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In July 1977, a man walked into a sheriff's department
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in Riverside County, California, and handed himself in. He was
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wanted for the murder of three hitchhikers across the region.
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But his confession to interrogators would leave them stunned.
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I asked him, well, how many people have you killed?
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And he said, I don't know, but more than 30.
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The serial murderer was an unassuming 37-year-old aircraft engineer named
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Patrick Kearney. He'd been killing young men and boys across
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Southern California for the past 15 years.
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I guess the first word that comes to mind is evil.
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Just void of humanity.
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After raping and killing his victims, the murderer would expertly
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dismember their lifeless bodies.
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The victims' families never knew what happened to their loved one.
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The only person they had to rely on to find
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out was the utterly revolting Patrick Kearney.
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Patrick Kearney, the man dubbed the Trash Bag Killer, had
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confessed to being one of the world's most evil killers.
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By February 1978, 38-year-old aircraft engineer Patrick Kearney had pled
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guilty to murdering a total of 21 young men and boys,
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his youngest victim just five years old. After his arrest,
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Kearney had confessed to a secret career of murder and
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necrophilia that would make even the hardiest detective wince. Former
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Riverside County Deputy D.A. Dan Bukolsky remembers when he first
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began the hunt for the notorious trash bag killer.
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I think there were three murder cases at the time,
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three bodies that were found. One of the bodies was
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found without a head and without feet and hands.
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And so.
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The first thing you need to do in trying to
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solve a crime is to identify the victim, and identification
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in most of these cases was hard, if not impossible.
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But a distinctive mark on one of the bodies led
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investigators to the family of 17-year-old John LeMay, who'd been
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missing for four days.
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I remember, because I was out of school, going with
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my mom and dad and my sister driving all the
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way out to Riverside County, where the purpose was to
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go to the police department there to give their blood
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test and to identify a photo that had a birthmark
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that was John's.
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The murder of John LeMay would finally unmask the elusive
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trash bag killer.
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Once they identified him, They were able then, of course,
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to ask questions about his whereabouts, where he had last been.
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And one of the leads led them to the house
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of a man named David Hill. And he shared that
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house with Patrick Carney.
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Finally, the pieces of the puzzle were coming together, and
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the police were getting closer to catching this killer.
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This killer story begins in Los Angeles, California, in 1939.
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Patrick Kearney was born on the 24th of September, the
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oldest of three brothers. As a child, Kearney was small
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and scrawny, which led to him becoming a target for
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the school bullies.
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He told me that he felt at times as a
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youth he was picked on, but he fantasized about striking back.
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He remembered later, at the age of eight, that he'd
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fantasized about killing people, an extraordinary thing when you consider
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it for an eight-year-old to do, horrifying.
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I think this was probably a control mechanism because Kearney
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lacked control. He lacked control over his childhood. He didn't
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have those good relationships with his peers. Those skills to
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negotiate conflict were something that just didn't happen. They didn't emerge.
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And in other children, you find that that does. So
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he's an outsider again, and this will come to have
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an impact throughout the rest of his life.
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Kearney later recalled that his mother was caring, but his father, George,
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a salesman, worked a lot and seemed somewhat disinterested in
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raising a family, although he did teach his son how
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to shoot.
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So at a very young age, he gets to learn
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how to send something from a living animated creature into
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a corpse that is quite easy to control. And I
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think the lesson from that, the feeling of power perhaps
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that that gave him, was something that stayed with him.
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Kearney's relationship with his father was a complex one.
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I think the important thing for me is what his
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father represented, the stereotypical masculine American man. He's tough, he's stoic,
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he's resilient, and this is everything that Kearney is not.
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So there's that inadequacy there in terms of his relationship
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with his father. So that is something that would stay
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with him, and I think that is a factor that
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fueled his offending.
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By the age of 20, Kearney had joined the U.S.
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Air Force as an engineer and was living in Texas.
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It was there he fell in love with a man
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named David Hill.
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The affair develops, and Hill leaves his wife for Kearney.
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Now, perhaps for the first time, Kearney felt truly loved,
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the love that he'd never had during his childhood.
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By 1977, 37-year-old Patrick Kearney was living back in California
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with David Hill. Kearney had found a job as an
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engineer at Hughes Aircraft, and the couple were sharing a
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home together in Redondo Beach. Around the same time, 70
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miles away in Riverside County, Deputy District Attorney Dan Bukolsky
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was given a new assignment.
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I was in the office, and the sheriff's department out
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there came in with some evidence they wanted me to
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look at, regarding some bodies they had found over the
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last year or so. These bodies were found dismembered expertly
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in industrial plastic trash bags and wanted me to look
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at the evidence.
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The bodies of three young men had been found across
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Riverside County in Southern California. The murders bore all the
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hallmarks of a twisted serial killer.
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In these cases, the dismemberment was done expertly, and the
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pathologist opined that the individual who had done this had
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lots of practice. There were no hesitation marks. It was
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as if someone had trained on how to dismember the
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human body.
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So he's like a professional butcher in a butcher shop.
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He's an expert.
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Of course, that leads law enforcement to focus in on
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what they believe to be a serious serial perpetrator.
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In March 1977, 17-year-old John LeMay went missing. His sister, Teresa,
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was just nine years old when her big brother vanished.
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I remember my mom and dad kind of talking to
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each other a lot and going, well, have you seen
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wondering where John was, because John apparently did not come
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home the night before.
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John hadn't returned home from school on the 13th of March.
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His family immediately reported him missing.
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All I remember my dad saying is to my mom
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after he got off the phone, well, he's either missing
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or he's dead. And I remember that just floored me
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when I heard the word dead.
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You know, just, what?
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I'm nine years old. That rings in my ears, because
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at that moment, I just thought.
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He's dead?
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That's all I heard.
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And Teresa's fears were soon realized.
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They found, you know, body parts and dismemberment in a
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trash can in Corona. They think it might be John,
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but they weren't quite sure. And they just have to confirm.
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Identified by a birthmark on his remains, John LeMay had
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become the victim of the murderer the press had dubbed
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the Trash Bag Killer, a callous and perverse sexual predator.
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We don't know his cause of death.
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If it followed the normal pattern, he would have been
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shot in the head with a.
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22 Darin.
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And he would have been then sexually assaulted in either
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a semi-conscious or dead state, and then he was disarticulated, dismembered,
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put in a plastic bag and dumped. The cause of
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death could not be conclusively proven, because we never found
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his head, his hands, or his feet.
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The news of 17-year-old John's death brought heartache to the
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LeMay home.
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The atmosphere in the house with my siblings, it was
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very somber. No one wanted to talk about it. I
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kind of remember that, just because we were kind of
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a family that, you know, you do life. But as
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far as sharing her feelings or her thoughts or what's
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going on, it was more everybody just kind of closed up.
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But information from John LeMay's mother, Patricia, would bring detectives
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a much-needed clue.
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When the police spoke to her and interviewed her, she
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said that the last person she knew that he was
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going to meet was an individual by the name of
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David Hill.
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34-year-old David Hill immediately became a person of interest. When
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investigators arrived at his Redondo Beach home, they were greeted
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by his partner, 37-year-old aircraft engineer Patrick Kearney.
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He was a very mild-mannered person, didn't express emotions or
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feelings that caused the officers to believe he was guilty.
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Given Kearney's character and his extraordinary conceit, he was going
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to make absolutely sure not to complain when the police
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arrived at his front door. As far as they were concerned,
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he was a model citizen, upright, hardworking, and ordinary. There
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was nothing that he was going to do to contradict
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that impression.
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With Kearney watching on, the detectives were looking for specific
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forensic evidence during their search of the house.
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There was a dog. that had white hair.
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And the Sheriff's Department officers knew that some of the
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trash bags had contained white animal hair. And in addition,
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the carpet color was the same as some of the
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fibers found on some of the bags. So obviously, they
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want to follow that up.
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The white dog hair and blue carpet fibers led to
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the first breakthrough in the case.
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They took those back to the lab. to have them
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further analyzed more than just visually. And of course, there
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was a match with the carpet fibers and a match
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with the dog hair on, I think, two of the
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trash bags that were found with the bodies.
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When detectives returned on the 19th of May, Dan Bukolsky
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came along too. He was looking for evidence that could
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link the three bodies he'd been investigating to Kearney and Hill.
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but the couple weren't going to be as compliant this
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time around.
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We went to the house to execute the search warrant,
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and when we got to the house, no one was home.
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It was obvious that both Patrick Carney and David Hill
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had fled. I believe that they felt the police officers
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were on to them.
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When this kind of individual is faced with a choice
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between fight or flight, stay or go, they are always
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going to go. They will always flight because they want
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to avoid confrontation at all costs because they simply do
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not have the skills to deal with that. So I'm
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not surprised that Kearney ran at this point in time.
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I think he was actually quite afraid.
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As the search of Kearney and Hill's house began in earnest,
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Dan was certain that he was in the home of
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a serial killer.
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When you're in that situation, There is a, this sounds
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a little bit funny, but there is some sort of
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atmosphere feeling when you walk in a house like that.
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I felt it, and I don't know whether that was
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my imagination, but we're looking at somebody that's pretty evil,
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pretty matter of fact about it, and when you believe
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that that house was probably the scene of a lot
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of crimes, cruel, heartless crimes, It does give you a
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little bit of a buzz feeling when you go into
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that resonance.
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It did me.
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Evidence collected in a vacuum cleaner during the search linked Kearney,
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who worked as an engineer at nearby Hughes Aircraft, to
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the discarded and dismembered bodies.
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In the vacuum cleaner bag, there were found round plastic circles,
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thick plastic circles. Those circles matched the punch-outs from the
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commercial-grade garbage bag liners. The brand name was Mipro, and
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it was an industrial bag, and it.
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Was used at Hughes Aircraft.
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Those plastic bags are unusual, and there was a supply
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of those plastic bags in the attic at Patrick Carney's house.
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And it wasn't just circumstantial evidence that was discovered in
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Kearney and Hill's Redondo Beach home.
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In addition, there was a hacksaw blade.
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Looking normal and clean, but when it was taken apart
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and the nut and bolt were loosened, there was blood
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and human hair wedged in the part between the blade
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and the bolt. The bathroom was sprayed with luminol, and
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showed the presence of a lot of blood in the
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bathtub and on the walls around the bathtub. So it
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appeared pretty quickly that at least one body, maybe more,
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were dismembered, disarticulated in the bathtub in the home of
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Patrick Kearney and David Hill.
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Whether Kearney or Hill were involved or not, their home
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was clearly a hotbed of evidence that linked them to
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the three murdered men.
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It was obvious that there was physical evidence in that
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00:16:24.740 --> 00:16:28.820
house that linked the house with these bodies. There was
247
00:16:28.940 --> 00:16:34.470
nothing specifically that linked Patrick Carney himself or David Hill,
248
00:16:35.129 --> 00:16:38.409
but the house they lived in was definitely linked to
249
00:16:38.549 --> 00:16:39.320
all of these murders.
250
00:16:40.870 --> 00:16:45.389
A box of manila envelopes discovered at the house specifically
251
00:16:45.509 --> 00:16:49.250
linked Hill and Kearney to another trash bag killer victim,
252
00:16:49.700 --> 00:16:54.220
Arturo Marquez, whose body had been discovered in Riverside County
253
00:16:54.600 --> 00:16:59.840
in March 1977. Bizarrely, the killer had sent mail to
254
00:16:59.879 --> 00:17:00.840
his victim's home.
255
00:17:02.120 --> 00:17:06.150
The criminalist was able to opine that that thick yellow
256
00:17:06.230 --> 00:17:10.509
cardboard envelope likely came from this box, which was found
257
00:17:10.549 --> 00:17:16.430
in Patrick Carney's house. That envelope had been used to
258
00:17:16.509 --> 00:17:25.660
mail car keys back to the Marquez family. Because when
259
00:17:25.700 --> 00:17:29.380
Patrick Carney killed him, he had possession of the car
260
00:17:29.559 --> 00:17:34.380
and the keys. And being a good citizen, he mailed
261
00:17:34.400 --> 00:17:35.259
the keys back.
262
00:17:37.000 --> 00:17:39.099
Now, this would appear to be a really bizarre thing
263
00:17:39.140 --> 00:17:41.480
to do, but this is a killer who likes order.
