Killer Stories with Harvey Guillén - “The Trash Bag Killer” Pt. 2 - Patrick Wayne Kearney

Episode Date: March 27, 2018

After luring in victims using a false sense of security, Patrick Wayne Kearney earned his title as “The Trash Bag Killer” by murdering a confirmed 21 young men and leaving their remains in trash bags along Southern California freeways during the 1970's. But when he targeted 19-year-old Tony Stewart, everything changed.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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And now, you can try it for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash killers. That's ZipRecruiter. Meet your match on ZipRecruiter. This episode is brought to you by Shopify. Bonnie and Clyde, the Lonely Hearts Killers, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. These are infamous criminal duels. But you don't need to break any laws to find your perfect business partner because you have Shopify. It's the commerce platform that can help you with literally everything, website design, marketing, shipping, and more. So start your business today with the best partner, Shopify, and get that. Sign up for your $1 per month trial today at Shopify.com slash killers. That's Shopify.com slash killers. Blood Trails is a true crime podcast born in the outdoors. Where the terrain is unforgiving, the evidence is scarce, and the truth gets buried under

brush and silence. I've seen something in the road. I instantly thought it was a sleeping bed, and there was a full of blood. Somebody somewhere knows something. I'm Jordan Sillers. Season two is out now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the IHot Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Due to the graphic nature of this killer's crimes, Listener discretion is advised. This episode includes discussions of murder and assault that some people may find offensive. We advise extreme caution for children under 13. Patrick Kearney used his slight build and docile demeanor to lure his prey into a false sense of security.

Once they climbed into his truck, Kearney quickly shot them in the head. He then took the corpses home and raped them before bathing and dismembering them in his bathtub. He placed the various body parts into industrial strength trash bags before stuffing that bag into an everyday green garbage liner you could get at any store. The remains were then discarded on the sides of Southern California's freeways. Hence, Kearney's nickname, the Trashbag Killer. From 1962 to 1976, Kearney successfully killed 11 victims without a single survivor. That changed one night in April of 19. 76, when Kearney spied his latest target, 19-year-old Tony Stewart, in front of a convenience store.

Hi, I'm Greg Polson, and this is serial killers. Today, we're going to continue our dive into the life of Patrick Wayne Kearney, better known as the Trashbag Killer. I'm here with my co-host, Vanessa Richardson. Vanessa's not a licensed psychologist or psychiatrist, but she's done a lot of research for the show. Hi, everyone. We'd like to ask a quick favor. Would you leave a five-star review of serial killers on your favorite podcast directory? It seems so simple, but it really helps us out. And don't forget to subscribe while you're there, because a new episode comes out every Monday. You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at Parcast. And on Twitter at Parcast Network. Tony Stewart was one of seven children born into a poor family. He had graduated high school a year earlier, and his last Life now revolved around beer, girls, skateboarding, and surfing. He was hitchhiking five miles from the beach to his home because his beloved 1964

Chevy Impala had broken down. On the way, Tony saw a convenience store and decided to stop and try to talk someone into buying him beer. After a few unsuccessful attempts, Tony was ready to call it quits. A familiar truck pulled up, and Tony recognized Patrick Kearney as the driver. Tony had previously worked for Kearney's landlord. He had mowed Kearney's lawn for about four years. After Tony jumped into Kearney's truck, the two men made small talk.

Tony told Kearney he was hoping to find someone willing to buy him beer. An amused Kearney agreed to make the purchase under one stipulation. Tony had to come back to Kearney's house to drink it. Kearney claimed that he was looking out for Tony. Since the boy was a minor, he could get in trouble if he was a woman. caught with alcohol. Tony agreed to Kearney's offer, and Kearney bought him a six-pack. It was around midnight when Kearney drove Tony into the same yard the boy used to mow. Once inside the house, Tony drank his beer as he and Kearney made small talk. Then Kearney went

into his kitchen, returning with a doctor's bag. Kearney opened the bag and removed a stethoscope. Claiming that he used to be a doctor, Kearney asked if he could listen to Tony's heartbeat to see if it slowed down while he drank. Naively, Tony agreed and consumed another beer. At first, Kearney placed the instrument on Tony's shirt, but insisting he couldn't hear anything, Kearney asked Tony to remove his shirt. Tony felt that since Kearney had bought the beer,

he was obliged to play along. Tony took off his shirt. Minutes passed as Tony drank and Kearney placed the instrument on various parts of the boy's chest. But when the stethoscope moved past, his belly button, Tony began to feel uncomfortable. Tony told Kearney that he needed to leave, claiming his parents would lock him out of the house if he came home too late. Before Kearney could protest, they heard someone and locked the door. Kearney leapt back as Hill entered the room.

