Park Predators - The Photographer

Episode Date: September 1, 2020

A ruthless and tactical predator posing as a photographer in Los Angeles’s Westside lures young women to their deaths with promises of fame and fortune. The capture of William Bradford may solve two murders, but his collection of work reveals to authorities there are even more victims to unearth in the canyons of California’s mountains and sands of the Mojave Desert. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://parkpredators.com/episode-11-the-photographer/ Park Predators is an audiochuck production. Connect with us on social media:Instagram: @audiochuckTwitter: @audiochuckFacebook: /audiochuckllcTikTok: @audiochuck

Hi, park enthusiasts. I'm your host, Delia D'Ambra, and today our story is taking us to the Mojave Desert. This dry, hot park covers thousands of square miles in California, Nevada, Arizona, and Utah in the western United States. This desert is known to have temperatures that range in the extremes. One night, it could get so, there's frost on the ground. And then the next day it skyrockets to blazing hot, arid conditions. At one point, it's actually been recorded to have the hottest air and surface temperatures

in the world. In 1972, for instance, a creek basin in Death Valley clocked in at 201 degrees Fahrenheit. But also during the 1970s and through the 80s, a deprived predator from Los Angeles used Mojave to hide his crimes. To investigate him, law enforcement would have to go across the country trying to prove just how many murders he tried to wash away in the desert. This is Park Predators.

The weekend of July 4th, 1984 was as normal as any other for 21-year-old Shari Miller. She was celebrating Independence Day, and she had plans to go out after her bartending shift. She wanted to have a good time and maybe catch a firework show. That's what people do on the Fourth of July. At this same time, the Summer Olympics were in full swing, and that only added to the excitement of Shari being out and about in the downtown bars. Celebrating with friends and having some sense of happiness was really important to Shari at this time because life hadn't been so easy lately. According to her mom, Marilyn, Shari was working odd jobs trying to get by and make a living in Hollywood. And that summer, Shari was actually

living out of her car and working as a barmaid at a place called the Meat Market in West LA. But despite falling on these hard times, Shari was determined. She was going to succeed, and she wanted what everyone else around her wanted, fame and fortune. It is Los Angeles, after all. And Shari just wanted someone to offer her the right opportunity, and maybe she'd make it big. She was tall, slender, had dark hair, and had a really outgoing personality that everyone around her loved. Right around the weekend of July 4th, Shari drops in for a sporadic visit to her mom's house, and she tells her that she met a customer at the meat market who offered her a modeling job. She said she'd struck

up a conversation with this guy who said he was a professional photographer, and he remarked about how beautiful she was. This man had offered to help kickstart Shari's career in modeling by helping her build a portfolio of photos that she could take to bookings. Now, Shari's mom has that instinct most parents have, and she thinks this is kind of sketchy. But she knew her daughter had struggled to find work, and she didn't want to be a downer on her excitement. I mean, after all, Shari is young. She's living in L.A., trying to make a name for herself. And if a professional photographer is telling her that she can, she wants to believe him.

Shari goes on to tell her mom that this guy who offered her the photo shoot is a man named Bill, and he's well known in town, and the pictures he's going to take are going to be for magazine spreads. During this conversation, Shari's mother never found out what day her daughter was supposed to meet Bill, and when Shari leaves that afternoon, honestly, Marilyn just doesn't think about it again. She didn't hear from Shari for the next week or two, and that wasn't uncommon since Shari was living on her own, bouncing around from job to job. Maryland just figured she would check back with her if she wanted to visit and talk about how the photo shoot went. But that conversation would never happen. Just two days later, on July 6th,

people passing in a parking lot of a carpet shop in LA's west side found a young woman's body laying in an alley. It was just out in the open, laying on the pavement. And this body was partially clothed and wrapped in a bedspread. Police are obviously called, and when they arrive, they could not figure out who this woman was. They knew she was a victim of a homicide because it was clear that she'd been strangled with some kind of thin ligature and her hands were bound with leather shoelaces. And as they looked over the area, there wasn't much physical evidence that was found on the victim. Just some yellow paint under her fingernails, which they took scrapings of, but