264
00:17:42.960 --> 00:17:46.109
He likes to know exactly where things are and what's
265
00:17:46.140 --> 00:17:48.309
going on with them, so he's not the kind of
266
00:17:48.329 --> 00:17:50.690
person who could just throw these keys away in a
267
00:17:50.750 --> 00:17:51.470
bin somewhere.
268
00:17:52.470 --> 00:17:56.970
Investigators were sure they had found the killer, but Patrick
269
00:17:57.049 --> 00:18:00.789
Kearney and his partner, David Hill, were nowhere to be found.
270
00:18:01.549 --> 00:18:05.950
They'd fled over 800 miles away to Texas, but they
271
00:18:05.990 --> 00:18:07.569
wouldn't be gone for long.
272
00:18:08.710 --> 00:18:13.859
After the all points bulletin was issued, he was on a,
273
00:18:14.049 --> 00:18:16.250
I believe he was on the FBI's 10 most wanted list.
274
00:18:18.109 --> 00:18:19.069
There was a lot of publicity.
275
00:18:19.089 --> 00:18:23.839
These pictures of David Hill and Patrick Carney were published everywhere.
276
00:18:25.380 --> 00:18:30.240
Within months, They both walked into the Riverside County Sheriff's
277
00:18:30.259 --> 00:18:33.299
Department and turned themselves in to the watch sergeant.
278
00:18:34.220 --> 00:18:38.880
Kearney and Hill's return to California was an unexpected turn
279
00:18:39.000 --> 00:18:39.539
of events.
280
00:18:39.960 --> 00:18:40.819
Well, I was surprised.
281
00:18:40.839 --> 00:18:42.759
I was in my office, and I got a phone
282
00:18:42.799 --> 00:18:45.029
call from the Sheriff's Department and say, well, Patrick Kearney
283
00:18:45.049 --> 00:18:45.460
walked in.
284
00:18:45.950 --> 00:18:48.240
Come on over. You need to interview him.
285
00:18:49.190 --> 00:18:52.470
So I went over to the Sheriff's Department, got a
286
00:18:52.490 --> 00:18:54.329
tape recorder, and interviewed him.
287
00:18:55.990 --> 00:19:01.210
On the 1st of July, 1977, Kearney was arrested. He
288
00:19:01.269 --> 00:19:05.190
told police that his partner, David Hill, was completely innocent
289
00:19:05.509 --> 00:19:06.289
of any crimes.
290
00:19:07.549 --> 00:19:09.589
We don't know what he's going to say or whether
291
00:19:09.650 --> 00:19:11.740
he's going to blame it on someone else or deny it.
292
00:19:12.769 --> 00:19:16.509
So I was focusing my interview on going to his background,
293
00:19:16.609 --> 00:19:19.089
finding out about him, what caused him to do it,
294
00:19:19.210 --> 00:19:20.190
why he turned himself in.
295
00:19:21.259 --> 00:19:25.200
But Dan and the Riverside County detectives had no idea
296
00:19:25.559 --> 00:19:30.009
just how prolific a killer they had arrested. Patrick Kearney's
297
00:19:30.109 --> 00:19:32.289
next statement would stun them all.
298
00:19:32.890 --> 00:19:35.049
I asked him, well, how many people have you killed?
299
00:19:35.250 --> 00:19:40.269
And he said, I don't know, but more than 30.
300
00:19:40.269 --> 00:19:44.269
Patrick Kearney told the investigators that he'd been killing for
301
00:19:44.470 --> 00:19:50.650
over a decade, since 1962. The twisted killer detailed each
302
00:19:50.710 --> 00:19:55.329
of the murders, including taking the life of 17-year-old John
303
00:19:55.390 --> 00:19:59.490
LeMay in March 1977.
304
00:19:59.789 --> 00:20:02.750
When I know that Patrick Kearney picked up John from
305
00:20:02.769 --> 00:20:06.960
my house in El Segundo and drove him to his
306
00:20:07.079 --> 00:20:12.440
own home in Redondo Beach, where apparently he was watching TV,
307
00:20:12.769 --> 00:20:17.250
and apparently John had changed the channel. Patrick Kearney didn't
308
00:20:17.289 --> 00:20:19.230
like that, so he shot him in the back of
309
00:20:19.269 --> 00:20:19.609
the head.
310
00:20:21.309 --> 00:20:24.599
Kearney told detectives how his father had taught him to
311
00:20:24.670 --> 00:20:28.819
shoot as a child, so accustomed to using a gun,
312
00:20:28.839 --> 00:20:33.500
an execution-style method of killing had become his trademark.
313
00:20:34.720 --> 00:20:38.880
From there proceeded to like every other victim dismember him
314
00:20:38.920 --> 00:20:44.359
in the bathtub and all but his hands and his
315
00:20:44.420 --> 00:20:48.200
head because Patrick Kearney very smart knew that's how they
316
00:20:48.220 --> 00:20:53.880
could identify this body when he would you know dump
317
00:20:53.980 --> 00:20:57.970
it and so he put the body parts in bags
318
00:20:58.150 --> 00:21:03.299
apparently drove them out to Corona and then they were placed,
319
00:21:03.359 --> 00:21:05.700
I believe, in a trash can at some park.
320
00:21:08.740 --> 00:21:11.559
This victim was only 17 years old, and he was
321
00:21:11.740 --> 00:21:14.539
one of seven children. So this is going to have
322
00:21:14.559 --> 00:21:18.069
a really devastating impact on this family dynamic. This is
323
00:21:18.109 --> 00:21:21.829
a very significant point in somebody's life. So to have
324
00:21:21.869 --> 00:21:24.990
this individual taken out of your family picture by this
325
00:21:25.369 --> 00:21:28.309
sadistic serial killer is something that is going to affect
326
00:21:28.509 --> 00:21:29.190
all members.
327
00:21:28.970 --> 00:21:29.569
Of that family.
328
00:21:30.480 --> 00:21:34.740
News of Kearney's arrest brought some semblance of peace to
329
00:21:34.779 --> 00:21:35.779
the LeMay family.
330
00:21:36.460 --> 00:21:38.940
When I heard that, again, from all the fears of
331
00:21:39.019 --> 00:21:41.700
a little girl, feeling like, okay, they're going to come
332
00:21:41.720 --> 00:21:44.480
get us, they got him, so they know where we live,
333
00:21:44.539 --> 00:21:51.059
and just that brought peace, that, okay, he's, we're safe.
334
00:21:52.259 --> 00:21:56.049
Detectives were only just beginning to learn about the sadistic
335
00:21:56.150 --> 00:22:00.089
life of Patrick Kearney, and the killer's confessions would shock
336
00:22:00.130 --> 00:22:01.339
them to the core.
337
00:22:04.059 --> 00:22:06.380
Interviewing people like that, you look right into the eye
338
00:22:06.440 --> 00:22:09.329
of someone who can talk like that, knowing what they did.
339
00:22:10.009 --> 00:22:12.109
It's a sobering experience.
340
00:22:13.549 --> 00:22:17.650
After handing himself in, Kearney had stunned the interrogators by
341
00:22:17.690 --> 00:22:21.349
confessing to at least 30 murders across the previous 15 years.
342
00:22:21.390 --> 00:22:23.569
But was the 37-year-old engineer telling the truth?
343
00:22:27.059 --> 00:22:30.619
You want to make sure that you are focusing in
344
00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:33.349
on hard facts and not just fantasy.
345
00:22:33.390 --> 00:22:35.130
Maybe he's seeking attention or something.
346
00:22:36.009 --> 00:22:41.549
Kearney confessed to killing a man in his apartment in 1968.
347
00:22:41.549 --> 00:22:43.589
Dan pressed for more details.
348
00:22:44.450 --> 00:22:47.710
And he said, I don't remember his name. How did
349
00:22:47.730 --> 00:22:50.130
you kill him? I shot him in the head with a.
350
00:22:50.039 --> 00:22:50.190
22.
351
00:22:50.190 --> 00:22:55.480
What did you do with the body? Well, I cut
352
00:22:55.539 --> 00:22:55.740
it up.
353
00:22:57.319 --> 00:23:00.640
And small pieces, and I put it in a box,
354
00:23:02.759 --> 00:23:06.309
and I put it underneath the apartment building I lived in.
355
00:23:07.230 --> 00:23:11.690
Kearney continued to describe gruesome details of how he'd removed
356
00:23:11.710 --> 00:23:14.250
the evidence from his poor victim's head.
357
00:23:14.910 --> 00:23:19.200
He was sufficiently aware, ballistically, that he knew that if
358
00:23:19.240 --> 00:23:22.960
he left the bullet, someone might find it and trace
359
00:23:23.019 --> 00:23:26.279
it back to the gun. And so Kearney took a
360
00:23:26.380 --> 00:23:29.849
hacksaw to the dead man's head to retrieve the bullet.
361
00:23:31.309 --> 00:23:34.329
Kearney drew a map of exactly where he'd left the
362
00:23:34.390 --> 00:23:39.279
remains over a decade before. While the interview continued, Dan
363
00:23:39.359 --> 00:23:44.460
instructed the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department to search underneath the garage.
364
00:23:45.279 --> 00:23:48.140
And they go to that department complex, and they're there
365
00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:51.390
within an hour, and they retrieve a box with a
366
00:23:52.839 --> 00:23:56.019
bunch of bones in it, a human skeleton that's been
367
00:23:56.099 --> 00:24:00.400
cut up. And the skull has a hole in it
368
00:24:00.599 --> 00:24:03.990
consistent with a. 22 caliber bullet. And you can see
369
00:24:04.009 --> 00:24:07.690
the hacksaw blade marks in the skull. So before we
370
00:24:07.730 --> 00:24:11.829
finished the interview, we had confirmation that this guy is
371
00:24:11.849 --> 00:24:12.430
telling the truth.
372
00:24:13.650 --> 00:24:17.309
The unidentified skeleton in the box was just one of
373
00:24:17.410 --> 00:24:21.700
Kearney's many victims. The vicious killer had been active for
374
00:24:21.700 --> 00:24:27.500
15 years. He told investigators how he targeted hitchhikers along
375
00:24:27.559 --> 00:24:30.039
the Southern California road network.
376
00:24:30.700 --> 00:24:34.380
The victims were alone. They were hitchhiking. They were quite
377
00:24:34.589 --> 00:24:37.250
easy to prey on. Kearney had access.
378
00:24:37.289 --> 00:24:38.509
He had opportunity.
379
00:24:39.079 --> 00:24:41.079
And I think there was some echoes of his own
380
00:24:41.119 --> 00:24:44.180
victimization as a child and as a young man here.
381
00:24:44.480 --> 00:24:46.819
So it's almost like he's trying to rewrite his own
382
00:24:46.859 --> 00:24:50.380
history here. He's putting himself in the role of the aggressor,
383
00:24:51.079 --> 00:24:53.559
I think perhaps to step into the shoes of those
384
00:24:53.619 --> 00:24:56.920
who bullied and victimized him. So that's quite interesting for me.
385
00:24:58.240 --> 00:25:03.259
By the 15th of July, 1977, Patrick Kearney had confessed
386
00:25:03.299 --> 00:25:07.119
to killing 32 young men and boys. One of his
387
00:25:07.220 --> 00:25:12.640
many revelations included the story of 21-year-old Larry Walters, a
388
00:25:12.680 --> 00:25:15.809
mechanic who was living in the town of Hawthorne just
389
00:25:15.900 --> 00:25:20.240
north of Redondo Beach in 1975.
390
00:25:20.769 --> 00:25:25.470
Although Larry was our older brother, we were really his
391
00:25:25.529 --> 00:25:28.869
older sisters because he was mentally slow. So at the
392
00:25:28.930 --> 00:25:32.210
age of 21, Larry had the mentality of maybe an
393
00:25:32.309 --> 00:25:36.759
eight to 10 year old child. He was not very streetwise.
394
00:25:39.619 --> 00:25:43.059
Larry was at his most content when he was surrounded
395
00:25:43.339 --> 00:25:44.079
by family.
396
00:25:45.500 --> 00:25:48.559
Larry was a very, very happy person, but we were
397
00:25:48.720 --> 00:25:53.450
very protective over him because He believed anything you told him.
398
00:25:53.769 --> 00:25:59.369
He trusted everybody. We had to watch over him to
399
00:25:59.430 --> 00:26:02.950
make sure that he didn't, you know, that people didn't
400
00:26:02.990 --> 00:26:03.920
take advantage of him.