Kearney grew nervous as Hill stared at his shirtless guest. Kearney made a point of reminding Hill that Tony was the boy who used to mow their lawn. Hill only gave the boy a quick high before walking through the house to the bedroom. Tony reiterated that he had to get going, loud enough for Hill to hear. Kearney went into the bedroom, and Tony heard him tell Hill he was going to give Tony a ride back to his house.

Kearney remained silent during the ride home. Tony nervously blathered about how good it was to see Kearney again, thanking him for the beer and how they had to do it again sometime. That is when Kearney turned to him with what Tony described as hypnotic eyes and made him promise to stop by very soon. Sensing danger, Tony pointed out a house and pretended it was his. After Kearney drove away, Tony ran around the corner towards his real home, only to see Kearney make a U-turn, as if he was trying to determine if Tony gave him the right address. As Kearney slowly scanned the street, Tony leaped behind his house's fence and remained

hidden until the killer drove by. Tony later remarked, I thought it was strange that he turned around. I wouldn't realize until months later that if his roommate hadn't come in when he did, I might have been killed. Tony had one more run-in with Kearney, although indirectly just a few weeks later. On June 20th of 1976, Tony and his friends, Gene Austin and Billy, piled into Gene's red Ford van. They were excited to be driving to the biggest party of the summer.

Gene also brought along John Woods, 23, who was, went by the nickname Woody. He was a tall redhead who looked a little like the folk singer Art Carfunkle. After a few pre-party beers, the quartet arrived to celebrate, only to discover the police had gotten there before them and shut down the festivities. The four young men spent the remainder of the evening driving around in the van, drinking beer and talking about the Vietnam War. Not finding any excitement, they finally called it an evening.

They dropped Billy at home. Woody was old enough to drink legally, so he asked the boys to drop him off at a nearby bar. That was the last time Tony ever saw the man. Tony stayed overnight at Jeans, so they could get up early for a fun day of surfing. However, the waves were lackluster at best. The two boys decided to return to Jean's house to wash his van.

When they were halfway finished, police detectives arrived and got out of their car with pistols drawn. Before they knew what was happening, Tony and Gene found themselves laying face first in Jean's lawn, wondering what was going on. One of the detectives stepped forward and demanded to know why they were washing blood off the van. It was then that the two boys learned that Woody had been found earlier in the morning in San Diego. Kearney had shot him in the head. Kearney's need to kill and rape was accelerating.

Do we know why? Well, to understand why, we first have to know what cats. category of serial killer Kearney fits into. According to the Holmes and D. Berger typology? Yes. Back in 1988, Ronald M. Holmes, James Daburger and Stephen T. Holmes designed a method of cataloging various serial killers by their motives and actions. The four categories were visionary, mission-oriented, hedonistic, and the power-control-oriented killer. What's the difference?

Well, visionary killers kill because they hear voices commanding them to commanding them to commit murder, while mission-oriented killers believe they're ridding the world of people who are undesirable and harmful to society. That's interesting, because neither of those really sound like Kearney. Well, there are two more categories. Power control and hedonistic. Power control motivated killers is just what it sounds like. These murderers kill to fulfill a narcissistic need to control others. What about hedonistic killers?

The hedonistic killer is broken down into three subcategories. based on their motives. One is a comfort-oriented killer. This is a serial killer who kills for financial reasons, such as theft or to gain an inheritance. As we've seen in previous episodes, many female serial killers fall into this subset. Well, since Kearney never robbed his victims,

he wouldn't fit into this category. Right. The second subtype is a thrill-oriented killer. Well, that sounds more like Kearney. Yes and no. The thrill killer is excited in the process, as well as the actual act of murder. However, these killers often keep their victims alive

to degrade and torture them before actually killing them. Once the victim dies, the killer loses interest. Although Kearney did torture Ronald Dean Smith, the five-year-old he abducted from the park, he killed most of his victims quickly with a single shot to the head. Which leaves us with the lust-oriented killer. As the name implies, this killer kills for sexual gratification. They violate the victim after killing them.

