Detailed update on "Severed Breast serial killer in CA,who walked into police station w/severed breast & confessed to SK'ing 4 gals,likely death count now up to 6
Joe1orbit
Okay folks, I have happily spent the past 2 hours carefully trying to locate
additional information on Wayne Adam Ford, the 36 year old man who walked into
a police station in California on Tuesday, pulled out a severed female breast,
and then confessed to having serially killed 4 women over the past 2 years. My
search did indeed prove quite fruitful and rewarding, and below you will find a
detailed update, which contains a LOT of new and fascinating information on
this brand new and MOST intriguing serial murder case.
Lets begin with the MOST important news of all, concerning the BODY COUNT.
Police now say that even though Wayne only initially confessed to 4 serial
killings, there is now LEGITIMATE and solid evidence for police to believe that
Wayne has in fact serially killed AT LEAST SIX young women! The death count
rises, that is always a piece of news that lifts my soul dead spirits.
We get some commentary from Wayne's neighbors and other contacts, all of who
naturally express surprise that Wayne has turned out to be a serial killer. The
woman who lived right next door to Wayne tells us that she NEVER LOCKED her
door, so totally trusting was she of Wayne, and the entire human race. What an
idiot! But Wayne did spare her life, knowing that the best way to become a
SUCCESSFUL and undetectable serial killer is to target complete strangers who
don't live near you.
Wayne's job as a long-haul truck driver provided him with an ideal
opportunity to criss-cross the entire state of CA, and claim victims from all
over, thus making his capture virtually impossible. How SAD that he chose to
turn himself in!
Most of the six victims were women in their 20's. It is NOT clear whether
they were hookers. It SOUNDS as though most of them were NOT hookers, but
simply HITCHHIKERS. You would think that in this day and age, with all the past
news about how serial killers target female hitchhikers, that there would be
VERY FEW solo gals who decide to hitchhike. I'm sure the number of lone female
hitchhikers is a LOT lower today than it was in the 1960's and 1970's, but the
fact is that there ARE gals who continue to hitchhike nowadays.
We learn below that Wayne, always a neat and clean fellow, had placed the
severed breast into a Ziploc brand bag, and presented it to police nicely
encased in the bag. Hey, a fRESH severed breast is better than a rotting
severed breast. And you know what they say about Ziploc in those commercials:
"Ziploc has a lock on freshness", or something like that. Can't recall the
exact commercial quote.
Wayne's arraingment was apparently put off from yesterday until today. It's
not clear whetrher he will be charged with 4 murders, 6 murders, or maybe only
1 or 2. It is very clear that he the PRIME suspect in 6 separate serial
killings of women. At least 4 of the 6 victims were definately RAPED/sexually
assaulted. It's NOT clear if this was done before or after they were murdered.
Wayne CUT UP most of his victims into pieces. In fact, he has already given
police an accurate location, where they went to, and found NUMEROUS severed
body parts of a SECOND victim, NOT the one that he severed the breast from. So,
Wayne clearly was into disfiguring and mutilating the bodies of his victims.
One of the news articles below, in describing Wayne's confession to police,
says that Wayne mentioned having been "sent by god", but it's not clear if he
meant that he was sent by god to murder 6 women, or if he was sent by god to go
into a police station and confess his crimes. He basically said: "god told me
to come talk to you", so it sounds as though he is NOT saying that god told him
to commit the murders. He WAS very calm when he made his confession. Perhaps
Wayne simply felt that he had EQUALLED the SCORE, and gotten the vengeance
against society that he felt he needed, and no longer desired to claim any
additinal cathartic vengeance via murder?
In a MOST interesting detail, we learn that Wayne's long-haul trucking job
led him to travel through FOURTEEN different states, in the Western USA. And
yet all 6 likely victims identified THUS FAR, were picked up and killed in CA
only. Obviously this raises the very real possibility that Wayne may have
serially killed a LOT more women, in different states. Police are investigating
that possibility. It doesn't sound as though Wayne is CONFESSING to any
additional murders.
36 year old Wayne DOES have a past criminal record, but police are not
releasing any details yet, on what that record consists of. He had recently
been laid off from his latest job at a cement company. His long-haul trucking
job was his PREVIOUS job. Co-workers say that he was quiet, and a LITTLE bit
"weird", but nothing at all too unusual. Overall he clearly did a good job of
maintaining a persona of normalcy and non-threatening nature.
Wayne WAS apparently married in the past, and fathered children. His ex-wife
got custody of the children and moved out of state. A bartender tells us that
wayne often expressed ANGER towards this ex-wife.
