Two Suspects May Be Connected to 43 Murders
Pair, Held in Eight Sex Killings Dating to 1975, Cooperating in Hunt for Possible Additional Victims
by Nieson Himmel
As many as 43 slayings may be connected with two murder suspects who are cooperating with authorities in pinpointing the locations where the bodies may be found, law enforcement officials said Saturday. The two suspects, Patrick Kearney, 37, and David Hill, 34, former Redondo Beach residents, surrendered at the Riverside County Sheriff’s office Friday. They were booked on suspicion of two murders and had been wanted for questioning in connection with six other slayings which have occurred since 1975.
However, Los Angeles County deputies said “there may be as many as 30 to 35 more bodies” of victims who were killed during the last decade and the remains scattered throughout Southern California. The possibility of additional victims was based on statements made by the suspects, a deputy said. However, he added, “none of this has been confirmed.” “The suspects are making their statements willingly and voluntarily,” said Sam Lowery, chief of the Riverside County sheriff’s office operations. Kearney and Hill have been described by police as admitted homosexuals.
Some of the eight victims whose bodies already have been found had homosexual backgrounds, deputies said. All were nude when found and had been shot in the head. Four of them were stuffed into large, heavy-duty trash bags, leading detectives to term them “the trash bag murders.” Authorities refused to say if the bodies had been mutilated. Despite the widely scattered location of the known and possible victims, the encounters which led to the killings apparently all started in the MacArthur Park and downtown Los Angeles areas or in El Segundo, often at pickup spots frequented by homosexuals, authorities said.
All eight victims were between 16 and 28. Three have not been identified. So far as could be learned immediately, “robbery did not figure as a motive in the killings, only sex,” a Riverside County investigator told The Times. It was pressure caused by stories in the media which in part led the men to walk up to an information clerk in the Riverside County sheriff’s office Friday and point to their pictures on a wanted poster, Lowery said. The stories, plus repeated visits by law enforcement authorities, caused members of the two men’s families to persuade them to surrender, Lowery indicated.
Kearney and Hill will be arraigned Tuesday in Riverside Municipal Court. The eight bodies already found were discovered along well traveled highways in Riverside, Los Angeles, San Diego and Orange counties, indicating the bodies had been dumped after a brief stop by a car, investigators said. A conference of Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange and Imperial County investigators was held Saturday with Riverside County investigators who were questioning the suspects.
Lowery said investigators hoped to start searching for bodies today in the various jurisdictions, based on information from the suspects. It was not yet certain whether either or both of the suspects would accompany the investigators on any or all of the searches.