401
00:26:05.160 --> 00:26:09.319
Karen vividly remembers the week Larry went missing in late
402
00:26:09.400 --> 00:26:11.940
October 1975.
403
00:26:12.579 --> 00:26:14.579
He just worked down at the end of the block
404
00:26:14.680 --> 00:26:17.859
from where I lived. And he had been coming to
405
00:26:17.900 --> 00:26:19.960
my house every day at noon on his lunch hour
406
00:26:20.339 --> 00:26:23.890
because he was waiting for some checks that were being
407
00:26:23.910 --> 00:26:27.049
mailed to him, money owed to him. He had just
408
00:26:27.109 --> 00:26:30.569
wrecked his car two weeks before. And I said to him,
409
00:26:32.150 --> 00:26:37.519
instead of going home tonight after work, why don't you
410
00:26:37.559 --> 00:26:39.420
just stay at my house tonight, get up in the
411
00:26:39.460 --> 00:26:41.640
morning and go to work, and that way you don't
412
00:26:41.680 --> 00:26:42.299
have to hitchhike.
413
00:26:43.250 --> 00:26:46.470
As Karen headed out to a Halloween party, she had
414
00:26:46.589 --> 00:26:49.299
no idea it would be the last time she would
415
00:26:49.380 --> 00:26:50.180
see her brother.
416
00:26:51.140 --> 00:26:54.140
The last day that I saw Larry, he was upbeat,
417
00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:57.680
nothing out of the norm, said he'd see me the
418
00:26:57.740 --> 00:27:01.960
next day. And we went to the party, and when
419
00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:04.829
we got home, it's like 3 in the morning, my
420
00:27:04.869 --> 00:27:08.210
lights were on, my TV was on, my house was
421
00:27:08.269 --> 00:27:11.170
in a little disarray, and Larry was very neat and clean.
422
00:27:11.960 --> 00:27:14.400
And so I thought, well, he just ran out for
423
00:27:14.420 --> 00:27:14.700
a minute.
424
00:27:14.720 --> 00:27:15.259
He'll be back.
425
00:27:16.079 --> 00:27:19.279
So we just went to bed thinking everything was fine.
426
00:27:20.759 --> 00:27:24.390
The following morning when Karen woke, it seemed that Larry
427
00:27:24.650 --> 00:27:26.170
had already left for work.
428
00:27:27.309 --> 00:27:31.589
Later on that morning, the mail came and his checks came.
429
00:27:32.599 --> 00:27:34.940
And so he didn't come at lunchtime. And he had
430
00:27:34.980 --> 00:27:39.130
come every day that week at lunch. And so... I
431
00:27:39.309 --> 00:27:40.809
went down to his work at the end of the
432
00:27:40.869 --> 00:27:42.569
corner and his boss told me he didn't show up
433
00:27:42.609 --> 00:27:46.329
for work. And so we knew something was up, but
434
00:27:46.430 --> 00:27:48.950
I thought, did he go out with some friends and
435
00:27:49.650 --> 00:27:52.130
just didn't sleep and didn't go to work?
436
00:27:53.029 --> 00:27:57.170
The following morning, however, there was still no word from Larry.
437
00:27:57.190 --> 00:28:00.589
The next morning, my mother called me and said Larry
438
00:28:00.630 --> 00:28:03.349
was supposed to have come today and he didn't. And
439
00:28:03.390 --> 00:28:07.390
then we knew something was wrong. So my mother went
440
00:28:07.410 --> 00:28:14.109
and filed a... missing persons in that area. And then
441
00:28:14.150 --> 00:28:14.609
we waited.
442
00:28:16.910 --> 00:28:20.470
This poor family suffered for two years not knowing what
443
00:28:20.529 --> 00:28:24.549
happened to Larry. And it was only when Kearney confessed
444
00:28:24.650 --> 00:28:26.789
in 1977 that they actually.
445
00:28:26.519 --> 00:28:27.279
Knew what happened.
446
00:28:29.019 --> 00:28:32.200
The day that the police contacted my mother and said
447
00:28:32.220 --> 00:28:34.059
they needed to speak to me because I was the
448
00:28:34.099 --> 00:28:38.420
last one to see him, they wanted to get my
449
00:28:38.480 --> 00:28:42.680
story of and corroborate it with what Kearney had told them.
450
00:28:43.920 --> 00:28:48.029
Kearney had told the investigators exactly what had happened to
451
00:28:48.069 --> 00:28:51.170
Larry Walters on that fateful Halloween night.
452
00:28:52.450 --> 00:28:56.609
Larry is used to hitchhiking, and so perfectly prepared to
453
00:28:56.650 --> 00:29:02.470
accept a lift from this mild-mannered, ordinary-looking little man, Kearney
454
00:29:02.539 --> 00:29:07.240
drives him back to his house in Redondo Beach. But
455
00:29:07.839 --> 00:29:13.119
Larry has underestimated the man who's picked him up. Tragically,
456
00:29:13.740 --> 00:29:20.920
Kearney shoots him in the head and kills him.
457
00:29:20.940 --> 00:29:24.529
I remember the police, after all of the questions they
458
00:29:24.609 --> 00:29:28.670
asked me, asking me, do you have any questions? And
459
00:29:28.730 --> 00:29:31.049
I said, yes, I have just one. And my mom
460
00:29:31.089 --> 00:29:34.269
knew what it was going to be. And she left
461
00:29:34.309 --> 00:29:40.339
the room. Begging me not to ask it. And the
462
00:29:40.410 --> 00:29:42.339
officer told me, I know what you want to know.
463
00:29:42.579 --> 00:29:48.519
Did he suffer? And I said, yes. And he said, no,
464
00:29:48.559 --> 00:29:50.579
Larry never knew anything from start to finish.
465
00:29:50.599 --> 00:29:54.299
And I have to believe that.
466
00:29:57.799 --> 00:30:00.119
It wasn't like he was in a car accident or
467
00:30:00.269 --> 00:30:03.170
that he was in the hospital. We could say our goodbyes.
468
00:30:07.750 --> 00:30:10.829
When I saw him on Friday, I didn't know it
469
00:30:10.849 --> 00:30:11.710
was the last time.
470
00:30:15.759 --> 00:30:19.819
The body of 21-year-old Larry Walters has never been found.
471
00:30:21.380 --> 00:30:24.539
The family haven't been able to say goodbye because they
472
00:30:24.559 --> 00:30:27.109
don't have a body. And this is really significant for
473
00:30:27.150 --> 00:30:30.289
me because Kearney is an offender who is incredibly organised.
474
00:30:30.430 --> 00:30:33.430
He knows exactly where this body is. But I think
475
00:30:33.490 --> 00:30:36.289
he's not going to reveal the location of it because
476
00:30:36.349 --> 00:30:39.819
bodies tell stories. They tell us what happened in regards
477
00:30:39.880 --> 00:30:42.740
to a particular murder. And there is something about this
478
00:30:42.779 --> 00:30:45.480
story that Kearney does not want out in the open.
479
00:30:45.910 --> 00:30:49.029
and that's really significant for me, but it's really significant
480
00:30:49.049 --> 00:30:51.369
for the family as well because they will continue to
481
00:30:51.430 --> 00:30:53.970
suffer whilst he still retains his information.
482
00:30:55.420 --> 00:31:01.339
During the police interview, Kearney unashamedly detailed his perverse necrophilia.
483
00:31:02.519 --> 00:31:05.059
After he shot them in the head, he would cut
484
00:31:05.099 --> 00:31:08.349
a hole in them and have sexual intercourse with their
485
00:31:08.369 --> 00:31:11.130
bodies because he felt empowered by it.
486
00:31:12.650 --> 00:31:14.839
This is a killer who is a lot more comfortable
487
00:31:14.859 --> 00:31:16.960
with the dead than he is with the living because
488
00:31:17.019 --> 00:31:20.819
the dead are easier to control. They cannot insult you.
489
00:31:20.880 --> 00:31:23.160
They can't reject you. They can't make you feel bad
490
00:31:23.180 --> 00:31:23.839
about yourself.
491
00:31:24.640 --> 00:31:29.700
The nefarious killer appeared to display no shame during his confessions.
492
00:31:31.170 --> 00:31:33.349
You would be able to have a conversation with him
493
00:31:33.430 --> 00:31:36.569
sitting here and talk about a lot of things and
494
00:31:36.710 --> 00:31:41.519
never have an inkling that there's something wrong There's something
495
00:31:41.619 --> 00:31:44.319
weird about this guy. You would not get that feeling
496
00:31:44.359 --> 00:31:44.920
with this man.
497
00:31:46.400 --> 00:31:49.859
There were no tears running down his cheeks. There was
498
00:31:49.920 --> 00:31:56.400
no remorse. There was no empathy for the victims. There
499
00:31:56.420 --> 00:32:01.380
was absolutely no understanding of the pain he'd caused their families.
500
00:32:02.269 --> 00:32:06.569
Absolutely blank. And I think that's how he got away
501
00:32:07.049 --> 00:32:10.430
with hiding in plain sight for all those years.
502
00:32:12.589 --> 00:32:16.789
Once Kearney's confession was done, investigators had to try and
503
00:32:16.910 --> 00:32:20.539
link the killer's confessions to actual missing persons.
504
00:32:21.180 --> 00:32:23.839
Well, it took a long time to interview him and
505
00:32:23.880 --> 00:32:29.759
get all of his stories correct. And then the law
506
00:32:29.779 --> 00:32:35.829
enforcement contacted other jurisdictions, in other words, to try to
507
00:32:35.869 --> 00:32:39.789
match up his stories with actual bodies or missing persons,
508
00:32:40.710 --> 00:32:43.450
that work went on for some length of time.
509
00:32:44.099 --> 00:32:49.180
In December 1977, Patrick Kearney pleaded guilty to the murder
510
00:32:49.400 --> 00:32:52.059
of the three men whose bodies had been found in
511
00:32:52.160 --> 00:32:59.500
Riverside County. Arturo Marquez, John LeMay, and 21-year-old Albert Rivera.
512
00:33:00.599 --> 00:33:04.119
Despite sharing a home with his partner for nine years,
513
00:33:04.539 --> 00:33:07.519
a house where human blood had been found, it was
514
00:33:07.599 --> 00:33:11.400
Kearney who and Kearney alone, who was charged with the murders.
515
00:33:12.680 --> 00:33:15.089
When we took the case and presented this physical evidence,
516
00:33:15.289 --> 00:33:18.990
the confession, and the testimony to the grand jury, they
517
00:33:19.029 --> 00:33:20.950
did not indict David Hill, and he.
518
00:33:20.930 --> 00:33:21.450
Was let free.
519
00:33:23.250 --> 00:33:27.390
Kearney was sentenced to life in prison, but investigators hadn't
520
00:33:27.430 --> 00:33:31.910
finished with him yet. In February 1978, he was charged
521
00:33:31.950 --> 00:33:36.130
with a further 18 killings in neighboring Los Angeles County.
522
00:33:37.039 --> 00:33:41.900
Deputy DA John Braul led the prosecution against the so-called
523
00:33:42.269 --> 00:33:43.369
trash bag killer.
524
00:33:44.619 --> 00:33:47.710
When I took over the case, Mr. Kearney had already
525
00:33:47.730 --> 00:33:51.450
been arrested and it was just tying all the loose
526
00:33:51.529 --> 00:33:55.650
ends together and assimilating all the information so that we
527
00:33:55.710 --> 00:33:56.750
had a fileable case.
528
00:33:57.710 --> 00:34:01.289
Kearney had already confessed to the murders and the evidence
529
00:34:01.349 --> 00:34:05.470
against him was strong. Investigators had found a link between
530
00:34:05.509 --> 00:34:08.849
the killer and a number of his victims, a very
531
00:34:08.909 --> 00:34:14.030
specific item that was readily available to the 38-year-old engineer.
532
00:34:14.750 --> 00:34:18.150
The police officers tied Patrick to these cases because of
533
00:34:18.210 --> 00:34:20.679
the type of tape he used to wrap his victims in.
534
00:34:21.260 --> 00:34:24.739
After he killed the victims, he cut them up, wrapped
535
00:34:24.760 --> 00:34:28.139
them in plastic bags, and then wrap those bags with
536
00:34:28.179 --> 00:34:32.030
a very distinctive tape that's only used in one place
537
00:34:32.070 --> 00:34:34.929
in Southern California, and that's at Hughes Aircraft.