A job as a long-haul trucker truly is IDEAL for any serial killer. He earns
money, gets to travel all over, has NO fixed address, and most large trucks
have a little BED set-up in the back or top of the truck. A serial
killer/long-haul trucker could literally be IMPOSSIBLE to capture, unless he
somehow makes a GRAVE tactical error. His killing ground is UNLIMITED. He would
have the time to carefully pick and choose his victims, never allowing any
eyewitnesses to see him make the pick-ups. It's hard to think of a better job
for a serial killer to have. The job literally TIES right in and HELPS him to
carry out his killings.
Okay folks, if you want to see a photo of Wayne, CNN, MSNBC, and probably the
network newscasts as well, are indeed showing his photo. I didn't find a photo
of him online, unfortunately. It seems that the town of Eureka does have a
daily newspaper that is providing EXCELLENT coverage of this case, but that
newspaper, the Eureka Times-Standard, is apparently not online.
I will try to stay on the lookout for any major new developments in this
case, even as I shift my focus and post about other TC news items.
Take care, JOE
The following two news articles both appear courtesy of today's Associated
Press news wire:
Calif. Man Probed in Six Killings
By JEFF BARNARD
ARCATA, Calif. (AP) -- For the past two years, Shelley McCuen never locked her
door, never suspecting anything about the quiet trucker who lived next door.
Police say there was plenty to fear about the man -- the same man who walked
into the sheriff's department this week with a severed breast in a Ziploc bag
in his pocket and confessed to killing four women.
Wayne Adam Ford, 36, was being held on murder charges in the Humboldt County
Jail under $1 million bail. He was to be arraigned today in Eureka, 280 miles
north of San Francisco, and police are investigating whether he is responsible
for as many as six killings.
Humboldt County Sheriff's Department detectives questioned McCuen on Thursday
about the neighbor she hardly knew and hauled off his trailer as evidence. They
left behind a derelict green Jeep with a rhinoceros painted on the door and a
souvenir plate with a picture of Botticelli's Venus glued to the dashboard.
``I'm glad his trailer's gone. I can sleep tonight,'' the fast-food restaurant
worker said. ``I haven't stopped shaking all day.''
Sheriff Dennis Lewis said Ford made his stunning confession on Tuesday.
``He was remorseful and apparently had reached a point in his life where he
wanted to talk about what he'd been involved in,'' Lewis said.
Investigators in Eureka said the four victims they knew about were female
hitchhikers -- some from as far away as Southern California -- who had been
sexually assaulted.
One of the slayings dates to 1997, when the torso of a woman 18 to 25 was found
floating in a channel near Eureka. Six or seven additional body parts of that
unidentified woman were found by investigators based on information Ford
provided, Lewis said.
The severed breast was from another victim, who was killed recently and was a
stranger to Ford, Lewis said.
Arcata, a former logging town of about 16,000 in the redwoods of Northern
California, is home to Humboldt State University. The town is better known for
its hemp festivals, bicycle commuters and big recycling efforts. It was the
first U.S. community to give the pro-environment Green Party control of City
Hall.
Jeremy Fugate, another of Ford's neighbors in the Town and Country Village
trailer park on the outskirts of Arcata, said Ford often stopped by the
convenience store where Fugate worked.
``He would come in and buy his beer and cigarettes and complain about how his
back was feeling,'' Fugate said. ``I would go out and have a cigarette with him
and trade jokes. He was cool.''
AP-NY-11-06-98
-----------------------------------------------------
Man brings severed breast to sheriff's department
November 6, 1998
By Jeff Barnard, Associated Press
EUREKA, Calif. (AP) — A trucker walked into the sheriff's department, pulled a
severed breast from his pocket and admitted his role in the slayings of four
women, authorities said.
KNBC-TV in Los Angeles reported late Thursday that Wayne Adam Ford could be
linked to as many as six slayings throughout California.
Ford, 36, of Arcata, was being held on murder charges in the Humboldt County
Jail on $1 million bail. An arraignment scheduled for Thursday was postponed
until Friday so investigators from all over the state could interview him.
Sheriff Dennis Lewis said Ford walked into his department on Tuesday, said he
had some evidence, and pulled a Ziploc bag out of his pocket with a breast
inside.
"He was remorseful and apparently had reached a point in his life where he
wanted to talk about what he'd been involved in,'' Lewis told KINS-AM in
Eureka.
Investigators in Eureka, 280 miles north of San Francisco, said the four
victims they knew about were female hitchhikers who had been sexually assaulted
before they were slain.