Sexual gratification is obtained by acts of dismemberment, cannibalism, and necrophilia. That sounds the most like Kearney, except for the cannibalism. Exactly. What's more, lust-oriented killers are described as above-average intelligence and able to have normal sexual relationships with others. That really does sound like Kearney. After all, Kearney was able to maintain his relationship with Hill, even while murdering and raping the corpses of young men.

Lust killers also maintain similar killing patterns to Kearney. How so? A lust killer becomes addicted to murder, just like a drug addict is addicted to narcotics. As the addiction progresses, the addict needs a stronger high. A serial killer will either increase the frequency of the kill or increase the amount of sexual stimulation. Often they do both. Could that also explain why Kearney changed his M.O. and went after children?

It could be. Adophilia may have added to Kearney's excitement. Well, we do know that Kearney killed more frequently. The next victim to be added to Kearney's ever-growing list was Larry Epsie, a 17-year-old white male who made the fatal error of accepting a ride from Kearney. Although Kearney couldn't remember exactly what date he murdered Epsy, the teenager's body was found in multiple trash bags on August 23, 1976. Only five days later, another body was discovered with a

gunshot to the back of the head. It was Wilfred Lawrence Ferdt. Like John Woods, his body was discovered the same day as his murder. Kearney soon snatched another victim off the streets. This time it was Orange County's turn to discover the ghastly remains of the trash bag killer. The victim was 21-year-old Mark Andrew O'Rock, whose corpse was discovered the same day he was shot in the head, October 6, 1976. Kearney claimed another victim in the summer of 1976, but he could not recall the exact date of the crime. 16-year-old Randall, Randy, Lawrence Moore met his end somewhere on the streets of San Diego.

His body was found October 10, 1976. Between November 15th and November 24th, 1976, 1976, 19-year-old Timothy B. Ingham was hitchhiking eastbound on California State Route 76. not far from Indio, when a truck pulled up and offered him a ride. The driver was Kearney. Not long after Ingram accepted the killer's invitation, he fell asleep. Kearney took the opportunity to shoot Ingram in the back of the head. His corpse was discovered discarded in a ravine on November 24, 1976.

Two more victims died in the fall of 1976, although the exact dates of their deaths are unknown. One of the victims was Robert Billy Menafiel, a 17-year-old student at Torrance Aviation High School, whose bicycle broke down in Redondo Beach, California, not far from Kearney's home. When Billy was reported missing by his family, the police assumed the boy ran away from home, something he had done in the past. At this point, no one suspected Kearney's involvement in any of the murders. That is until a neighbor saw a newspaper article and convinced the family that Billy could, have been killed just like so many of the other young men who had gone missing.

And just as he had with the others, Kearney shot Billy in the back of the head and drove home with Billy's corpse, where he raped and dismembered it. Unlike most of the other victims, his body was never recovered. David Allen was luckier only in the sense that at least his body was found in the fall of 1976. Kearney could not remember the date of the murder, but did confess to picking up Allen in Fallbrook, a small community in North San Diego County. Alan was 27 when Kearney shot him to death and dumped his corpse alongside the road. The police had no inkling that Kearney was behind the killings, but he was about to commit the murder that would finally lead police to his doorstep.

We'll return to our story in just a moment from the Parkast Network. And now back to our story. December came and went without further killings. If Kearney had stopped there, he may never have been arrested. However, on January 23, 1977, a state employee was beneath the San Diego freeway's Lennox tunnel near the Los Angeles airport when he tripped over a garbage bag. The man was horrified to discover the dismembered corpse of Nicholas Nicky Hernandez-Hemines. Nikki was a Latino sex worker from the Los Angeles area.

His body was neatly wrapped in Kearney's signature triple-lined trash bags. At age 28, Nikki was the oldest of all of Kearney's known victims. But not the last. However, Kearney's next victim was his undoing. John LeMay, a 17-year-old with long, sandy blonde hair from El Segundo. He told his friends that he planned to spend the night with his friends, Dave and Pat, who lived in Redondo Beach. Although John had spent the night at his friend's houses before,

this was a Sunday night, a school night. John's mother grew uneasy when John did not come home. She called one of her son's friends, who repeated what John had told him about Dave. The boy said he left LeMay at 5.30 p.m. It was the last time any of John's friends or his family saw him alive. John arrived at Kearney's house at 6 p.m. David Hill was not home, but Kearney invited him in.