538
00:34:36.030 --> 00:34:40.050
Kearney had taken the distinctive tape and trash bags he
539
00:34:40.230 --> 00:34:43.269
used to dispose of his victims' bodies from his place
540
00:34:43.340 --> 00:34:46.380
of work. It was also where he'd spotted one of
541
00:34:46.420 --> 00:34:50.980
his youngest victims. For a seasoned prosecutor like John, the
542
00:34:51.039 --> 00:34:55.019
heartbreaking story of the 8-year-old boy who lost his life
543
00:34:55.079 --> 00:34:57.880
at the hands of Patrick Kearney was the one that
544
00:34:57.960 --> 00:34:58.519
stood out.
545
00:34:59.239 --> 00:35:02.260
The case I remember most, it was a little different
546
00:35:02.300 --> 00:35:06.829
than the other cases. It's Mero Hondo Chance. Chance was
547
00:35:06.889 --> 00:35:09.869
riding his bicycle in the parking lot at Hughes Aircraft
548
00:35:09.909 --> 00:35:12.869
and had a problem. Patrick Wayne Kearney came out and
549
00:35:12.949 --> 00:35:15.590
saw and tried to help him. He eventually put the
550
00:35:15.630 --> 00:35:17.969
bicycle in the back of the pickup truck that he
551
00:35:18.090 --> 00:35:21.380
used in the other murders, drove him to a bike
552
00:35:21.420 --> 00:35:23.460
shop at the corner of Washington.
553
00:35:22.940 --> 00:35:25.420
And Sepulveda Boulevards, got the.
554
00:35:25.380 --> 00:35:28.219
Bike fixed, took him down for a hamburger and shake
555
00:35:28.320 --> 00:35:31.809
at the hamburger stand next to Tito's Tacos at the
556
00:35:31.849 --> 00:35:33.849
corner of Washington and Sepulveda.
557
00:35:33.710 --> 00:35:41.099
Boulevards, And Kearney adds a little extra piquant something to
558
00:35:41.139 --> 00:35:44.920
the invitation. He tells the boy, I tell you what,
559
00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:48.699
one day I'll take you to Disneyland. The boy must
560
00:35:48.800 --> 00:35:50.340
have been thrilled.
561
00:35:51.699 --> 00:35:54.900
But Kearney had no intention of taking Morell to a
562
00:35:54.980 --> 00:35:59.179
theme park. Unlike his other victims, Kearney didn't kill the
563
00:35:59.320 --> 00:36:04.769
eight-year-old for sexual gratifications. He killed Muriel Hondo Chance because
564
00:36:04.809 --> 00:36:06.789
he was worried about getting caught.
565
00:36:07.650 --> 00:36:09.570
He was with him for a period of time, for
566
00:36:09.610 --> 00:36:15.010
a couple of hours. And in Patrick Wayne Kearney's mind,
567
00:36:15.309 --> 00:36:20.809
he had said or intimated enough information to Hondo Chance
568
00:36:21.630 --> 00:36:26.489
that if Muriel Hondo Chance spoke to anyone about that,
569
00:36:26.969 --> 00:36:29.829
the police officers would find out and know that Patrick
570
00:36:29.849 --> 00:36:33.800
Wayne Kearney was the killer. and that's why he killed
571
00:36:34.280 --> 00:36:35.159
Muriel Hondo Chance.
572
00:36:36.719 --> 00:36:40.710
As the prosecution were processing the paperwork for 18 murders,
573
00:36:41.130 --> 00:36:45.449
including that of Muriel Hondo Chance, Patrick Kearney, just as
574
00:36:45.489 --> 00:36:49.650
he had in Riverside County, decided not to contest any
575
00:36:49.829 --> 00:36:50.570
of the charges.
576
00:36:51.840 --> 00:36:57.039
At the preliminary hearing in Los Angeles, the municipal judge
577
00:36:57.679 --> 00:37:01.619
asked him why he'd done it. The families of the
578
00:37:01.679 --> 00:37:05.300
victims want to know why. Can you tell us why?
579
00:37:06.500 --> 00:37:11.119
And Kearney said, and I quote precisely, I'd prefer not to.
580
00:37:12.610 --> 00:37:15.690
I don't think he was ashamed. I don't think he
581
00:37:15.730 --> 00:37:18.769
was embarrassed by this. It was just a matter of fact.
582
00:37:19.289 --> 00:37:20.989
He might as well have been talking about living on
583
00:37:21.010 --> 00:37:27.110
a farm and, you know, killing your cow and steers
584
00:37:27.170 --> 00:37:33.269
and pigs for food. He just had no emotion about it.
585
00:37:35.150 --> 00:37:39.219
It soon became clear that Patrick Kearney pleaded guilty to
586
00:37:39.239 --> 00:37:41.340
protect his partner, David Hill.
587
00:37:42.320 --> 00:37:45.659
Patrick Wayne Kearney did not go to trial because he
588
00:37:45.699 --> 00:37:48.800
made a deal that the DA's office would not seek
589
00:37:48.820 --> 00:37:52.610
the death penalty if we did not go after his
590
00:37:52.710 --> 00:37:58.000
roommate on any of these charges. Patrick pled guilty to
591
00:37:58.000 --> 00:38:01.679
21 counts first degree murder with use. That also would
592
00:38:01.719 --> 00:38:06.559
merge with the three counts from Riverside. They all, after
593
00:38:06.619 --> 00:38:10.340
he was sentenced, merged by law into one count of murder.
594
00:38:11.860 --> 00:38:15.780
We will never know for certain how many people Kearney killed.
595
00:38:16.440 --> 00:38:19.699
What we can say with some degree of certainty is
596
00:38:19.719 --> 00:38:25.190
that there were probably more than 21 victims. Chillingly, Even
597
00:38:25.250 --> 00:38:28.750
the killer couldn't remember how many people he'd killed.
598
00:38:29.849 --> 00:38:34.289
Kearney's admission of sole responsibility for the death of 21
599
00:38:34.289 --> 00:38:38.610
people meant that his victims' families may never truly know
600
00:38:38.969 --> 00:38:41.349
what really happened to their loved ones.
601
00:38:42.389 --> 00:38:46.030
I would like to have seen Kearney pilloried in court,
602
00:38:46.739 --> 00:38:49.820
not least for the benefit of the victims' families.
603
00:38:50.440 --> 00:38:53.159
They were airbrushed out of the story.
604
00:38:53.920 --> 00:38:54.139
Yes.
605
00:38:55.010 --> 00:38:58.210
I know there were a lot of them, but many
606
00:38:58.250 --> 00:39:01.190
of them felt they had been denied, cheated out of
607
00:39:01.230 --> 00:39:02.110
their day in court.
608
00:39:04.389 --> 00:39:06.750
As ever, Kearney was.
609
00:39:06.670 --> 00:39:13.500
Manipulative, deceitful, and denied them their right. It was truly despicable.
610
00:39:14.940 --> 00:39:18.199
But the fact that Kearney was behind bars was a
611
00:39:18.260 --> 00:39:21.760
sweet relief for Patricia, the mother of John LeMay.
612
00:39:22.559 --> 00:39:25.659
I remember her saying that the greatest comfort that she
613
00:39:26.900 --> 00:39:30.739
takes from John's death is that John, is the one
614
00:39:30.760 --> 00:39:35.159
that caught Patrick Kearney and that he could do it
615
00:39:35.219 --> 00:39:38.300
no more. And it seemed like that was what really
616
00:39:38.340 --> 00:39:41.510
gave her peace of mind and heart, that she came
617
00:39:41.550 --> 00:39:45.429
to grips with that, that, you know, if it meant
618
00:39:45.590 --> 00:39:49.050
for no one else to be killed, almost like a sacrifice,
619
00:39:49.070 --> 00:39:49.929
then so be it.
620
00:39:51.409 --> 00:39:54.469
It had been a tough journey for the family members
621
00:39:54.800 --> 00:39:56.599
of many of the other victims.
622
00:39:58.199 --> 00:40:00.760
When he was spoken of as one of the victims,
623
00:40:00.940 --> 00:40:04.460
they would say John LeMay and 20 others, and our
624
00:40:04.519 --> 00:40:07.159
brother was never really mentioned, and we feel like he
625
00:40:07.280 --> 00:40:12.000
fell under the radar and he mattered. Larry was sweet
626
00:40:12.039 --> 00:40:20.530
and kind and innocent, and he fell victim to somebody
627
00:40:20.550 --> 00:40:24.389
that we consider evil. And we don't want to be here,
628
00:40:24.690 --> 00:40:28.369
but we think it's important for everybody to know who
629
00:40:28.409 --> 00:40:30.309
these people were that we lost.
630
00:40:31.730 --> 00:40:36.570
So it's difficult, but it's important.
631
00:40:40.519 --> 00:40:43.519
I think having to rely on your loved one's killer
632
00:40:43.880 --> 00:40:47.019
for the narrative, for the story of a murder is
633
00:40:47.059 --> 00:40:51.699
really devastating because They have control over that narrative. The
634
00:40:51.739 --> 00:40:54.579
victim has been silenced. They can't tell their side of
635
00:40:54.599 --> 00:40:57.000
the story. This is something I come across in a
636
00:40:57.039 --> 00:41:00.119
lot of cases where there's a no-body murder. You are
637
00:41:00.159 --> 00:41:03.980
completely reliant on the testimony of the serial killer, and
638
00:41:04.019 --> 00:41:06.119
as we know, they are wholly unreliable.
639
00:41:08.909 --> 00:41:13.730
Patrick Kearney robbed the Walters family of a lifetime of memories.
640
00:41:14.849 --> 00:41:21.179
Fondest memory of probably one of the last pictures I
641
00:41:21.239 --> 00:41:25.679
have with him is holding my daughter on Easter of
642
00:41:25.719 --> 00:41:28.019
the year he died with her Easter basket she was
643
00:41:28.059 --> 00:41:31.320
a year old and him just smiling.
644
00:41:32.780 --> 00:41:39.449
We want people to hear Larry Gene Walters we want
645
00:41:39.489 --> 00:41:41.389
them to know he was important.
646
00:41:47.739 --> 00:41:51.699
Patrick Kearney is currently serving life at Mule Creek State
647
00:41:51.760 --> 00:41:56.769
Prison in California. The killer confessed to 32 murders during
648
00:41:56.829 --> 00:42:03.170
his initial interrogation in July 1977. So investigators are certain
649
00:42:03.469 --> 00:42:06.610
that he is guilty of more than just the 21
650
00:42:06.610 --> 00:42:08.349
killings he was convicted of.
651
00:42:09.269 --> 00:42:12.289
If Kearney hadn't been caught, he would have gone on
652
00:42:12.789 --> 00:42:19.250
and on and on. Serial killers never stop. They escalate,
653
00:42:20.150 --> 00:42:23.449
and Kearney was a perfect example of that.
654
00:42:25.320 --> 00:42:29.139
I remember a lot of my cases, but obviously this
655
00:42:29.239 --> 00:42:34.619
was the most number of dead bodies that I ever handled,
656
00:42:35.659 --> 00:42:38.119
and that's probably the reason I remember it.
657
00:42:39.530 --> 00:42:45.809
His lack of emotion, his matter-of-fact attitude, and kind of
658
00:42:45.849 --> 00:42:47.170
a shrug of his shoulder accepting it.
659
00:42:47.989 --> 00:42:54.360
To me, that's real evil. I can still see him.
660
00:42:55.380 --> 00:42:57.800
If I think about him in my mind's eye, I
661
00:42:57.860 --> 00:42:59.699
can still picture him as he appeared then.
662
00:43:00.320 --> 00:43:01.639
You won't forget something like that.
663
00:43:05.460 --> 00:43:09.269
Kearney was a callous killer who terminated the life of
664
00:43:09.309 --> 00:43:13.070
his innocent victims for nothing more than his own perverse
665
00:43:13.170 --> 00:43:17.099
sexual pleasure. We may never know how many young men
666
00:43:17.139 --> 00:43:21.570
he picked up and murdered, but his cold-hearted confession proves
667
00:43:21.610 --> 00:43:25.550
that he had no remorse for them whatsoever, which makes
668
00:43:25.650 --> 00:43:29.389
Patrick Kearney one of the world's most evil killers.
1
00:00:05.830 --> 00:00:10.419
In July 1977, a man walked into a sheriff's department
2
00:00:10.500 --> 00:00:14.880
in Riverside County, California, and handed himself in. He was
3
00:00:14.929 --> 00:00:18.250
wanted for the murder of three hitchhikers across the region.