One of the slayings dates to 1997, when the torso of a woman 18 to 25 was found
floating in a channel near Eureka, investigators said.
Investigators found six or seven body parts of the unidentified woman based on
information Ford provided, said Sheriff Dennis Lewis. It wasn't immediately
known where those body parts were found.
The breast was from another victim, who was killed recently and was a stranger
to Ford, Lewis said.
Authorities said Ford implicated himself in two other recent slayings, in San
Bernardino and San Joaquin counties.
Ford admitted his role in the slaying of Patricia Anne Tamez, 29, of
Victorville, whose body was found Oct. 23 in an aqueduct in Hesperia, according
to a news release from the San Bernardino County sheriff's department. The
cause of death was withheld.
Ford also allegedly told San Joaquin County investigators that he picked up a
woman in Ontario, in Southern California, and dumped her body off Interstate 5
near Lodi, 30 miles south of Sacramento. San Joaquin County sheriff's spokesman
Mike Padilla identified the victim as 25-year-old Lanett White of Fontana,
whose body was found Sept. 25.
-----------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of today's Reuters news wire:
Man brings severed breast to Calif. police station
EUREKA, Calif. (Reuters) - A trucker who walked into a smalltown sheriff's
department office carrying a severed human breast has been arrested in possible
connection with several unsolved murders, police said Thursday.
Wayne Adam Ford, a 36-year-old long-haul trucker from Arcata, Calif.,was due to
be arraigned Thursday and charged with one count of murder and one count of
mayhem. He is being held on $1 million bail.
The Eureka Times-Standard newspaper reported Thursday that Ford apparently
confessed to killing as many as four women in different areas of the western
United States and had told investigators that his conscience was bothering him.
Local television station KIEM said Ford walked into the police station Tuesday
evening saying God had told him to give himself up and demanding to be
arrested. He then took a severed woman's breast out of his pocket.
Police said they were checking to see if Ford might be connected to the torso
of a young woman which was found in October 1997 floating in a slough near
Eureka, about 250 miles north of San Francisco, or to a decomposing human arm
found several months later on a local beach.
Humboldt County Sheriff Dennis Lewis told the Times-Standard that Ford had
described the woman whose breast he was carrying as ``apparently a stranger to
him'' and said he could not recall when or where he had attacked her.
The Times-Standard quoted Ford's employer, who requested anonymity, as saying
he was a clean-cut former marine with an ex-wife and child living in Las Vegas.
``He seemed like a normal guy,'' the employer told the newspaper. ``I would not
have expected any problems from him. He was kind of quiet but he wasn't weird
or anything.''
18:34 11-05-98
-------------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of the 11/6/98 online edition of The Los
Angeles Times newspaper:
Friday, November 6, 1998
Man Surrenders; Suspect in 4 Slayings
He is carrying a woman's severed breast when he walks into sheriff's office.
By MARIA L. LA GANGA, Times Staff Writer
SAN FRANCISCO--A long-haul trucker who walked into the Humboldt County
Sheriff's Department carrying a severed female breast is cooperating with
authorities throughout the state in their investigations of four slain women.
Wayne Adam Ford, 36, surrendered to sheriff's deputies in the North Coast
city of Eureka on Tuesday evening and gave information about an unidentified
woman whose torso--without arms, legs or head--was found a year ago in a marshy
area outside of town called Ryan's Slough.
The breast, however, did not belong to that torso, authorities said. The
woman whose breast he carried was killed recently and "was a stranger to him,"
said Humboldt County Sheriff Dennis Lewis.
"He said, 'I have evidence in my pocket,' " Humboldt County Sheriff Dennis
Lewis said at a news conference Thursday. "What he had was a zip-lock bag with
a woman's breast in it."
Lewis said that Ford is now a suspect in at least four slayings and that
"the law enforcement community will look at him to see if perhaps he might be
responsible for more than that."
Ford, who owns a mobile home in the college town of Arcata but has been
living in the nearby woods, was scheduled to be arraigned Thursday on one count
of murder. The hearing was postponed because Ford was being interviewed by
detectives who had traveled north from San Bernardino and San Joaquin counties
to talk to him regarding the unsolved slayings of two women whose bodies were
found in their jurisdictions.
The Humboldt sheriff's office contacted authorities in San Joaquin County
on Wednesday because Ford had told them that he had picked up a woman in
Ontario in September and dumped her body off of California 12 near Lodi, 30
miles from Sacramento, said San Joaquin Deputy Mike Padilla.