The two sat on the sofa to watch television, presumably to wait Hill's arrival. Not long after turning on the set, Kearney produced his 22-caliber Derringer, placed it on the back of the boy's head, and pulled the trigger. Fearing Hill's reaction, Kearney hid the boy's body in a closet. Later, he took the corpse to the bathroom to drain its blood, bathe, and dismember it. Five days later, on the 18th of March, in the desert south of Corona, California, the police found five separate industrial trash bags sealed with ivory tape. Three of these bags had been stuffed into a 50-gallon oil drum. Two others that did not fit in the drum were discarded on the ground nearby. On further investigation, the police discovered the

The bags held the torso and limbs of John LeMay. But unlike any other of Patrick Kearney's victims, the head, feet, and hands were missing. Due to LeMay having a rare kidney configuration and a birthmark, the police were still able to identify the remains. Although the police didn't know it, LeMay's corpse gave them the clues they needed to capture the trash bag killer. From 1962 until 1977, Kearney had managed to stay below the police's radar. Only one neighbor had recognized Kearney's description from the newspaper, but quite a few other men could also have fit that description. There was no hard evidence to indicate Kearney was a murderer. That changed shortly after LeMay's body was discovered on the 18th of March, 1977.

And detectives Al Set and Roger Wilson from the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. were assigned the case. The question is, why did it take so long for the police to recognize Kearney's pattern and respond to it? As we saw in the last episode, the country was in a flux. More and more gay men were coming out and flocking to the relative safety of a more tolerant California. Many of these young men and boys were runaways who had no social safety net. Some became prostitutes or drug dealers to survive on the mean streets of Los Angeles. This made them vulnerable to strangers.

By the late 1970s, homophobia was rampant in many religious communities. The police efforts to solve Kearney's murders often reflected the nation's homophobic attitude. The police handled each killing as if they were isolated lovers' quarrels and gave them a low priority. The police didn't care about Kearney's victims and were unwilling to use extra resources to find their killers. This is an old story with serial killers who often. initially get away with their murders by preying on vulnerable, socially isolated populations. Detectives Al Set and Roger Wilson recognized that LeMay's murder and disposal matched a good dozen other killings. It wasn't long after they began interviewing John LeMay's friends that

they learned about John's friend, Dave, who lived in Redondo Beach. They also learned Dave lived with Pat and quickly determined Kearney's address. When the detectives arrived, they found both men home. According to Seton Rogers, Kearney and Hill were both polite and cooperative. The couple expressed shock and grief upon hearing that John LeMay had been murdered. Then they invited the two detectives into their house. Kearney became concerned when the detectives took a sample of the couple's carpet. Forensics had found blue fibers on John LeMay's body and stuck to the nylon tape

used to seal the trash cans the corpse was disposed in. After thanking Kearney and Hill for their time, Seton Rogers returned to their station. They had the carpet sample compared to the fibers found on LeMay. It was a match. The detectives returned to Kearney's Redondo Beach home and asked the two men for samples of their pubic hair, as well as hair samples from their white poodle. Although Kearney seemed reluctant, he complied with the police's requests. Seton Rogers had collected all the evidence they could without a warrant,

and returned to their station. Although Kearney knew he was under investigation for LeMay's murder, he could not control his need to kill. One more victim was destined to fall prey to Kearney before the police had enough evidence to arrest him. On April 6, 1977, less than a month before his eighth birthday, Merle Hondo, Chance of Venice, California, was riding his bike near Kearney's place of work.

Family and schoolmates described Hondo as a dark, hard-haired boy with a sweet smile who was known to protect younger children from bullies. On April 6, 1977, Honda was riding near his home in Venice, California when his bicycle broke down. Kearney spotted the young boy and asked if he needed to ride home. Unfortunately, Honda accepted. Soon after the boy got into the car, Kearney smothered him with a sweater. He then drove the boy's corpse back to his Redondo Beach home, where he raped it.

The boys' remains lay hidden in Kearney's home overnight. The next day, Kearney dumped Hondo's body in the Angeles National Forest, near the Angeles Crest Highway, roughly 11 miles north of Altadena, California. Hondo's badly decomposed body was found on May 26, 1977. Little Merle Hondo Chance was Patrick Kearney's last victim. Weeks later, the results of the tests on the pubic hair and dog, hair taken from Kearney's home matched those found on John LeMay's body and the trash banks he was dumped in. Detective Set called Kearney to inform him he had a warrant and he was returning to thoroughly search the duplex. Panicking, Kearney immediately gathered his collection of newspaper clippings

about Dean Coral and other serial killers and threw them in the trash. He contacted his employer, Hughes Aircraft Corporation, and resigned. After driving, to his office to get his last paycheck, Kearney and Hill fled the state. Why Hill felt the need to run with Kearney is unknown. Meanwhile, Set and Rogers searched the deserted home. One of their most important discoveries was a hacksaw that still had the dried remains of John LeMay's flesh and blood on its teeth. Technicians arrived and used luminal, a chemical that reacts to the iron and hemoglobin to discover traces of blood in the bathroom and other parts of the house. They also found a role of nylon filament tape, like the kind used to secure the trash bags.

