a grotesque signature of randy kraft’s crimes.that would scar southern california for more than a decade.over the course of 1973 craft brutalized at least four yung men.
in february, a body as yet unidentified. was found on terminal island freeway,he had been stragled and a sock forced up his rectum. 2 months later,craft murdered at least three men .
among them was 17 year old kevin bailey who was found dead in huntington beach..
he two had been sodomized but also emasculated.in other words he would actualy cut the testicles and the penis off and hold it up to the victim.
but he’d do it to a live victim.usually it has been done when people that are already dead .and you die of shock because once you emasculate a man the blood loss is horrendous.
by december ,kraft had resorted to dismembering more body parts of his victims.
23 year old art student vincent cruz mestas was found in san bernadino mountains .
as well as having a sock inserted into his rectum, his hands had been cut off.
this is a sadistic thing, he obviously gets off on the pain, the anguish and the agony of his victims. the more agony his victims in the more he gets his sexual kicks from it .
at least three murders were atributed by kraft in 1974.
20 year old malcolml ittle . 19 , year old james reeves and 18 year old marine roger dickerson .
he developed a type of victim, young caucasian male, he had also developed a method to his murder.
alcohol and drugs same old story.
they would have a drink together he would then administer drugs somehow till they were really under his control
and then that was it they were bound and they were over to him he could tie them up ,he could do what he want with them.
but he would have taken them to a remote area because to do that to a live victim the screems would have been just inhuman.
so that’s the really mystery side of randy craft why was he so violent.
he would enjoy the kill , he would prolong the kill and he would make it last as long as he could.
and the problem was , what he did to his victims would leave a mess as far as a crime scene goes.
messy crime scenes would come back to haunt randy kraft years later.
in the meantime ,kraft was insatiable
in january 1975 ,he abducted and murdered 17 year old john larry, the high school student was last seen alive boarding a bus in long beach.
his dead body was found with a foreign object inserted in his anus.
in the same month police investigators convened to try and crack the case that had become known as the southern california strangler.t
hey even came close to making an arrest.
1975 kraft was questioned by police about the murder of keith crotwell friends of crowell had seen him slumped in a car beloning to kraft .
but a corner’s verdict found crowell had died from accidental drowning curtailing any plans the police had to arrest kraft.
instead the bodies murdered young men continued to be found in and around long beach.
kraft wasn’t the first or only serial killer to target men , but the extremity of his calculated sadism was shocking
the anger that he took out on his victims is frankly a level above anything.
in the summer of 1975 kraft split up with his live – in partner. he waited until the new year’s eve to murder again.
unleashing his most vicious on 22 year old mark hall .
kraft bounde hall to a tree in a remote canyon hall had also been sodomized, emasculated and his rectum inserted with a foreign object.
this time however the foreign object was hall’s own genitals.
the autopsy reported that hall died from ashpixiation not from being strangled but suffocating on leaves and earth that had been rammed down his throat.
burns from a car cigarette lighter were found all over his body ,including his scrotum and eyes.
in 1978 kraft butchered and killed six more young men including marines scott hughes and richard keith.
most of the victim’s bodies were found on the side of the freeway pushed from a moving vehicle.
this grim pattern continued well into the following year when he murdered five men in 7 months
his obscene blood lust had escalated to severing the limbs and heads of three of his victims, though only two could be identified
as 20 year old gregory wallace jolly and 19 year old mark allem marsh,yet another marine.
the 1980s saw no letup kraft ‘s disturbingly distinct trail of murdered men now stretched to Oregon
in Colorado with a discovery of dead bodies coinciding with his business trips to those states.
at last in 1983 .
one main night craft was pulled over by two california highway policemen officer sterling and officer howard for driving erratically .
failing the breathalizer test officer sterling arrested kraft for driving under the unfluence.
officer howard proceeded to lool on kraft ‘s passenger who was slumped under a jcket in the front front seat.
he was arrested for something quite mundane ,drink driving
the california highway patrol saw him driving erratically 1983 pulled him over and there’s randy kraft driving the car .
they took him out the car went to speak to his passenger who wasn’t very responsive for a very good reason…cuz the passenger was dead.it was his latest victim that his actually killed so the police realized”oh ,holy ,moly.what have we got here.”
the police officers had discovered the body of 25 year old marine terry gambrell allthough his body contained high levels of aclohol and a prescription tranquilizer gambrell had been in fact strangle to death with a belt kraft was taken into custody.
when police searched his car, they discovered a handwritten list
with more than 60 coded initials inscribed on it to their horror.
they soon worked out they were looking at a scorecard of craft’s deadly encounters
so randy was taken in custody the car was taken in custody and when they searched the car, they found this infamous scorecard.
there was a list there with 61 initials on there which had been written by randy kraft that we now know indicates a lot of the victims that he actually killed .
they think that scorecard which is where he got the name the the scorecard killer came from indicates probably up to 67 victims that he may have killed
but they’ve only been able to put names to about half of those.
they’ve been able to take some of the bodies they found ,certainly there were two initials at one stage and they related to a double murder he did one night, so they were abe to match that one.
obviously they were able to match the times and the dates up as well. but he was killing between 1970 and 1983 so this list spanned a 13 year period and they’re only the ones he killed .
evidence retrived from kraft ‘s car and later from his home incriminated him in unresolved murders. the trove including polaroids murdered young men
belts , shoelaces,and human blood stains. kraft ‘s trial began in september 1988.
more than 5 years after his arrest.
after listening to testimony for 13 months the jury found randy steven kraft guilty of 16 counts of murder,one count of sodomy and one count of emasculation.
he was sentenced to death.