that wouldn't prove to be useful unless they had something to compare it to. Unable to do anything with this evidence or make a positive ID, they kept the body in the county morgue and labeled it Jane Doe number 60. Now six days after this, on the evening of July 12th, two blocks from where Jane Doe number 60 was found, family members of 15-year-old Tracy Campbell came home from work to find Tracy wasn't in their apartment. Tracy lived in the unit with her mother, her brother, and sister, and a cousin. According to KNBC News, Tracy's cousin, 19-year-old Todd Hedrick, who was living in the same apartment, noticed Tracy's cigarettes and purse were still on the counter. All of the beds in the unit were unmade, and it looked like nobody had been in the apartment all day. And this was weird because

Todd knew it was Tracy's job to tidy up the space and make the beds for everyone. She was on summer break from school, and it was just unlike her to leave all of her responsibilities unattended. The layout of this family's apartment was that each of them slept on their own mattress on the floor, and when Todd saw those beds untouched, it alarmed him and all of the other family members. They worriedly waited for a few hours, but Tracy never showed up. With every passing hour, the more worried they became. Tracy's family knew she never would leave for a long period of time like this, and even when she did get out of the apartment, she wouldn't go far. You see, after three months

of living in Los Angeles, Tracy had only made a few friends and was considered by most of her family to be a loner, not necessarily because she didn't like being around people, but because her social life had been limited by the fact that she'd recently moved to LA. At various points in time, all of Tracy's family had moved from Missoula, Montana, including her cousin Todd. He said he came to LA with hopes of being an aspiring model. Now, like I said, in those first few hours, Tracy's family didn't call the police right away. They waited, just hoping maybe Tracy was out and would come back. During that time, though, Todd and her brother Daryl started searching for her

in their apartment building. They knocked on every door, including the unit directly next door to them. Todd knew the guy who lived there because he'd taken some modeling photos of him for his portfolio. And this guy also showed him lots of portfolio work he'd done for female models. And Todd remembered that a few times before, this guy had knocked on their door offering to take photos of Tracy. The family got the vibe that the dude was just kind of creeping on Tracy, and she was only 15 and didn't really have any plans to be a model like Todd. But still, this neighbor had persisted a few times to take her on a photo shoot. So Todd knocks on this guy's door, but neither the man nor his roommate answered.

After that, the family was on the brink of hysteria, so they called the West L.A. Police Department to report Tracy missing. When the detectives arrived at the family's apartment, they went through the normal routine, asking them if maybe Tracy was at a friend's house or had walked to the store and was just running late. But all of them said no, no way. Tracy was definitely missing. She would never stay out on her own this long without telling anyone. And that's when Todd and Daryl directed investigators to speak with the man living next door. The officers go by, but again, no one answers.

The next day, Todd and Daryl noticed a disturbing note on that neighbor's door that sent chills down their spines. The note on Tracy's neighbor's door read, quote, The girl next door is missing, and I hope to God you had nothing to do with it. Now, Tracy's family didn't know who left the note, but their best guess was that the guy's roommate had left it. Police officers walked over and knocked on the door again, and this time a man answered and said his name was William Bradford. William tells the officers he doesn't know what happened to Tracy, but he did say that on July 12th, he had seen her in the morning. She had come to his apartment to

use the telephone, and then after that, he dropped her off at a local liquor store so she could buy cigarettes. This story obviously really interests the police officers, and after interviewing a few other people, they determined that the sequence of events William had provided them meant he was likely the last person to see Tracy. Right away, though, William's answer that Tracy went to the store to buy cigarettes didn't make sense to her family. Todd, her cousin, had found a full pack of Herbrand cigarettes

sitting out on the apartment's counter. Tracy's purse was also left behind, so how would she have bought anything without money? With that in mind, the detectives pressed William Moore, and they ran a background check on him that revealed he was no stranger to criminal activity. His records showed that he was currently out on bond facing a rape charge. His former girlfriend had accused him of brutally raping her at a campsite in the Mojave Desert.