4
00:00:18.750 --> 00:00:22.170
But his confession to interrogators would leave them stunned.
5
00:00:22.510 --> 00:00:24.660
I asked him, well, how many people have you killed?
6
00:00:24.879 --> 00:00:29.059
And he said, I don't know, but more than 30.
7
00:00:29.059 --> 00:00:34.640
The serial murderer was an unassuming 37-year-old aircraft engineer named
8
00:00:34.700 --> 00:00:38.759
Patrick Kearney. He'd been killing young men and boys across
9
00:00:38.859 --> 00:00:41.859
Southern California for the past 15 years.
10
00:00:42.649 --> 00:00:44.600
I guess the first word that comes to mind is evil.
11
00:00:46.229 --> 00:00:48.409
Just void of humanity.
12
00:00:51.210 --> 00:00:55.509
After raping and killing his victims, the murderer would expertly
13
00:00:55.570 --> 00:00:57.549
dismember their lifeless bodies.
14
00:00:58.119 --> 00:01:02.740
The victims' families never knew what happened to their loved one.
15
00:01:03.479 --> 00:01:06.879
The only person they had to rely on to find
16
00:01:07.019 --> 00:01:10.579
out was the utterly revolting Patrick Kearney.
17
00:01:11.719 --> 00:01:15.769
Patrick Kearney, the man dubbed the Trash Bag Killer, had
18
00:01:15.810 --> 00:01:19.290
confessed to being one of the world's most evil killers.
19
00:01:41.049 --> 00:01:47.640
By February 1978, 38-year-old aircraft engineer Patrick Kearney had pled
20
00:01:47.700 --> 00:01:51.359
guilty to murdering a total of 21 young men and boys,
21
00:01:51.819 --> 00:01:57.030
his youngest victim just five years old. After his arrest,
22
00:01:57.349 --> 00:02:00.569
Kearney had confessed to a secret career of murder and
23
00:02:00.609 --> 00:02:06.840
necrophilia that would make even the hardiest detective wince. Former
24
00:02:06.900 --> 00:02:12.229
Riverside County Deputy D.A. Dan Bukolsky remembers when he first
25
00:02:12.270 --> 00:02:15.909
began the hunt for the notorious trash bag killer.
26
00:02:17.449 --> 00:02:19.349
I think there were three murder cases at the time,
27
00:02:19.949 --> 00:02:22.849
three bodies that were found. One of the bodies was
28
00:02:23.030 --> 00:02:30.139
found without a head and without feet and hands.
29
00:02:31.759 --> 00:02:32.159
And so.
30
00:02:32.930 --> 00:02:35.469
The first thing you need to do in trying to
31
00:02:35.530 --> 00:02:40.680
solve a crime is to identify the victim, and identification
32
00:02:41.000 --> 00:02:44.439
in most of these cases was hard, if not impossible.
33
00:02:46.500 --> 00:02:49.939
But a distinctive mark on one of the bodies led
34
00:02:50.020 --> 00:02:54.639
investigators to the family of 17-year-old John LeMay, who'd been
35
00:02:54.680 --> 00:02:56.039
missing for four days.
36
00:02:57.759 --> 00:02:59.840
I remember, because I was out of school, going with
37
00:02:59.879 --> 00:03:01.900
my mom and dad and my sister driving all the
38
00:03:01.919 --> 00:03:06.259
way out to Riverside County, where the purpose was to
39
00:03:06.300 --> 00:03:09.210
go to the police department there to give their blood
40
00:03:09.289 --> 00:03:13.710
test and to identify a photo that had a birthmark
41
00:03:14.949 --> 00:03:15.969
that was John's.
42
00:03:17.009 --> 00:03:21.400
The murder of John LeMay would finally unmask the elusive
43
00:03:21.719 --> 00:03:22.879
trash bag killer.
44
00:03:24.139 --> 00:03:27.750
Once they identified him, They were able then, of course,
45
00:03:27.830 --> 00:03:31.210
to ask questions about his whereabouts, where he had last been.
46
00:03:31.229 --> 00:03:34.930
And one of the leads led them to the house
47
00:03:34.990 --> 00:03:38.879
of a man named David Hill. And he shared that
48
00:03:38.939 --> 00:03:40.349
house with Patrick Carney.
49
00:03:42.219 --> 00:03:45.020
Finally, the pieces of the puzzle were coming together, and
50
00:03:45.039 --> 00:03:47.419
the police were getting closer to catching this killer.
51
00:03:51.840 --> 00:03:58.759
This killer story begins in Los Angeles, California, in 1939.
52
00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:03.539
Patrick Kearney was born on the 24th of September, the
53
00:04:03.659 --> 00:04:07.990
oldest of three brothers. As a child, Kearney was small
54
00:04:08.069 --> 00:04:11.530
and scrawny, which led to him becoming a target for
55
00:04:11.550 --> 00:04:12.449
the school bullies.
56
00:04:13.449 --> 00:04:18.730
He told me that he felt at times as a
57
00:04:18.790 --> 00:04:27.110
youth he was picked on, but he fantasized about striking back.
58
00:04:29.769 --> 00:04:34.029
He remembered later, at the age of eight, that he'd
59
00:04:34.069 --> 00:04:38.310
fantasized about killing people, an extraordinary thing when you consider
60
00:04:38.370 --> 00:04:41.100
it for an eight-year-old to do, horrifying.
61
00:04:42.579 --> 00:04:46.259
I think this was probably a control mechanism because Kearney
62
00:04:46.319 --> 00:04:50.279
lacked control. He lacked control over his childhood. He didn't
63
00:04:50.319 --> 00:04:53.959
have those good relationships with his peers. Those skills to
64
00:04:54.000 --> 00:04:58.129
negotiate conflict were something that just didn't happen. They didn't emerge.
65
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And in other children, you find that that does. So
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he's an outsider again, and this will come to have
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an impact throughout the rest of his life.
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Kearney later recalled that his mother was caring, but his father, George,
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00:05:11.899 --> 00:05:16.060
a salesman, worked a lot and seemed somewhat disinterested in
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raising a family, although he did teach his son how
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to shoot.
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So at a very young age, he gets to learn
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how to send something from a living animated creature into
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a corpse that is quite easy to control. And I
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think the lesson from that, the feeling of power perhaps
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that that gave him, was something that stayed with him.
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Kearney's relationship with his father was a complex one.
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I think the important thing for me is what his
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father represented, the stereotypical masculine American man. He's tough, he's stoic,
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he's resilient, and this is everything that Kearney is not.
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So there's that inadequacy there in terms of his relationship
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with his father. So that is something that would stay
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with him, and I think that is a factor that
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fueled his offending.
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By the age of 20, Kearney had joined the U.S.
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Air Force as an engineer and was living in Texas.
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It was there he fell in love with a man
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named David Hill.
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The affair develops, and Hill leaves his wife for Kearney.
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Now, perhaps for the first time, Kearney felt truly loved,
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the love that he'd never had during his childhood.
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By 1977, 37-year-old Patrick Kearney was living back in California
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with David Hill. Kearney had found a job as an
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engineer at Hughes Aircraft, and the couple were sharing a
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home together in Redondo Beach. Around the same time, 70
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miles away in Riverside County, Deputy District Attorney Dan Bukolsky
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was given a new assignment.
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I was in the office, and the sheriff's department out
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there came in with some evidence they wanted me to
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look at, regarding some bodies they had found over the
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last year or so. These bodies were found dismembered expertly
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in industrial plastic trash bags and wanted me to look
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at the evidence.
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The bodies of three young men had been found across
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Riverside County in Southern California. The murders bore all the
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hallmarks of a twisted serial killer.
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In these cases, the dismemberment was done expertly, and the
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pathologist opined that the individual who had done this had
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lots of practice. There were no hesitation marks. It was
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as if someone had trained on how to dismember the
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human body.
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So he's like a professional butcher in a butcher shop.
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He's an expert.
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Of course, that leads law enforcement to focus in on
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what they believe to be a serious serial perpetrator.
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In March 1977, 17-year-old John LeMay went missing. His sister, Teresa,
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was just nine years old when her big brother vanished.
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I remember my mom and dad kind of talking to
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each other a lot and going, well, have you seen
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wondering where John was, because John apparently did not come
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home the night before.
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John hadn't returned home from school on the 13th of March.
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His family immediately reported him missing.
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All I remember my dad saying is to my mom
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after he got off the phone, well, he's either missing
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or he's dead. And I remember that just floored me
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when I heard the word dead.
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You know, just, what?
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I'm nine years old. That rings in my ears, because
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at that moment, I just thought.
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He's dead?
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That's all I heard.
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And Teresa's fears were soon realized.
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They found, you know, body parts and dismemberment in a
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trash can in Corona. They think it might be John,
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but they weren't quite sure. And they just have to confirm.
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Identified by a birthmark on his remains, John LeMay had
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become the victim of the murderer the press had dubbed
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the Trash Bag Killer, a callous and perverse sexual predator.
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We don't know his cause of death.
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If it followed the normal pattern, he would have been
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shot in the head with a.
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22 Darin.
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And he would have been then sexually assaulted in either
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a semi-conscious or dead state, and then he was disarticulated, dismembered,
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put in a plastic bag and dumped. The cause of
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death could not be conclusively proven, because we never found
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his head, his hands, or his feet.
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The news of 17-year-old John's death brought heartache to the
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LeMay home.
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The atmosphere in the house with my siblings, it was
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very somber. No one wanted to talk about it. I
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kind of remember that, just because we were kind of
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a family that, you know, you do life. But as
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far as sharing her feelings or her thoughts or what's
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going on, it was more everybody just kind of closed up.
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But information from John LeMay's mother, Patricia, would bring detectives
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a much-needed clue.
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When the police spoke to her and interviewed her, she
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said that the last person she knew that he was
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going to meet was an individual by the name of
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David Hill.
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34-year-old David Hill immediately became a person of interest. When
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investigators arrived at his Redondo Beach home, they were greeted
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by his partner, 37-year-old aircraft engineer Patrick Kearney.
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He was a very mild-mannered person, didn't express emotions or
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feelings that caused the officers to believe he was guilty.
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Given Kearney's character and his extraordinary conceit, he was going
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to make absolutely sure not to complain when the police
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arrived at his front door. As far as they were concerned,
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he was a model citizen, upright, hardworking, and ordinary. There
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was nothing that he was going to do to contradict
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that impression.
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With Kearney watching on, the detectives were looking for specific
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forensic evidence during their search of the house.
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There was a dog. that had white hair.
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And the Sheriff's Department officers knew that some of the
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trash bags had contained white animal hair. And in addition,
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the carpet color was the same as some of the
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fibers found on some of the bags. So obviously, they
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want to follow that up.
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The white dog hair and blue carpet fibers led to
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the first breakthrough in the case.
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They took those back to the lab. to have them
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further analyzed more than just visually. And of course, there
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was a match with the carpet fibers and a match
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with the dog hair on, I think, two of the
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trash bags that were found with the bodies.
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When detectives returned on the 19th of May, Dan Bukolsky
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came along too. He was looking for evidence that could
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link the three bodies he'd been investigating to Kearney and Hill.
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but the couple weren't going to be as compliant this
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time around.
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We went to the house to execute the search warrant,
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and when we got to the house, no one was home.
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It was obvious that both Patrick Carney and David Hill
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had fled. I believe that they felt the police officers
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were on to them.
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When this kind of individual is faced with a choice
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between fight or flight, stay or go, they are always
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going to go. They will always flight because they want
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to avoid confrontation at all costs because they simply do
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not have the skills to deal with that. So I'm
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not surprised that Kearney ran at this point in time.
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I think he was actually quite afraid.
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As the search of Kearney and Hill's house began in earnest,
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Dan was certain that he was in the home of
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a serial killer.
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When you're in that situation, There is a, this sounds
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a little bit funny, but there is some sort of
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atmosphere feeling when you walk in a house like that.
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I felt it, and I don't know whether that was
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my imagination, but we're looking at somebody that's pretty evil,
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pretty matter of fact about it, and when you believe
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that that house was probably the scene of a lot
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of crimes, cruel, heartless crimes, It does give you a
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00:14:33.769 --> 00:14:36.269
little bit of a buzz feeling when you go into
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that resonance.
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It did me.