It was a break that his department had been hoping for in the unsolved
case, Padilla said. On Sept. 25, a motorist experiencing mechanical problems
pulled over and found the body of Lanett White, 25, of Fontana in an irrigation
canal.
Because her body was badly decomposed, the cause of death was unknown. Two
detectives are interviewing Ford and will search his truck looking for evidence
linking him to the slaying.
"We are certain now that the homicide he's talking about and our victim
are one and the same," Padilla said.
"It's a horrible thing, but thank God he turned himself in," Padilla said.
"Can you imagine the damage he could have done as a long-distance truck
driver?"
San Bernardino County sheriff's spokesman Chip Patterson said Thursday
that Ford--who has been driving between Arcata and San Bernardino County for
the past eight or nine months--allegedly told Humboldt County authorities that
he dumped the body of another woman into the California Aqueduct at Interstate
15 in Hesperia.
That admission matched the unsolved slaying of Victorville resident
Patricia Anne Tamez, 29, who was last seen alive early on Oct. 23 and whose
body was found in the aqueduct later that night.
"We hope to learn more as this unfolds," Patterson said. "There are one or
two cases we have that are open that we would like to talk to him about.
Whether or not there's a possible link remains to be seen."
Humboldt County sheriff's deputies have searched the wooded campsite where
Ford had been living and have searched and impounded a "travel trailer" that
Ford owned at an Arcata trailer park, the department said.
---------------------------------------------------
The following appears courtesy of the 11/6/98 online edition of The San
Francisco Chronicle newspaper:
Grisly Confession in Eureka
Trucker claims he killed at least 4 women, turns in grim evidence
Glen Martin, Kevin Fagan, Christopher Heredia, Chronicle Staff Writers
Friday, November 6, 1998
San Francisco Chronicle
URL:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1998/11/
06/MN42702.DTL
A trucker walked into the sheriff's office here, calmly confessed to killing at
least four women and then offered grisly evidence to back up his story,
authorities said yesterday.
Saying he had been sent by God, 36-year-old Wayne Adam Ford of Arcata pulled a
severed breast from his pocket, handed it to officers and was promptly
arrested, authorities said. He is being held on $1 million bail and is
scheduled to be arraigned this morning.
By late yesterday, authorities had linked Ford to bodies found over the past
year in San Bernardino, San Joaquin and Humboldt counties. They were attempting
to pinpoint the location of the fourth.
Interrogators said Ford, described by some as a quiet but odd man, told them
that while driving long-haul trucking routes, he picked up hitchhikers, killed
them and cut some into pieces. He also told them he had driven truck routes
through 14 Western States -- raising the possibility that the alleged trail of
killings may grow, investigators said.
Among his claims, Ford told police he had killed and dismembered a
still-unidentified woman whose torso was found by duck hunters in Ryan Slough
near Eureka in October 1997, authorities said.
The breast Ford was carrying in a plastic bag did not come from that torso,
police said without elaboration. An arm was also found in the slough at about
the same time as the torso, but police have been unable to trace it to any
body.
However, San Bernardino County sheriff's detectives said they believe the
breast may have come from the body of Patricia Anne Tamez, a 29-year-old
Victorville woman discovered floating in the California Aqueduct on October 23.
Ford implicated himself in the killing, they said.
Investigators say Ford also told them he had dumped the body of another of his
victims near Interstate 5 outside Lodi -- and authorities there believe his
description of the crime matches the discovery of the body of 25-year-old
Lanett White of Fontana. Her corpse was found last September in a canal off
I-5.
Humboldt County sheriff's deputies were taken by surprise Tuesday night when
Ford walked into their office with his sordid tale and his compelling evidence.
Ford explained that ``God told him to talk because he was feeling bad,'' said
Deputy Dennis Lewis.
``He said he was involved in serious criminal activity, and said, `I have
physical evidence on my body,' '' said Lewis. ``He then produced human tissue
which turned out to be a human breast.''
Lewis said detectives believe Ford sexually assaulted the victims during his
attacks. Investigators are exploring the possibility that Ford may have been
killing people for several years.
They said Ford has a criminal record but they declined to give details. They
said he had been living in Arcata for some time and had also lived in Big Bear
in Southern California and in Las Vegas.
The state Department of Corrections said Ford has no state prison record.
Officers searched the trailer and several campsites where he lived and ``found
evidence that corroborates his testimony,'' said Lewis.
Ford was working as a cement truck driver at Arcata Ready Mix for about nine
months until being laid off recently, and co-workers there described him as
``quiet but not really weird.''