A further search of Kearney's office at Hughes Aircraft Corporation revealed where Kearney acquired his industrial strength trash bags. It was enough to put out a nationwide bulletin that Kearney and Hill were now considered fugitives for the crime of murder. Wanted posters were printed and sent to every law enforcement department in the country. Newspapers also carried photographs of the two men. most of the stories referred to them as, quote, admitted homosexuals, unquote. A phrase that clearly shows the homophobic attitude of the times. The two men drove to Hill's mother's house in El Paso, Texas, surprisingly, without incident.

But they weren't exactly welcomed with open arms. Hill's mother, Edna, and the remainder of Hill's family, convinced him and Kearney to drive back to California, where they could prove their innocence. improbable as it seems, Kearney agreed, and the two men drove back. They arrived on July 1st at the Riverside California Sheriff's Information Center. After identifying themselves,

they were quickly taken into custody by Detective Joe Sellish. When Detective Sellish asked why the two men hadn't waited until after the 4th of July weekend to turn themselves in, he was told that Hill and Kearney had a nice fourth the year before. That same day,

Tony was at his girlfriend's house when he received a call from his brother to turn on the television. Tony later said, quote, I did, and almost went into shock at what I saw. It was Patrick's face on the television, and they were saying that he killed 32 people, including boys. I almost fainted. I began to tremble, thinking about the night I was at his house alone, drinking beer in the middle of the night. I had nightmares for weeks after that evening, reliving that night over and over in my head. said, end quote. Although Kearney returned to California to prove his innocence,

he immediately declared he wished to make a full confession. According to Detective Set, quote, he wanted to talk. For some reason, he wanted to talk. I'm known as a pretty good interrogator, but Kearney really wanted to talk. He wanted to get this stuff off his chest, end quote. Vanessa, why would he want to talk?

Other than the LeMay murder, the authorities had almost no real physical evidence proving Kearney killed the other victims. This is where it gets even odder. According to Deputy District Attorney John Brough, Kearney agreed to confess to his crimes if the death penalty was taken off the table. Well, that's reasonable, except there was a moratorium

on the death penalty, a fact that Kearney should have known. Was the moratorium new? No. In 1972, the Supreme Court of California found the death penalty unconstitutional. Due to that change of law, 105 prisoners had their death sentence commuted from death row to life in prison. Both Charles Manson and Sirhan Sirhan were part of this group.

So California residents voted to change the state's constitution by voting for Proposition 17, which declared that the death penalty was not cruel or unusual. In 1976, California passed a mandate that a first-degree murder conviction was to automatically be given the death sentence. Again, the California Supreme Court found this unconstitutional, as it did not allow for mitigating circumstances,

and another 70 prisoners were taken off death row. In 1978, Proposition 7 was passed, which dictated that all death sentences automatically be appealed to the California Supreme Court. The Supreme Court could now reverse or affirm the sentence and conviction, bypassing the Court of Appeals. Also, life without parole was added as a choice of punishment. So because Kearney's murders took place before 1978,

he couldn't be sentenced to death or even life without parole. Exactly. We may never know Kearney's motives for offering a full confession, but he was definitely eager to confess. During the initial three-and-a-half-hour interview, Kearney confessed to 28 homicides and insisted that he and he, alone had committed the murders, usually when Hill was out of town. He claimed that he was so

afraid of Hill discovering his activities that he once hit a body in a closet for days before he felt safe enough to dispose of it. Trying to solve more open cases, police in five counties reviewed their missing person reports going back to the 60s and began to ask Kearney some very pointed questions. Did Kearney target Marines? Had he used alcohol or drugs to incapacitate his victims. The police pushed for details and asked Kearney if he ever inserted anything into his victim's anus. This was the modus operandi of the other freeway killer, Randy Kraft. An indignant Kearney angrily retorted that, quote, I am not the wooden stake, unquote. This was a reference to a victim of Randy Kraft whose corpse was found with a wooden surveyor's stake inserted into the body's