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00:14:39.169 --> 00:14:43.720
Evidence collected in a vacuum cleaner during the search linked Kearney,
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00:14:43.909 --> 00:14:48.120
who worked as an engineer at nearby Hughes Aircraft, to
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the discarded and dismembered bodies.
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In the vacuum cleaner bag, there were found round plastic circles,
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thick plastic circles. Those circles matched the punch-outs from the
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commercial-grade garbage bag liners. The brand name was Mipro, and
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it was an industrial bag, and it.
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Was used at Hughes Aircraft.
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Those plastic bags are unusual, and there was a supply
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of those plastic bags in the attic at Patrick Carney's house.
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And it wasn't just circumstantial evidence that was discovered in
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Kearney and Hill's Redondo Beach home.
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In addition, there was a hacksaw blade.
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Looking normal and clean, but when it was taken apart
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and the nut and bolt were loosened, there was blood
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and human hair wedged in the part between the blade
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and the bolt. The bathroom was sprayed with luminol, and
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showed the presence of a lot of blood in the
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bathtub and on the walls around the bathtub. So it
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00:16:01.210 --> 00:16:05.129
appeared pretty quickly that at least one body, maybe more,
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were dismembered, disarticulated in the bathtub in the home of
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Patrick Kearney and David Hill.
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Whether Kearney or Hill were involved or not, their home
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was clearly a hotbed of evidence that linked them to
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the three murdered men.
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It was obvious that there was physical evidence in that
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house that linked the house with these bodies. There was
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00:16:28.940 --> 00:16:34.470
nothing specifically that linked Patrick Carney himself or David Hill,
248
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but the house they lived in was definitely linked to
249
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all of these murders.
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A box of manila envelopes discovered at the house specifically
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linked Hill and Kearney to another trash bag killer victim,
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Arturo Marquez, whose body had been discovered in Riverside County
253
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in March 1977. Bizarrely, the killer had sent mail to
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his victim's home.
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The criminalist was able to opine that that thick yellow
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cardboard envelope likely came from this box, which was found
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in Patrick Carney's house. That envelope had been used to
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mail car keys back to the Marquez family. Because when
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Patrick Carney killed him, he had possession of the car
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and the keys. And being a good citizen, he mailed
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the keys back.
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Now, this would appear to be a really bizarre thing
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to do, but this is a killer who likes order.
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He likes to know exactly where things are and what's
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going on with them, so he's not the kind of
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person who could just throw these keys away in a
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bin somewhere.
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Investigators were sure they had found the killer, but Patrick
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Kearney and his partner, David Hill, were nowhere to be found.
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They'd fled over 800 miles away to Texas, but they
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wouldn't be gone for long.
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After the all points bulletin was issued, he was on a,
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I believe he was on the FBI's 10 most wanted list.
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There was a lot of publicity.
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These pictures of David Hill and Patrick Carney were published everywhere.
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Within months, They both walked into the Riverside County Sheriff's
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Department and turned themselves in to the watch sergeant.
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Kearney and Hill's return to California was an unexpected turn
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of events.
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Well, I was surprised.
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I was in my office, and I got a phone
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call from the Sheriff's Department and say, well, Patrick Kearney
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walked in.
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Come on over. You need to interview him.
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So I went over to the Sheriff's Department, got a
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tape recorder, and interviewed him.
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On the 1st of July, 1977, Kearney was arrested. He
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told police that his partner, David Hill, was completely innocent
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of any crimes.
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We don't know what he's going to say or whether
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he's going to blame it on someone else or deny it.
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So I was focusing my interview on going to his background,
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finding out about him, what caused him to do it,
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why he turned himself in.
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But Dan and the Riverside County detectives had no idea
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just how prolific a killer they had arrested. Patrick Kearney's
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next statement would stun them all.
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I asked him, well, how many people have you killed?
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And he said, I don't know, but more than 30.
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Patrick Kearney told the investigators that he'd been killing for
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over a decade, since 1962. The twisted killer detailed each
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of the murders, including taking the life of 17-year-old John
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LeMay in March 1977.
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When I know that Patrick Kearney picked up John from
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my house in El Segundo and drove him to his
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own home in Redondo Beach, where apparently he was watching TV,
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and apparently John had changed the channel. Patrick Kearney didn't
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like that, so he shot him in the back of
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the head.
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Kearney told detectives how his father had taught him to
311
00:20:24.670 --> 00:20:28.819
shoot as a child, so accustomed to using a gun,
312
00:20:28.839 --> 00:20:33.500
an execution-style method of killing had become his trademark.
313
00:20:34.720 --> 00:20:38.880
From there proceeded to like every other victim dismember him
314
00:20:38.920 --> 00:20:44.359
in the bathtub and all but his hands and his
315
00:20:44.420 --> 00:20:48.200
head because Patrick Kearney very smart knew that's how they
316
00:20:48.220 --> 00:20:53.880
could identify this body when he would you know dump
317
00:20:53.980 --> 00:20:57.970
it and so he put the body parts in bags
318
00:20:58.150 --> 00:21:03.299
apparently drove them out to Corona and then they were placed,
319
00:21:03.359 --> 00:21:05.700
I believe, in a trash can at some park.
320
00:21:08.740 --> 00:21:11.559
This victim was only 17 years old, and he was
321
00:21:11.740 --> 00:21:14.539
one of seven children. So this is going to have
322
00:21:14.559 --> 00:21:18.069
a really devastating impact on this family dynamic. This is
323
00:21:18.109 --> 00:21:21.829
a very significant point in somebody's life. So to have
324
00:21:21.869 --> 00:21:24.990
this individual taken out of your family picture by this
325
00:21:25.369 --> 00:21:28.309
sadistic serial killer is something that is going to affect
326
00:21:28.509 --> 00:21:29.190
all members.
327
00:21:28.970 --> 00:21:29.569
Of that family.
328
00:21:30.480 --> 00:21:34.740
News of Kearney's arrest brought some semblance of peace to
329
00:21:34.779 --> 00:21:35.779
the LeMay family.
330
00:21:36.460 --> 00:21:38.940
When I heard that, again, from all the fears of
331
00:21:39.019 --> 00:21:41.700
a little girl, feeling like, okay, they're going to come
332
00:21:41.720 --> 00:21:44.480
get us, they got him, so they know where we live,
333
00:21:44.539 --> 00:21:51.059
and just that brought peace, that, okay, he's, we're safe.
334
00:21:52.259 --> 00:21:56.049
Detectives were only just beginning to learn about the sadistic
335
00:21:56.150 --> 00:22:00.089
life of Patrick Kearney, and the killer's confessions would shock
336
00:22:00.130 --> 00:22:01.339
them to the core.
337
00:22:04.059 --> 00:22:06.380
Interviewing people like that, you look right into the eye
338
00:22:06.440 --> 00:22:09.329
of someone who can talk like that, knowing what they did.
339
00:22:10.009 --> 00:22:12.109
It's a sobering experience.
340
00:22:13.549 --> 00:22:17.650
After handing himself in, Kearney had stunned the interrogators by
341
00:22:17.690 --> 00:22:21.349
confessing to at least 30 murders across the previous 15 years.
342
00:22:21.390 --> 00:22:23.569
But was the 37-year-old engineer telling the truth?
343
00:22:27.059 --> 00:22:30.619
You want to make sure that you are focusing in
344
00:22:30.720 --> 00:22:33.349
on hard facts and not just fantasy.
345
00:22:33.390 --> 00:22:35.130
Maybe he's seeking attention or something.
346
00:22:36.009 --> 00:22:41.549
Kearney confessed to killing a man in his apartment in 1968.
347
00:22:41.549 --> 00:22:43.589
Dan pressed for more details.
348
00:22:44.450 --> 00:22:47.710
And he said, I don't remember his name. How did
349
00:22:47.730 --> 00:22:50.130
you kill him? I shot him in the head with a.
350
00:22:50.039 --> 00:22:50.190
22.
351
00:22:50.190 --> 00:22:55.480
What did you do with the body? Well, I cut
352
00:22:55.539 --> 00:22:55.740
it up.
353
00:22:57.319 --> 00:23:00.640
And small pieces, and I put it in a box,
354
00:23:02.759 --> 00:23:06.309
and I put it underneath the apartment building I lived in.
355
00:23:07.230 --> 00:23:11.690
Kearney continued to describe gruesome details of how he'd removed
356
00:23:11.710 --> 00:23:14.250
the evidence from his poor victim's head.
357
00:23:14.910 --> 00:23:19.200
He was sufficiently aware, ballistically, that he knew that if
358
00:23:19.240 --> 00:23:22.960
he left the bullet, someone might find it and trace
359
00:23:23.019 --> 00:23:26.279
it back to the gun. And so Kearney took a
360
00:23:26.380 --> 00:23:29.849
hacksaw to the dead man's head to retrieve the bullet.
361
00:23:31.309 --> 00:23:34.329
Kearney drew a map of exactly where he'd left the
362
00:23:34.390 --> 00:23:39.279
remains over a decade before. While the interview continued, Dan
363
00:23:39.359 --> 00:23:44.460
instructed the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department to search underneath the garage.
364
00:23:45.279 --> 00:23:48.140
And they go to that department complex, and they're there
365
00:23:48.160 --> 00:23:51.390
within an hour, and they retrieve a box with a
366
00:23:52.839 --> 00:23:56.019
bunch of bones in it, a human skeleton that's been
367
00:23:56.099 --> 00:24:00.400
cut up. And the skull has a hole in it
368
00:24:00.599 --> 00:24:03.990
consistent with a. 22 caliber bullet. And you can see
369
00:24:04.009 --> 00:24:07.690
the hacksaw blade marks in the skull. So before we
370
00:24:07.730 --> 00:24:11.829
finished the interview, we had confirmation that this guy is
371
00:24:11.849 --> 00:24:12.430
telling the truth.
372
00:24:13.650 --> 00:24:17.309
The unidentified skeleton in the box was just one of
373
00:24:17.410 --> 00:24:21.700
Kearney's many victims. The vicious killer had been active for
374
00:24:21.700 --> 00:24:27.500
15 years. He told investigators how he targeted hitchhikers along
375
00:24:27.559 --> 00:24:30.039
the Southern California road network.
376
00:24:30.700 --> 00:24:34.380
The victims were alone. They were hitchhiking. They were quite
377
00:24:34.589 --> 00:24:37.250
easy to prey on. Kearney had access.
378
00:24:37.289 --> 00:24:38.509
He had opportunity.
379
00:24:39.079 --> 00:24:41.079
And I think there was some echoes of his own
380
00:24:41.119 --> 00:24:44.180
victimization as a child and as a young man here.
381
00:24:44.480 --> 00:24:46.819
So it's almost like he's trying to rewrite his own
382
00:24:46.859 --> 00:24:50.380
history here. He's putting himself in the role of the aggressor,
383
00:24:51.079 --> 00:24:53.559
I think perhaps to step into the shoes of those
384
00:24:53.619 --> 00:24:56.920
who bullied and victimized him. So that's quite interesting for me.
385
00:24:58.240 --> 00:25:03.259
By the 15th of July, 1977, Patrick Kearney had confessed
386
00:25:03.299 --> 00:25:07.119
to killing 32 young men and boys. One of his
387
00:25:07.220 --> 00:25:12.640
many revelations included the story of 21-year-old Larry Walters, a
388
00:25:12.680 --> 00:25:15.809
mechanic who was living in the town of Hawthorne just
389
00:25:15.900 --> 00:25:20.240
north of Redondo Beach in 1975.
390
00:25:20.769 --> 00:25:25.470
Although Larry was our older brother, we were really his
391
00:25:25.529 --> 00:25:28.869
older sisters because he was mentally slow. So at the
392
00:25:28.930 --> 00:25:32.210
age of 21, Larry had the mentality of maybe an
393
00:25:32.309 --> 00:25:36.759
eight to 10 year old child. He was not very streetwise.
394
00:25:39.619 --> 00:25:43.059
Larry was at his most content when he was surrounded
395
00:25:43.339 --> 00:25:44.079
by family.
396
00:25:45.500 --> 00:25:48.559
Larry was a very, very happy person, but we were
397
00:25:48.720 --> 00:25:53.450
very protective over him because He believed anything you told him.
398
00:25:53.769 --> 00:25:59.369
He trusted everybody. We had to watch over him to
399
00:25:59.430 --> 00:26:02.950
make sure that he didn't, you know, that people didn't
400
00:26:02.990 --> 00:26:03.920
take advantage of him.