``He kept his truck neat and was never dirty, but we all kind of wondered what
he was about,'' said one co-worker who asked not to be identified. After being
laid off, he was living on public assistance, the co-worker said. He reportedly
worked for a long-haul trucking outfit before Arcata Ready Mix.
Residents who saw him around town, however, said he was an oddball who
attracted notice with his strange ways.
``We'd all see him around, looking kind of mangy and scary,'' said one worker
at a nail salon in town. ``Everybody's just appalled that this kind of thing
could happen here. I mean, we've had a few stray body parts around town lately
that have had the cops confused, but this is a college town and usually bad
things don't happen here.''
Humboldt State University is in Arcata, a town of about 20,000, about six miles
north of Eureka.
``What I remember is he was talking about how his wife had taken his kid to
Vegas -- he was mad as hell because he never got to see the kid,'' said Donna
Hammers, bartender at Toby & Jack's, a popular Arcata bar Ford frequented.
Police said Ford had an ex-wife and at least one child who had moved from
Arcata to Las Vegas.
Investigators from San Bernardino and San Joaquin counties were in Eureka last
night, questioning Ford in connection with their unsolved homicide cases.
In the San Joaquin case of White, Ford told investigators he had picked up a
woman in Ontario, killed her and dumped her body in a canal near Lodi.
``She is from Fontana, we had a nude body discovered in an irrigation canal. It
all really pieced together,'' San Joaquin County Sheriff's spokesman Mike
Padilla said yesterday.
Until Wednesday, the discovery of the badly decomposed, naked body of White, a
mother of four from Fontana, near Ontario, had the appearance of an unsolvable
murder.
San Joaquin investigators had visited San Bernardino County -- where White
lived -- to interview relatives, ex-boyfriends and her fiance, and ruled them
out as suspects.
``We had checked out virtually every lead and had to this point run into dead
ends,'' Padilla said. ``This is an enormous break, should all the facts come
together.''
Based on interviews with Ford -- in which investigators compared details about
the condition and whereabouts of White's body -- San Joaquin County sheriff's
Sergeant David Levesey said he is ``very confident'' that Ford killed her.
White's body, discovered by a motorist, was identified by her fingerprints.
Levesey said his department may not hand over the case to the San Joaquin
County district attorney's office pending the outcome of charges in Humboldt
County.
``He's not going anywhere,'' Levesey said. ``He'll be available if we need
him.''
Sonya
>The
>woman who lived right next door to Wayne tells us that she NEVER LOCKED her
>door, so totally trusting was she of Wayne, and the entire human race.
If it is the woman I think it is, she was on our local news last night
(San Francisco) and she said that he gave her daughter a candy bar on
Halloween and invited her into his trailer for a visit on Saturday.
That's three days before the confession.
I can't imagine how this woman feels! She look pretty shook up, but
she did manage to say all the normal things people say about serial
killers: He was quiet, kept to himself, seemed like a nice guy...
etc.
Sonya -- Correct my address to send e-mail!
Joe1orbit
>>The
>>woman who lived right next door to Wayne tells us that she NEVER LOCKED her
>>door, so totally trusting was she of Wayne, and the entire human race.
son...@compuserveINGSPAM.com (Sonya) Wrote:
>If it is the woman I think it is, she was on our local news last night
>(San Francisco) and she said that he gave her daughter a candy bar on
>Halloween and invited her into his trailer for a visit on >Saturday.
>That's three days before the confession.
Hello Sonya,
Thanks for this VERY interesting new tidbit of information. But I really
don't think that Wayne posed any serious threat to this woman or her daughter.
He was INTELLIGENT enough to know that killing his next door neighbor was
simply not a wise tactical move. Why target her, when there is a whole NATION,
140 MILLION or so women to choose from? Targeting the next door neighbor would
just not be tactically wise. He probably was just feeling lonely and wanted
some companionship, when he extended the invitation on Saturday.
I wonder whether he had already DECIDED to turn himself in to the police at
that point in time?
>I can't imagine how this woman feels!
She probably feels lucky. BUT it would not surprise me at all to learn that
she is STILL leaving her door unlocked, or if she is locking the door now, she
VERY POSSIBLY will revert back to leaving the door open, within a few weeks or
months. Stupid humans generally don't learn their lessons.
> She look pretty shook up, but
>she did manage to say all the normal things people say about serial
>killers: He was quiet, kept to himself, seemed like a nice guy...
>etc.
Yup, serial killers do like to present a normal demeanor. Many are Acadamy
Award caliber actors, in terms of how they put on their "mask of normalcy".
Take care, JOE