It's always interesting and disturbing to hear what line a serial killer will not cross or finds offensive. Kearney was openly admitting to necrophilia but finds inserting anything else into a dead body distasteful. As the interrogation proceeded, the investigators realized that they only had enough information for 15 workable cases, although Kearney had confessed to at least 28 kills. On some of the murders, Kearney could give precise information about his victims and the sorted details about their last few minutes on earth. Other times, he was more vague, could not remember names and dates

or how or where the victims were disposed. Over the next few days, Kearney walked Detective Set from his first murder in Culver City in 1962 until his last in 1977. He stated that he disposed of all of John LeMay's body parts that could be used to identify him, such as the hands and head out in the desert, explaining that the desert was his favorite dumping crown because, quote, things disappear

rapidly in the desert. You can put a small animal on an ant hill and it disappears right in front of your eyes, end quote. Kearney then explained how he used towels during the dismemberment phase so as not to have the blood seep into his floors. When prodded on his motivations for the killings, Kearney replied that he did it because killing excited him. that gave him the feeling of dominance. Did he ever say why he washed his victims before dismembering them? No, which makes me wonder if there could be a psychological reason behind it. Well, in Western civilization, washing or preparing a corpse before burial or cremation

is a sign of respect and love. It was done at home by the family members of the deceased right up until the 20th century, where it is now usually performed by the funeral homes. Of course, the way Kearney treated his victim's corpses after bathing, them and his total lack of remorse about the murders doesn't lead me to believe that the motive was respect. Unfortunately, if Kearney never talks about it, it'll be one more mystery in this case that goes unsolved. That's true. On July 3rd, Kearney and Hill were arraigned. Both men were held on $500,000 bail. Preliminary hearings were set for July 15th. When the judge asked the men if they

wish to have a lawyer, only Kearney answered yes. He was assigned a public defender. Hill's mother, Edna, released a statement that she knew her child could never do anything like what Kearney was describing, and the Lord was going to help and take care of him. Even with the lawyer, Kearney cooperated with the police, including giving them a tour of six possible locations where he thought he may have disposed to the bodies. Some had already been found, and Kearney was able to identify the victims. This short trip led to a five-county search for more disposal sites, as well as a trip to the California-Mexico border where Kearney claimed to have dumped six more bodies. Finally, Kearney took them to the desert for a five-and-a-half-hour

tour in the sweltering sun. After a week, the authorities had recovered 12 more bodies. The last place Kearney took the police was his old home in Culver City, California, where a body was unearthed behind the building. Patrick Kearney was formally indicted on July 14th, 1977 on two counts of murder. The next day, July 15th, Kearney signed a confession, admitting to killing 28 men and boys. Twelve of those had already been confirmed by the police. On July 15th, it was David Hill's turn to face the grand jury. He was acquitted. District attorney Byron Morton stated that, quote, the evidence against Mr. Hill is too weak. end quote.

To avoid the frenzy of the reporters, Hill was secretly escorted out of the courthouse and driven home by his nephew Michael Hill. Hill refused all interview requests and also refused to meet with writers interested in Kearney's case. At the end of the month, Kearney was indicted at Riverside County for the murders of Albert Rivera, Arturo Marquez, and John O. LeMay. His attorney, Jay Grossman, requested the indictment proceedings. and his counsel, Steve Harmon, requested a gag order. By November, Kearney had become disenchanted with his legal representation and asked to be his own attorney. The request was initially turned down by the Riverside Superior Court pending a psychological evaluation of Kearney's mental competence. A couple of weeks later, Kearney must have been deemed competent to stand trial since the court granted his request for self-counsel.

He was now going to defend himself. self. And a most unusual defense it was. Our story will continue in a moment after a brief message. Yamava Resort and Casino at San Manuel is California's number one entertainment destination for today's superstars. Catch the Jonas Brothers return to the Yamava Theater stage on April 30th, the powerful vocals of Demi Lovato on May 17th, and the signature Southern Country Rock of Eric Church on July 19th. Tickets on sale now at Yamavatheater.com. Only at Yamavavavavavatheater.com. Only at Yamavavavavavon. resort and casino, celebrating its 40th anniversary. You in?