The two had gone to the Edward Air Force Base to watch a space shuttle landing, and then he tried to rape her. The woman had detailed to police that William beat her, forced her to drink poison, and repeatedly told her he was going to kill her. On top of that, William also had a lot of other criminal convictions. Many were for things like burglary, indecent exposure, drunk driving, and sexual battery. And if that wasn't bad enough, police also learned that William was a person of interest in the death of 23-year-old Misha Stewart. Now, Misha and William had met in the Pink Elephant Bar in Culver City, California. After having drinks together, the men left and walked to William's mobile home trailer,

and that was parked in an alley next to the bar. The next morning, authorities discovered Misha's nude body laying in the alley. He'd been strangled with some type of ligature. People at the bar told police that Misha had left with a man matching William's description, but the officers lacked physical evidence to tie him to Misha's murder. Eventually, police were forced to drop the case against William for that crime. William was looking more and more like someone who could have committed another violent assault, or perhaps abduct a young woman. Police's mounting suspicions compelled them to ask a judge for a search warrant for William's apartment.

They also wanted to take a look at his car, too. When they search these locations, they find stuff that piques their interest, particularly tin photos of women, presumably young modeling subjects. Detectives seize those images, and they go inside William's apartment, and that's where they find another massive trove of incriminating photos. William had stashed away a collection of more than 50 images of women in very little clothing, posing in suggestive positions. That led police to believe that William had a seriously disturbed fascination with women, particularly young women. Also, they wondered why he kept all of these prints instead of giving them to his clients.

Despite their unsettling feelings about these pictures and realizing William is kind of a creep, police didn't actually find any evidence in his belongings that tied him to Tracy. So for now, they were left with the task of going through William's photo collection to see if they could identify any of the other women who maybe could give them a lead. And that's when they caught a break. A detective who had worked the Jane Doe number 60 case in the same part of town six days earlier recognized one of the women in a few of the photos. He recognized one woman as the Jane Doe. He noticed that the woman had tattoos on her ankle and her calf area and on her abdomen. Now what was creepy wasn't

that the tattoos matched his victim. She didn't have tattoos. What Jane Doe number 60 had was missing patches of skin in the exact areas as the girl's tattoos, meaning someone likely mutilated Jane Doe, maybe to remove her tattoos. This revelation now put William at the top of their person of interest list in the murder of Jane Doe number 60. Now, they didn't arrest him right then and there because their evidence was thin at best, but they did ask him who the woman in the photo was, hoping that William would lead them to the answers himself. And he replied by saying that her name was Shari Miller. Now, when police looked up Shari, they realized she was already in their system for having a misdemeanor record. They used a copy

of her fingerprints and were able to compare those to Jane Doe number 60's body. Up until this point, they hadn't had the time or manpower or really any reason to compare Jane Doe number 60 to every woman in their system. No missing persons report had been filed for Jane Doe, so she'd just been sitting in the morgue waiting to be identified until now. I also read a report in the Los Angeles Times that said police used dental records to confirm Jane Doe number 60 was Shari. Now, maybe it was dental records or her fingerprints or both, but either way, they made the connection. And it's at that point that Shari's mother, Marilyn, gets the heartbreaking news.

She had no idea her daughter was even missing, let alone dead. She walked police through the last conversation Shari and her had had when Shari revealed that she had a photo shoot in the Mojave Desert with a man named Bill. That was supposed to happen in early July. Police began to suspect that the Bill Shari was supposed to meet was William Bradford. Detectives brought William in for questioning and confronted him with the information that Shari Miller had been identified as Jane Doe number 60. William answers saying that he had photographed Shari, but that was months earlier in an area of Topanga State Park known as Topanga Canyons, not in the Mojave Desert, and he insisted to detectives that

he had nothing to do with her murder. And just like in Tracy's case, officers just didn't have enough to keep holding William, so they had to let him go after 48 hours. But letting him go didn't mean they were letting him out of their sights, because they kept him under 24-hour surveillance. They knew they had to do more than just watch him, though. He was on high alert now and would probably try and keep his nose clean. And this is when police get an idea. They used the photos of Shari in his collection to better locate where they'd been taken. Officers knew from looking at the background of the pictures