401
00:26:05.160 --> 00:26:09.319
Karen vividly remembers the week Larry went missing in late
402
00:26:09.400 --> 00:26:11.940
October 1975.
403
00:26:12.579 --> 00:26:14.579
He just worked down at the end of the block
404
00:26:14.680 --> 00:26:17.859
from where I lived. And he had been coming to
405
00:26:17.900 --> 00:26:19.960
my house every day at noon on his lunch hour
406
00:26:20.339 --> 00:26:23.890
because he was waiting for some checks that were being
407
00:26:23.910 --> 00:26:27.049
mailed to him, money owed to him. He had just
408
00:26:27.109 --> 00:26:30.569
wrecked his car two weeks before. And I said to him,
409
00:26:32.150 --> 00:26:37.519
instead of going home tonight after work, why don't you
410
00:26:37.559 --> 00:26:39.420
just stay at my house tonight, get up in the
411
00:26:39.460 --> 00:26:41.640
morning and go to work, and that way you don't
412
00:26:41.680 --> 00:26:42.299
have to hitchhike.
413
00:26:43.250 --> 00:26:46.470
As Karen headed out to a Halloween party, she had
414
00:26:46.589 --> 00:26:49.299
no idea it would be the last time she would
415
00:26:49.380 --> 00:26:50.180
see her brother.
416
00:26:51.140 --> 00:26:54.140
The last day that I saw Larry, he was upbeat,
417
00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:57.680
nothing out of the norm, said he'd see me the
418
00:26:57.740 --> 00:27:01.960
next day. And we went to the party, and when
419
00:27:02.000 --> 00:27:04.829
we got home, it's like 3 in the morning, my
420
00:27:04.869 --> 00:27:08.210
lights were on, my TV was on, my house was
421
00:27:08.269 --> 00:27:11.170
in a little disarray, and Larry was very neat and clean.
422
00:27:11.960 --> 00:27:14.400
And so I thought, well, he just ran out for
423
00:27:14.420 --> 00:27:14.700
a minute.
424
00:27:14.720 --> 00:27:15.259
He'll be back.
425
00:27:16.079 --> 00:27:19.279
So we just went to bed thinking everything was fine.
426
00:27:20.759 --> 00:27:24.390
The following morning when Karen woke, it seemed that Larry
427
00:27:24.650 --> 00:27:26.170
had already left for work.
428
00:27:27.309 --> 00:27:31.589
Later on that morning, the mail came and his checks came.
429
00:27:32.599 --> 00:27:34.940
And so he didn't come at lunchtime. And he had
430
00:27:34.980 --> 00:27:39.130
come every day that week at lunch. And so... I
431
00:27:39.309 --> 00:27:40.809
went down to his work at the end of the
432
00:27:40.869 --> 00:27:42.569
corner and his boss told me he didn't show up
433
00:27:42.609 --> 00:27:46.329
for work. And so we knew something was up, but
434
00:27:46.430 --> 00:27:48.950
I thought, did he go out with some friends and
435
00:27:49.650 --> 00:27:52.130
just didn't sleep and didn't go to work?
436
00:27:53.029 --> 00:27:57.170
The following morning, however, there was still no word from Larry.
437
00:27:57.190 --> 00:28:00.589
The next morning, my mother called me and said Larry
438
00:28:00.630 --> 00:28:03.349
was supposed to have come today and he didn't. And
439
00:28:03.390 --> 00:28:07.390
then we knew something was wrong. So my mother went
440
00:28:07.410 --> 00:28:14.109
and filed a... missing persons in that area. And then
441
00:28:14.150 --> 00:28:14.609
we waited.
442
00:28:16.910 --> 00:28:20.470
This poor family suffered for two years not knowing what
443
00:28:20.529 --> 00:28:24.549
happened to Larry. And it was only when Kearney confessed
444
00:28:24.650 --> 00:28:26.789
in 1977 that they actually.
445
00:28:26.519 --> 00:28:27.279
Knew what happened.
446
00:28:29.019 --> 00:28:32.200
The day that the police contacted my mother and said
447
00:28:32.220 --> 00:28:34.059
they needed to speak to me because I was the
448
00:28:34.099 --> 00:28:38.420
last one to see him, they wanted to get my
449
00:28:38.480 --> 00:28:42.680
story of and corroborate it with what Kearney had told them.
450
00:28:43.920 --> 00:28:48.029
Kearney had told the investigators exactly what had happened to
451
00:28:48.069 --> 00:28:51.170
Larry Walters on that fateful Halloween night.
452
00:28:52.450 --> 00:28:56.609
Larry is used to hitchhiking, and so perfectly prepared to
453
00:28:56.650 --> 00:29:02.470
accept a lift from this mild-mannered, ordinary-looking little man, Kearney
454
00:29:02.539 --> 00:29:07.240
drives him back to his house in Redondo Beach. But
455
00:29:07.839 --> 00:29:13.119
Larry has underestimated the man who's picked him up. Tragically,
456
00:29:13.740 --> 00:29:20.920
Kearney shoots him in the head and kills him.
457
00:29:20.940 --> 00:29:24.529
I remember the police, after all of the questions they
458
00:29:24.609 --> 00:29:28.670
asked me, asking me, do you have any questions? And
459
00:29:28.730 --> 00:29:31.049
I said, yes, I have just one. And my mom
460
00:29:31.089 --> 00:29:34.269
knew what it was going to be. And she left
461
00:29:34.309 --> 00:29:40.339
the room. Begging me not to ask it. And the
462
00:29:40.410 --> 00:29:42.339
officer told me, I know what you want to know.
463
00:29:42.579 --> 00:29:48.519
Did he suffer? And I said, yes. And he said, no,
464
00:29:48.559 --> 00:29:50.579
Larry never knew anything from start to finish.
465
00:29:50.599 --> 00:29:54.299
And I have to believe that.
466
00:29:57.799 --> 00:30:00.119
It wasn't like he was in a car accident or
467
00:30:00.269 --> 00:30:03.170
that he was in the hospital. We could say our goodbyes.
468
00:30:07.750 --> 00:30:10.829
When I saw him on Friday, I didn't know it
469
00:30:10.849 --> 00:30:11.710
was the last time.
470
00:30:15.759 --> 00:30:19.819
The body of 21-year-old Larry Walters has never been found.
471
00:30:21.380 --> 00:30:24.539
The family haven't been able to say goodbye because they
472
00:30:24.559 --> 00:30:27.109
don't have a body. And this is really significant for
473
00:30:27.150 --> 00:30:30.289
me because Kearney is an offender who is incredibly organised.
474
00:30:30.430 --> 00:30:33.430
He knows exactly where this body is. But I think
475
00:30:33.490 --> 00:30:36.289
he's not going to reveal the location of it because
476
00:30:36.349 --> 00:30:39.819
bodies tell stories. They tell us what happened in regards
477
00:30:39.880 --> 00:30:42.740
to a particular murder. And there is something about this
478
00:30:42.779 --> 00:30:45.480
story that Kearney does not want out in the open.
479
00:30:45.910 --> 00:30:49.029
and that's really significant for me, but it's really significant
480
00:30:49.049 --> 00:30:51.369
for the family as well because they will continue to
481
00:30:51.430 --> 00:30:53.970
suffer whilst he still retains his information.
482
00:30:55.420 --> 00:31:01.339
During the police interview, Kearney unashamedly detailed his perverse necrophilia.
483
00:31:02.519 --> 00:31:05.059
After he shot them in the head, he would cut
484
00:31:05.099 --> 00:31:08.349
a hole in them and have sexual intercourse with their
485
00:31:08.369 --> 00:31:11.130
bodies because he felt empowered by it.
486
00:31:12.650 --> 00:31:14.839
This is a killer who is a lot more comfortable
487
00:31:14.859 --> 00:31:16.960
with the dead than he is with the living because
488
00:31:17.019 --> 00:31:20.819
the dead are easier to control. They cannot insult you.
489
00:31:20.880 --> 00:31:23.160
They can't reject you. They can't make you feel bad
490
00:31:23.180 --> 00:31:23.839
about yourself.
491
00:31:24.640 --> 00:31:29.700
The nefarious killer appeared to display no shame during his confessions.
492
00:31:31.170 --> 00:31:33.349
You would be able to have a conversation with him
493
00:31:33.430 --> 00:31:36.569
sitting here and talk about a lot of things and
494
00:31:36.710 --> 00:31:41.519
never have an inkling that there's something wrong There's something
495
00:31:41.619 --> 00:31:44.319
weird about this guy. You would not get that feeling
496
00:31:44.359 --> 00:31:44.920
with this man.
497
00:31:46.400 --> 00:31:49.859
There were no tears running down his cheeks. There was
498
00:31:49.920 --> 00:31:56.400
no remorse. There was no empathy for the victims. There
499
00:31:56.420 --> 00:32:01.380
was absolutely no understanding of the pain he'd caused their families.
500
00:32:02.269 --> 00:32:06.569
Absolutely blank. And I think that's how he got away
501
00:32:07.049 --> 00:32:10.430
with hiding in plain sight for all those years.
502
00:32:12.589 --> 00:32:16.789
Once Kearney's confession was done, investigators had to try and
503
00:32:16.910 --> 00:32:20.539
link the killer's confessions to actual missing persons.
504
00:32:21.180 --> 00:32:23.839
Well, it took a long time to interview him and
505
00:32:23.880 --> 00:32:29.759
get all of his stories correct. And then the law
506
00:32:29.779 --> 00:32:35.829
enforcement contacted other jurisdictions, in other words, to try to
507
00:32:35.869 --> 00:32:39.789
match up his stories with actual bodies or missing persons,
508
00:32:40.710 --> 00:32:43.450
that work went on for some length of time.
509
00:32:44.099 --> 00:32:49.180
In December 1977, Patrick Kearney pleaded guilty to the murder
510
00:32:49.400 --> 00:32:52.059
of the three men whose bodies had been found in
511
00:32:52.160 --> 00:32:59.500
Riverside County. Arturo Marquez, John LeMay, and 21-year-old Albert Rivera.
512
00:33:00.599 --> 00:33:04.119
Despite sharing a home with his partner for nine years,
513
00:33:04.539 --> 00:33:07.519
a house where human blood had been found, it was
514
00:33:07.599 --> 00:33:11.400
Kearney who and Kearney alone, who was charged with the murders.
515
00:33:12.680 --> 00:33:15.089
When we took the case and presented this physical evidence,
516
00:33:15.289 --> 00:33:18.990
the confession, and the testimony to the grand jury, they
517
00:33:19.029 --> 00:33:20.950
did not indict David Hill, and he.
518
00:33:20.930 --> 00:33:21.450
Was let free.
519
00:33:23.250 --> 00:33:27.390
Kearney was sentenced to life in prison, but investigators hadn't
520
00:33:27.430 --> 00:33:31.910
finished with him yet. In February 1978, he was charged
521
00:33:31.950 --> 00:33:36.130
with a further 18 killings in neighboring Los Angeles County.
522
00:33:37.039 --> 00:33:41.900
Deputy DA John Braul led the prosecution against the so-called
523
00:33:42.269 --> 00:33:43.369
trash bag killer.
524
00:33:44.619 --> 00:33:47.710
When I took over the case, Mr. Kearney had already
525
00:33:47.730 --> 00:33:51.450
been arrested and it was just tying all the loose
526
00:33:51.529 --> 00:33:55.650
ends together and assimilating all the information so that we
527
00:33:55.710 --> 00:33:56.750
had a fileable case.
528
00:33:57.710 --> 00:34:01.289
Kearney had already confessed to the murders and the evidence
529
00:34:01.349 --> 00:34:05.470
against him was strong. Investigators had found a link between
530
00:34:05.509 --> 00:34:08.849
the killer and a number of his victims, a very
531
00:34:08.909 --> 00:34:14.030
specific item that was readily available to the 38-year-old engineer.
532
00:34:14.750 --> 00:34:18.150
The police officers tied Patrick to these cases because of
533
00:34:18.210 --> 00:34:20.679
the type of tape he used to wrap his victims in.
534
00:34:21.260 --> 00:34:24.739
After he killed the victims, he cut them up, wrapped
535
00:34:24.760 --> 00:34:28.139
them in plastic bags, and then wrap those bags with
536
00:34:28.179 --> 00:34:32.030
a very distinctive tape that's only used in one place
537
00:34:32.070 --> 00:34:34.929
in Southern California, and that's at Hughes Aircraft.