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Start comparing hundreds of sites with kayak and get your trip right. Kayak. Got that right. Now the story continues. On December 21st, Patrick Wayne Kearney began his defense by pleading guilty to all three counts of first-degree murder, waiving a probation report and asking for immediate sentencing. A request that Superior Judge John Haas was only too happy to oblige. Haas gave Kearney three life sentences to be served concurrently with the possibility of parole in seven, years. But the legal system was not done with Kearney. Definitely not. Kearney had confessed to 28

killings soon after being arrested, but was only convicted of three. As there was now the possibility, no matter how slight, that Kearney could be paroled. The authorities were determined to gather the physical evidence to convict him of all the murders. Kearney seemed determined to make the police's job as easy as possible. While Kearney was serving his sentence and Chino California, he wrote investigators numerous letters confessing to 18 more murders. Kearney gave enough details of his crimes that in February 1978, he was charged with 17 more counts of murder. This was the largest complaint ever filed in Los Angeles County. And still there was more to come. Using some of the details they had received from Kearney, Detective Set and Wilson placed

an advertisement in the South Bay Daily Breeze, asking for any information, concerned. turning a teenager shot in the fall of 1976. A woman answered the ad. Ann had enough information to confirm that the victim's identity was Robert William Menafiel of Redondo Beach, the 17-year-old boy with the broken bicycle. On February 21st, 1978, Kearney pled guilty to all charges.

Jay Grossman had tried to talk Kearney out of pleading guilty, claiming that Kearney had certain psychiatric defense that Kearney refused to employ. Did Grossman ever explain what he meant by psychiatric defenses? Unfortunately, no. Judge D. Tavrizian stated that he had the obligation to the 18 victims to ask Kearney why he did it. When the prisoner remained silent, the judge asked again, quote, can you tell us why? Unquote.

Kearney stated, I preferred not to. It's understandable that Kearney would be reluctant to answer any question that may lead him to admit he killed for sexual gratification. In death and the displacement of beauty, foundations of violence, the author, Grace Jansen, states that we live in a society of necrophobia. We fear death. We fear it so much that we've built a whole industry to evade death, or at least hide it. Once a person dies, the body is whisked up by a funeral home where it is washed, clothed, embalmed, and made up to look as lifelike as possible before returning it to the person's loved ones. With a society so terrified of death, the idea of necrophilia, which translates to

death affection in Greek, is the ultimate taboo. As we discussed in the last episode, necrophilia stems from a person's fear of rejection. Perversely, this very desire would make the necrophiliac an object of disgust. The fact that Kearney killed in order to have sex with corpses made him a social pariah, lower than other types of admitted killers. That would explain why Ted Bundy refused to talk about his sexual relations with the dead, or why Dennis Nilsson was adamant that he never penetrated his victims, although he did masturbate on them. It would seem that quite a few necrophiliac serial killers worry about the social stigma of their lust for corpses

and often refuse to admit to this sexual activity. That makes sense. After entering his plea on the fifth floor of the criminal courts building, Kearney was brought to appear before Superior Court Judge Paul G. Breckenridge to be sentenced. Breckenridge sentenced Kearney with the harshest punishment at his disposal. Eighteen more life sentences to be served concurrently. Because all of Kearney's crimes had taken place before 1978, before California reinstated the death penalty, the most Kearney could be sentenced to was life with parole.

This did not sit well with Judge Breckenridge. Breckenridge, who declared that Kearney had, quote, certainly perpetrated a series of ghastly, grisly, and horrible crimes, unquote. Breckenridge went on to call Kearney an insult to humanity and hoped the community release board will never see fit to release Mr. Kearney. Since the law at the time prevented Kearney from serving his 21 life sentences consecutively, and because there was no option at the time for life without the possibility of parole, Kearney is up for parole. every six years. Which means that every six years, the victim's families must relive the nightmare of losing their loved ones. Elizabeth McGee, the sister of Michael McGee, lamented that her family always, quote, presumed he'd be in prison for 100 years, end quote. Detective Al Set spent much of his retirement making sure Kearney did not walk free.

For years, Alset appeared before the board asking that Kearney's parole be denied. He stated, quote, It is critical that we testify at his hearings to make sure we keep him where he belongs. This guy's a killer, a brilliant mind. My fear is if he gets out, he won't make the same mistakes again, and we'd never catch him, end quote. Set worries that the parole board may eventually decide to grant Kearney his freedom. Lewis Danoff, another Los Angeles County Sheriff Homicide Detective, who worked with the Kearney case, also appeared at each and every of Kearney's parole hearings.