and the unique rock formations around where Shari was posing was not consistent with Topanga Canyons. Based on the looks of it, the photo shoot happened in the Mojave Desert, right where Shari's mom had said she went all along. And the fact that William was lying about where he had been taking these photos of Shari made investigators all the more interested in that area. One detective working the case suggested that the investigation look specifically at a seal-shaped rock formation that Shari was standing in front of. He thought they should use that as a marker to better narrow down where it might be in Mojave. But trying to track down a single rock in a desert isn't an easy task. But a week or two

into this process, police enlist the help of one of William's friends, a man named Nicholas Kloss. Now, Nicholas tells investigators that at one point, he'd shown William how to get to that specific area in Mojave Desert. He thought that William might like the area for his photo shoots. Nicholas said he and William both had mobile home trailers and had been camping buddies for a long period of time. According to the Los Angeles Times, the spot Nicholas knew about was a bull-shaped campsite in a remote section of the desert about 70 miles outside of Los Angeles. No one could see this area from the roadway, and Nicholas said William liked the spot so much that he later asked for a map on

how to get back to it. After talking with Nicholas, detectives zero in on this campsite, and they start searching it for more clues about what happened to Shari. They also had the thought that maybe they could link William to Tracy's disappearance at this site as well. What they find blows their entire case out of the water and reveals the undeniable truth about William Bradford. When police are really digging in and heavily searching the campsite in Mojave, it's early August 1984, and Tracy Campbell has been missing for weeks. Authorities decided to use dogs and deputies on foot to walk the dusty terrain around the campsite.

They even enlisted the help of park rangers, and of course, William's friend Nicholas. Hours and hours go by, and they're having a lot of trouble finding the particular rock formation that Shari Miller had posed in front of in the pictures William took of her. But just as they're about to call it a day, Nicholas yells out that he thinks he's found the spot. Detectives look and compare the photos of Shari to this location and realize, yes, this was it, and they had a match. Shockingly

though, not far from this rock formation, searchers uncovered the decomposing body of 15-year-old Tracy Campbell. She was laying in a shallow grave with a blouse draped over her face. She had just been dumped there. And because it had been a few weeks and the sun had beaten down on her body, there wasn't much of her left. The coroner found several of her body parts were removed by wildlife, and the conditions of the desert had mummified her torso. The one distinct feature that everyone noticed was her blonde hair. Some of it was still intact on her skull, and you could see it if you were standing a little ways away. During her autopsy, the medical examiner ruled that Tracy had been strangled with some kind of ligature.

There were also indications on her wrists and feet that she'd been strangled with some kind of ligature. There were also indications on her wrists and feet that she'd been tied up prior to her death. The shirt that was laying over her face was not something Tracy's family identified. The blouse had a small snail shaped pattern that one of Shari's friends recognized. This person told police that she picked the shirt out of a trash bin and given it to Shari. So detectives now knew for certain the two women's cases were connected. So on August 16, 1984, police tracked William down to the Meat Market Bar, and they arrested him for two counts of first-degree murder.

Remember, he was still facing that rape charge, but he entered a plea of no contest for that and was later sentenced to eight years in prison. It would take prosecutors another year to build their case against William for double murder. While preparing for trial, the prosecutors announced that they planned to present three dozen witnesses in court. They felt that even though they lacked physical evidence connecting William to the murders,

They felt that even though they lacked physical evidence connecting William to the murders, particularly Tracy's, he was guilty based on the strong circumstantial evidence. And remember, this is 1984 we're talking about, so DNA and forensics was nothing back then like it is now. Officers hadn't retrieved any blood or hair from either of the victims from inside William's car or apartment. I can't find any reports that a forensic sweep was ever from inside William's car or apartment. I can't find any reports that a forensic sweep was ever done on William's belongings, but even if police had, both Shari and Tracy were found days and even weeks after they were killed, giving William

plenty of time to clean up if he wanted to. According to the LA Times, the real concrete evidence against William for Shari's murder was the fact that police had found some of her belongings in a storage locker at William's apartment. Some of her jewelry, clothing, a knife, and her belt were located with William's stuff, but that wasn't enough to ride their entire case on. The strongest pieces of evidence they had were a pair of Shari's leather boots in William's possession, and those boots were missing their laces. The missing laces were consistent with being the same shoelaces authorities found tied around Shari's hands and feet. There was also a Mickey Mouse wristwatch that Shari was known to wear. This watch had some yellow paint splattered on it, and authorities knew a few days before Shari was killed, she'd earned some money helping people paint a house. Prosecutors were able to prove the paint used to paint that house were the splatters on the wristwatch, and the flakes of yellow paint beneath Shari's fingernails was also the same.