538
00:34:36.030 --> 00:34:40.050
Kearney had taken the distinctive tape and trash bags he
539
00:34:40.230 --> 00:34:43.269
used to dispose of his victims' bodies from his place
540
00:34:43.340 --> 00:34:46.380
of work. It was also where he'd spotted one of
541
00:34:46.420 --> 00:34:50.980
his youngest victims. For a seasoned prosecutor like John, the
542
00:34:51.039 --> 00:34:55.019
heartbreaking story of the 8-year-old boy who lost his life
543
00:34:55.079 --> 00:34:57.880
at the hands of Patrick Kearney was the one that
544
00:34:57.960 --> 00:34:58.519
stood out.
545
00:34:59.239 --> 00:35:02.260
The case I remember most, it was a little different
546
00:35:02.300 --> 00:35:06.829
than the other cases. It's Mero Hondo Chance. Chance was
547
00:35:06.889 --> 00:35:09.869
riding his bicycle in the parking lot at Hughes Aircraft
548
00:35:09.909 --> 00:35:12.869
and had a problem. Patrick Wayne Kearney came out and
549
00:35:12.949 --> 00:35:15.590
saw and tried to help him. He eventually put the
550
00:35:15.630 --> 00:35:17.969
bicycle in the back of the pickup truck that he
551
00:35:18.090 --> 00:35:21.380
used in the other murders, drove him to a bike
552
00:35:21.420 --> 00:35:23.460
shop at the corner of Washington.
553
00:35:22.940 --> 00:35:25.420
And Sepulveda Boulevards, got the.
554
00:35:25.380 --> 00:35:28.219
Bike fixed, took him down for a hamburger and shake
555
00:35:28.320 --> 00:35:31.809
at the hamburger stand next to Tito's Tacos at the
556
00:35:31.849 --> 00:35:33.849
corner of Washington and Sepulveda.
557
00:35:33.710 --> 00:35:41.099
Boulevards, And Kearney adds a little extra piquant something to
558
00:35:41.139 --> 00:35:44.920
the invitation. He tells the boy, I tell you what,
559
00:35:45.480 --> 00:35:48.699
one day I'll take you to Disneyland. The boy must
560
00:35:48.800 --> 00:35:50.340
have been thrilled.
561
00:35:51.699 --> 00:35:54.900
But Kearney had no intention of taking Morell to a
562
00:35:54.980 --> 00:35:59.179
theme park. Unlike his other victims, Kearney didn't kill the
563
00:35:59.320 --> 00:36:04.769
eight-year-old for sexual gratifications. He killed Muriel Hondo Chance because
564
00:36:04.809 --> 00:36:06.789
he was worried about getting caught.
565
00:36:07.650 --> 00:36:09.570
He was with him for a period of time, for
566
00:36:09.610 --> 00:36:15.010
a couple of hours. And in Patrick Wayne Kearney's mind,
567
00:36:15.309 --> 00:36:20.809
he had said or intimated enough information to Hondo Chance
568
00:36:21.630 --> 00:36:26.489
that if Muriel Hondo Chance spoke to anyone about that,
569
00:36:26.969 --> 00:36:29.829
the police officers would find out and know that Patrick
570
00:36:29.849 --> 00:36:33.800
Wayne Kearney was the killer. and that's why he killed
571
00:36:34.280 --> 00:36:35.159
Muriel Hondo Chance.
572
00:36:36.719 --> 00:36:40.710
As the prosecution were processing the paperwork for 18 murders,
573
00:36:41.130 --> 00:36:45.449
including that of Muriel Hondo Chance, Patrick Kearney, just as
574
00:36:45.489 --> 00:36:49.650
he had in Riverside County, decided not to contest any
575
00:36:49.829 --> 00:36:50.570
of the charges.
576
00:36:51.840 --> 00:36:57.039
At the preliminary hearing in Los Angeles, the municipal judge
577
00:36:57.679 --> 00:37:01.619
asked him why he'd done it. The families of the
578
00:37:01.679 --> 00:37:05.300
victims want to know why. Can you tell us why?
579
00:37:06.500 --> 00:37:11.119
And Kearney said, and I quote precisely, I'd prefer not to.
580
00:37:12.610 --> 00:37:15.690
I don't think he was ashamed. I don't think he
581
00:37:15.730 --> 00:37:18.769
was embarrassed by this. It was just a matter of fact.
582
00:37:19.289 --> 00:37:20.989
He might as well have been talking about living on
583
00:37:21.010 --> 00:37:27.110
a farm and, you know, killing your cow and steers
584
00:37:27.170 --> 00:37:33.269
and pigs for food. He just had no emotion about it.
585
00:37:35.150 --> 00:37:39.219
It soon became clear that Patrick Kearney pleaded guilty to
586
00:37:39.239 --> 00:37:41.340
protect his partner, David Hill.
587
00:37:42.320 --> 00:37:45.659
Patrick Wayne Kearney did not go to trial because he
588
00:37:45.699 --> 00:37:48.800
made a deal that the DA's office would not seek
589
00:37:48.820 --> 00:37:52.610
the death penalty if we did not go after his
590
00:37:52.710 --> 00:37:58.000
roommate on any of these charges. Patrick pled guilty to
591
00:37:58.000 --> 00:38:01.679
21 counts first degree murder with use. That also would
592
00:38:01.719 --> 00:38:06.559
merge with the three counts from Riverside. They all, after
593
00:38:06.619 --> 00:38:10.340
he was sentenced, merged by law into one count of murder.
594
00:38:11.860 --> 00:38:15.780
We will never know for certain how many people Kearney killed.
595
00:38:16.440 --> 00:38:19.699
What we can say with some degree of certainty is
596
00:38:19.719 --> 00:38:25.190
that there were probably more than 21 victims. Chillingly, Even
597
00:38:25.250 --> 00:38:28.750
the killer couldn't remember how many people he'd killed.
598
00:38:29.849 --> 00:38:34.289
Kearney's admission of sole responsibility for the death of 21
599
00:38:34.289 --> 00:38:38.610
people meant that his victims' families may never truly know
600
00:38:38.969 --> 00:38:41.349
what really happened to their loved ones.
601
00:38:42.389 --> 00:38:46.030
I would like to have seen Kearney pilloried in court,
602
00:38:46.739 --> 00:38:49.820
not least for the benefit of the victims' families.
603
00:38:50.440 --> 00:38:53.159
They were airbrushed out of the story.
604
00:38:53.920 --> 00:38:54.139
Yes.
605
00:38:55.010 --> 00:38:58.210
I know there were a lot of them, but many
606
00:38:58.250 --> 00:39:01.190
of them felt they had been denied, cheated out of
607
00:39:01.230 --> 00:39:02.110
their day in court.
608
00:39:04.389 --> 00:39:06.750
As ever, Kearney was.
609
00:39:06.670 --> 00:39:13.500
Manipulative, deceitful, and denied them their right. It was truly despicable.
610
00:39:14.940 --> 00:39:18.199
But the fact that Kearney was behind bars was a
611
00:39:18.260 --> 00:39:21.760
sweet relief for Patricia, the mother of John LeMay.
612
00:39:22.559 --> 00:39:25.659
I remember her saying that the greatest comfort that she
613
00:39:26.900 --> 00:39:30.739
takes from John's death is that John, is the one
614
00:39:30.760 --> 00:39:35.159
that caught Patrick Kearney and that he could do it
615
00:39:35.219 --> 00:39:38.300
no more. And it seemed like that was what really
616
00:39:38.340 --> 00:39:41.510
gave her peace of mind and heart, that she came
617
00:39:41.550 --> 00:39:45.429
to grips with that, that, you know, if it meant
618
00:39:45.590 --> 00:39:49.050
for no one else to be killed, almost like a sacrifice,
619
00:39:49.070 --> 00:39:49.929
then so be it.
620
00:39:51.409 --> 00:39:54.469
It had been a tough journey for the family members
621
00:39:54.800 --> 00:39:56.599
of many of the other victims.
622
00:39:58.199 --> 00:40:00.760
When he was spoken of as one of the victims,
623
00:40:00.940 --> 00:40:04.460
they would say John LeMay and 20 others, and our
624
00:40:04.519 --> 00:40:07.159
brother was never really mentioned, and we feel like he
625
00:40:07.280 --> 00:40:12.000
fell under the radar and he mattered. Larry was sweet
626
00:40:12.039 --> 00:40:20.530
and kind and innocent, and he fell victim to somebody
627
00:40:20.550 --> 00:40:24.389
that we consider evil. And we don't want to be here,
628
00:40:24.690 --> 00:40:28.369
but we think it's important for everybody to know who
629
00:40:28.409 --> 00:40:30.309
these people were that we lost.
630
00:40:31.730 --> 00:40:36.570
So it's difficult, but it's important.
631
00:40:40.519 --> 00:40:43.519
I think having to rely on your loved one's killer
632
00:40:43.880 --> 00:40:47.019
for the narrative, for the story of a murder is
633
00:40:47.059 --> 00:40:51.699
really devastating because They have control over that narrative. The
634
00:40:51.739 --> 00:40:54.579
victim has been silenced. They can't tell their side of
635
00:40:54.599 --> 00:40:57.000
the story. This is something I come across in a
636
00:40:57.039 --> 00:41:00.119
lot of cases where there's a no-body murder. You are
637
00:41:00.159 --> 00:41:03.980
completely reliant on the testimony of the serial killer, and
638
00:41:04.019 --> 00:41:06.119
as we know, they are wholly unreliable.
639
00:41:08.909 --> 00:41:13.730
Patrick Kearney robbed the Walters family of a lifetime of memories.
640
00:41:14.849 --> 00:41:21.179
Fondest memory of probably one of the last pictures I
641
00:41:21.239 --> 00:41:25.679
have with him is holding my daughter on Easter of
642
00:41:25.719 --> 00:41:28.019
the year he died with her Easter basket she was
643
00:41:28.059 --> 00:41:31.320
a year old and him just smiling.
644
00:41:32.780 --> 00:41:39.449
We want people to hear Larry Gene Walters we want
645
00:41:39.489 --> 00:41:41.389
them to know he was important.
646
00:41:47.739 --> 00:41:51.699
Patrick Kearney is currently serving life at Mule Creek State
647
00:41:51.760 --> 00:41:56.769
Prison in California. The killer confessed to 32 murders during
648
00:41:56.829 --> 00:42:03.170
his initial interrogation in July 1977. So investigators are certain
649
00:42:03.469 --> 00:42:06.610
that he is guilty of more than just the 21
650
00:42:06.610 --> 00:42:08.349
killings he was convicted of.
651
00:42:09.269 --> 00:42:12.289
If Kearney hadn't been caught, he would have gone on
652
00:42:12.789 --> 00:42:19.250
and on and on. Serial killers never stop. They escalate,
653
00:42:20.150 --> 00:42:23.449
and Kearney was a perfect example of that.
654
00:42:25.320 --> 00:42:29.139
I remember a lot of my cases, but obviously this
655
00:42:29.239 --> 00:42:34.619
was the most number of dead bodies that I ever handled,
656
00:42:35.659 --> 00:42:38.119
and that's probably the reason I remember it.
657
00:42:39.530 --> 00:42:45.809
His lack of emotion, his matter-of-fact attitude, and kind of
658
00:42:45.849 --> 00:42:47.170
a shrug of his shoulder accepting it.
659
00:42:47.989 --> 00:42:54.360
To me, that's real evil. I can still see him.
660
00:42:55.380 --> 00:42:57.800
If I think about him in my mind's eye, I
661
00:42:57.860 --> 00:42:59.699
can still picture him as he appeared then.
662
00:43:00.320 --> 00:43:01.639
You won't forget something like that.
663
00:43:05.460 --> 00:43:09.269
Kearney was a callous killer who terminated the life of
664
00:43:09.309 --> 00:43:13.070
his innocent victims for nothing more than his own perverse
665
00:43:13.170 --> 00:43:17.099
sexual pleasure. We may never know how many young men
666
00:43:17.139 --> 00:43:21.570
he picked up and murdered, but his cold-hearted confession proves
667
00:43:21.610 --> 00:43:25.550
that he had no remorse for them whatsoever, which makes
668
00:43:25.650 --> 00:43:29.389
Patrick Kearney one of the world's most evil killers.