Dan Hoff said, quote, he has a master's degree in murder. We're trying to alert people about him and keep him where he is. One of our concerns is people have forgotten about him, end quote. The one person who never attended Kearney's parole hearings was Kearney himself, preferring not to face the friends and loved ones of those he killed. But Kearney did not go gently into the dark night. True, Kearney had more surprises for the authorities.

In 1981, Kearney wrote a letter to the Riverside Press Enterprise from a Soledad prison cell. In the letter, Kearney wrote, quote, I have a tidbit of news for you. I didn't kill anybody. That's all I'm saying for the moment, end quote. This surprising recantation was Kearney's second time claiming he was innocent. A month before writing the letter to the newspaper, Kearney contacted the Riverside Superior Court, requesting that he be immediately released on the grounds that he did not kill anyone, and that he had received unfair advice from his legal counsel. He further wrote, quote,

The person in custody pleaded guilty to felonies which he did not commit, but pleas were given due to threats and other forms of duress, unquote. The court was unmoved by his supposed plight. Kearney still pops up in the news now and then. In October of 2017, true crime author Amanda Howard appeared on the Australian Morning Show, Studio 10, claiming that she had received a handwritten letter from Patrick Kearney. In the letter, Kearney claimed to have been friends with Lee Harvey Oswald, the man who assassinated President John F. Kennedy in 1963. The letter claimed that Kearney met Oswald through a mutual friend from language school when he was in the U.S. Air Force.

Kearney stated that he and Oswald had taken a trip to Mexico, so Oswald could get a visa to go to Cuba, but then changed his mind and returned to Texas. The assassin then took another trip down to Mexico, where he attempted to contact the Soviet Union's embassy. According to Kearney, he had initially planned to go with Oswald, but for some reason could not make the trip at the time. As of this recording, no reputable historian has ever given Creed-Earne.

to this claim. Kernie is presently serving his life sentences in Mule Creek State Prison near Ione, California, roughly 40 miles southeast of the state capital of Sacramento. So far, Kearney has confessed to 28 murders, but could only be held accountable for 21. However, police believe that with the murders he committed in Mexico included, the number could be as high as 43. Why didn't the Mexican authorities prosecute him? Well, with the exception of George and Tijuana, Kearney never confessed to any of the Mexico murders. If he was as careful in Mexico as he was in America, there may have been little physical evidence directly linking him to the crimes.

Remember, Kearney confessed to his California murders and led the authorities right to his victim's gravesites. If he hadn't done that, it's doubtful he would have been convicted of any murder other than LeMay's. And with Kearney already serving 21 life sentences, they may not have wanted to go to the extra expanse. and time to extradite him. Maybe. Every law enforcement agency has to use its resources where it will do the most good.

That's true, but you know what really surprised me about this case? What? That there's so little information concerning Kearney's life or his crimes. Unlike other serial killers, only a few books have been written about him. For such a prolific murderer, Patrick Kearney is barely a footnote in serial killer history. Yes. Why do you think that is? I'm not sure. I have to believe that because Kearney gave himself up and confessed to all the crimes.

And pled guilty? Yes, because he pled guilty, his trial was quickly over, maybe too quick to capture the public's imagination. Unlike, say, Charles Manson, Kearney never made a mark on popular culture. Kearney may also have failed to stay in the public's mind because many serial killers were on the loose at the time of his trial. Kearney was followed by the murder sprees of the Hillside Stranglers from 1977 to 1978, Laurence Sigmund Bidiker and Roy Lewis Norris, the Toolbox Killers in 1979, William Bonin, the Freeway Killer, from 1979 to 1980, Randy Kraft, the scorecard killer, from 1971 to 1983,

and Richard Ramirez, the Nightstalker, from 1984 to 1988. Today, Kearney is 78. Although there is a little chance that he will ever see the outside of his prison, he still has a way to be a menace to society. Thanks again for tuning in to serial killers. If you want to listen to any previous episodes of serial killers, you can find them on Apple Podcasts, tune in, Google Play, Stitcher, and Spotify, or on our website, parkast.com, spelled P-A-R-C-C-R-C-C-E.

If you like what you hear, please leave a five-star review or tell us what you think on social media. We're on Facebook and Instagram as at Parcast and Twitter at Parcast Network. It seems simple, but it really helps our show. Once again, thanks for listening. Have a killer week. Serial Killers was created by Max Cutler, is a production of Cutler media and is part of the Parcast Network. It is produced by Max and Ron Cutler, sound design by Carri. Murphy with production assistance by Carly Madden and Maggie Admire.

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