The one question prosecutors could never definitively answer was what was William's motive for these crimes? They felt he didn't even have one. Other than being a predator who lured women with promises of making them famous in order to turn around and viciously kill them, there was no motive. And again, they couldn't ignore William's criminal history. Prosecutors made note of that earlier rape charge, and they also realized that he'd been married at least four times. The prosecutors theorized that William did not have a specific motive for the killings because he could find no attachment to his female victims, and he didn't see them as human beings. Prosecutors believe that on July 4th or 5th,

Shari met William near a bar two blocks from his apartment building. She parked her car and rode with him to their photo shoot in Mojave. When they arrived at the desert campsite, he started to coach Shari on her poses and began the photo shoot. In some of the photos, Shari's not wearing shoes, which likely meant she'd taken them off before climbing onto the rock formations. Now, as the session was wrapping up, authorities believed Shari became distracted, putting her shoes back on. And that's when William put down his camera and pounced on her. He strangled her with her own boot laces, and he then put her body in his car and drove her back

to the city where he dumped her in that alley. They believe he attempted to cut off Shari's ankle and stomach tattoos in an attempt to remove any identifying markings. Slicings on her skin during her autopsy proved someone had taken a sharp object and tried to cut off the inked designs on her skin. But at trial, Williams' defense attorneys argued that the prosecution couldn't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that their client was guilty of both girls' murders. Sure, he had been the last person to see Tracy alive, but that didn't make him a killer. And yes, they admitted he had photographed Shari, but that was no basis for accusing him of murder. They say he ended up with her belongings inside of his apartment because she left them in his car after the photo shoot.

Everything about this case was just complicated. Both sides admitted that it was like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. The lack of physical evidence against William, combined with the fact that they could never find a specific murder weapon he'd allegedly used to strangle the women made it difficult to tie him to both of their bodies. Prosecutors contended, though, that there was no denying that William had personal contact with both women right before their deaths, and he was one of a small number of people who knew where that remote Mojave campsite was. It just seemed like so much more than a coincidence, especially when you factor in Nicholas Kloss, who testified that he showed William that spot, and William made remarks

that he wanted to bring young models back out there to photograph them. Then there was the fact that Tracy's body was dumped not far from where William had taken Shari for a session. Plus, Shari's body was dumped just two blocks from his apartment, near where Tracy lived. Then add on top of all of that, testimony from one of William's ex-wives, a woman named Cindy Horton. Now, she took the stand and testified that in the short time she'd been married to William, life was pure hell. They'd gotten married when she was just 18 and very quickly thereafter had a son together. After seven months of marriage, they divorced, and Cindy told reporters that while married to William, he would talk about hurting people and that he would go out and, quote, kill people. She said

when she would tell others about what William was saying, no one believed her. They'd just tell her she was worked up and upset and not hearing things right. But Cindy told the Grand Rapids Press that at times during their relationship, William would hit and torture her, and he tried to terminate her pregnancy multiple times. He had taken photos of her, and those images were also in the collection police had seized. After she testified towards the end of the trial, right before it went to the jury, William actually fired his defense attorneys and began representing himself. He viciously cross-examined his ex-wife Cindy, nearly breaking her down on the witness stand. But Cindy stayed

strong and continued to reveal to jurors the horrors that she'd endured while married to William. to reveal to jurors the horrors that she'd endured while married to William. And in December of 1987, the case went to the jury. They deliberated for 21 days. When they came back, the foreman announced that they'd convicted William of both Shari and Tracy's murders. Because this is California and capital punishment had been reinstated in the 1970s, William's crimes qualified him for the death penalty. And this is where things get really bizarre. During his sentencing in January 1988, William was still representing himself. He refused to defend his actions and never provided any information to jurors about why he committed his crimes. He stood before them and actually

asked for the death penalty. He said, referencing murder victims, quote, You're right. That's it. Think of how many more you don't know about. These comments led everyone in the courtroom, including law enforcement, to believe that William was in fact a serial killer,

and he'd claimed the lives of many more victims than just Shari and Tracy. William's ominous and cryptic comments made the victory somewhat sour for prosecutors, but in the end, jurors sentenced him to death. As he was being escorted to a holding cell, he had a major outburst, and he told an LAPD officer that he was guilty of murdering Misha Stewart, the 23-year-old man from the alley in Culver City. State prosecutors felt William did this because he wanted the attention of another high-profile murder trial. They weren't going to give him what he wanted, and they decided not to

prosecute him for Misha's murder because they'd already convicted him on two counts of capital murder, and he was going to sit on California's death row. One of the prosecutors, a man named David Kahn, told CNN after the trial that William was one of the scariest defendants he'd ever prosecuted. He told the outlet, quote, we knew all along there were more. It was one case I knew I couldn't afford to lose, and I had to convict this guy, or he'd go out and kill more people. Williams' ploy to market himself as a professional, successful photographer to entice young girls and women into modeling worked. This is a lure we've all seen many times before by the likes of serial

predators and killers. In Williams' case, he traveled and lived in many places in the United States. But while in California, he predominantly operated in LA's West Side. So it was possible he had many victims across the state, and maybe even in other states that he lived in. As the years passed, some detectives with Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office were bothered by the dozens of photos William had in that collection from his apartment. They wondered if any of those other women had met the same fate as Shari and Tracy. In the late 1980s and 90s, the department couldn't really look into it much further. They had gotten overwhelmed with other crimes and a statewide war on drugs.

The women in the photo collection weren't forgotten, and one detective told the Los Angeles Times that, at the time, the department's administration just felt like it was more important to focus on current murders because they knew William wasn't going anywhere on death row. They at least felt confident that there would be no future victims. After all, William was locked up behind bars, so the investigation into his potential past crimes wasn't a top priority. And William seemed fine just waiting out his days on death row in San Quentin State Prison. He wasn't giving any more information to law enforcement, but eventually he would change his mind.

After only a decade in prison, William Bradford launched a legal battle to have his execution date of August 18, 1998 moved up. At the beginning of the year, he told reporters that he wanted to hurry up and die. He said waiting out his execution was making his life intolerable. At no point did he ever admit he was guilty of any murders, but he said if they were going to take his life, they should just go ahead and do it. But William changed his mind a few months later. He'd had long-lost relatives contact him, and they even came to visit him in prison. He used this time with family and some delays in his execution to write poetry in prison. He would often send his writings to the reporters of the LA Times. Pretty quickly, the media gave

him the name the prison poet or the death row poet. According to CNN, his writings often pondered the meaning of life and death. One poem the LA Times published read, Many nights I have dreamed of death, greeting me with welcome comfort, tempered with a searing seduction. Within these dreams I have discovered a private, serene, extreme place, which dissolves the last drop of fear. All of this pondering and poetry made William want to live longer and push his execution date. After 1998 came and went, William and his attorneys continued to wage their legal battle to get the execution date pushed, and it eventually got rescheduled for an undetermined date. During that time, a group of homicide detectives from the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office had discovered William's long-lost box of

women's photos. They had been tucked away for years in evidence storage. When they got the images out, they looked at them and saw again depictions of 54 women in suggestive modeling poses. These investigators started to believe that many of these women in the collection were other murder victims, and they had the time on their hands now to prove it. At this point, the administrators had the time on their hands now to prove it. At this point, the administrators in the department that earlier felt like Williams' collection wasn't a high priority had changed their minds, or they'd been replaced, and now they were giving the

homicide unit the green light to begin investigating again. So they brought all of the boxes out and hung up the images in straight lines across a pin board. They gave each woman a number. From there, they worked to try and narrow down who the women were, when William had photographed them, and most importantly, if they were still alive. In 2006, the department finally released the full collection of photos to the public. They said they needed help to positively identify a lot of the women. And after creating a poster with all of the images, more than 2,000 phone calls and tips came in from across America and the world. To handle this volume of calls, detectives set up

a well-oiled operation to get the information coming in to investigators. Staff were dedicated to a 24-hour tip line that never went unanswered. After a few months of sorting and cataloging all of the information, the investigators were able to identify with a high level of certainty 34 women in the photos. 28 of them were alive, and two of them were believed to be homicide victims. One was a reported runaway from Iowa. One of the women that William had photographed and was still alive was a former model named Tina Teets. The sheriff's office had labeled her as photo number eight on their pinboard, and Tina said that in 1984, William had photographed her at the time she was competing in modeling contests. She said after

their photo shoot in 84, she'd forgotten all about him until she was contacted by law enforcement in 2006. Tina told the Los Angeles Times that she realized how lucky she was to be alive, and she was speechless when she learned she was photo number eight in his collection. She wanted to know why William had kept her photo and all of the other women's pictures too. When police asked her to remember her encounter with William, Tina said he just gave her a bad vibe and he wasn't someone she wanted to be alone with again. After identifying 34 of the 54 women in the album, that meant there were 20 women left to track down. According to KMBC News, in 2006, William told his attorneys that he would offer to help investigators locate and identify some of the women, but the Los Angeles County

Sheriff's Office expressed no interest in working with him because at that point, they didn't trust a word he said. In the years they'd been investigating the photos and working to put names to the faces, they'd gone to William for help many times. They told him there was no way he was going to get out of prison, so he had nothing to lose in trying to help them. But during these visits and in all of William's ramblings, he provided no legitimate answers or information about the women that could help law enforcement. Instead, police feared his intentions were simply to make things more

confusing and muddy the waters. They felt that William was catching on to the fact that their investigation was making progress. Progress that pointed to the fact that William was a serial killer, and they felt he would do anything to mess up their investigation. In March 2008, law enforcement only had 14 unidentified women left on their photo board. William had actually sat down with detectives leading up to that, but this time he admitted to knowing some of the women. However, he refused to give details and denied killing any of them. But that didn't deter detectives. They kept plugging away at their board, and when they'd successfully identified 47 of the women, they held another press conference.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the years-long effort by detectives was so involved that it required resources from half of the department's Homicide Bureau. whittled down the photo collection, and authorities were able to link at least four of the women to bodies and remains found dumped in different canyon areas across northern Los Angeles. A woman they'd labeled number 28 on their photo board was actually 31-year-old Donnelly Duhamel. Donnelly was a mother of two who'd gone to a bar in Culver City, California in 1978. She'd gone to the bar with her boyfriend Jake to play pool and have a few drinks. While Jake was playing pool, Donna Lee went up to the bar

and bumped into William Bradford. They got to talking and he offered her a modeling photo shoot. She accepted and in the midst of the dim, smoky bar, she just vanished from her boyfriend's side. The next morning, she didn't return to her mother's house to pick up her two young daughters, and that's when her family reported her missing. A few days later, her body was found decapitated and dumped in plastic bags

in a canyon near Malibu. Her dental records confirmed her identity. To this day, her daughters are still fighting to see William prosecuted, but formal charges have never been filed. While sitting incarcerated awaiting his execution, William died from cancer at San Quentin's off-site medical facility in March 2008. But the body count that he left behind is unfortunately, according to authorities, probably just the tip of the iceberg for the Mojave Desert. He was likely responsible for dozens of other missing person cases across America, stretching from California to Florida. He was a photographer from the mid-1960s

to the time of his arrest in 84. There's no way to know, but it's very possible William killed women he didn't even keep photos of. Authorities believe he specifically used the Mojave Desert to commit his offenses and felt the natural elements of the wind, heat, and wildlife would forever cover up his crimes. In 2013, the skeletal remains of four bodies were discovered in two shallow graves in the desert. They weren't definitively tied to William, but a former sheriff's deputy from San Bernardino County said in an interview with The Sun, if there were to be a cross everywhere someone dumped a body, the desert would look like Forest Lawn Cemetery. cemetery. Park Predators is an AudioChuck original podcast.

This series was executive produced by Ashley Flowers. Research and writing by Delia D'Ambra with writing assistance by Ashley Flowers. Sound design by David Flowers with production assistance from Melissa Gastola. You can find all of our source material for this episode on our website, parkpredators.com. So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?