In the early 90s, Riverside's women became the target of a sadistic killer. We have body problems in the county. We're around this big 24-7. His victims subjected to a twisted form of brutality.
He had taken the breast that he had cut off and tossed it maybe 30, 40 feet away. As his confidence grew... He wanted to be in power. He wanted to be in authority.
He wanted to be in control. The body count rose. We had to catch it. He wasn't going to stop.
Once you get the taste of blood like that in your serial murder, you're going to continue doing it. But what was the root of his inner fury? He would turn around and look at me and it's like, oh God, you know, now I'm going to get it. And was he born to kill?
Riverside City in Southern California, a community originally built on the rich pickings of a booming citrus industry. By the 1990s, the farming fortunes had faded away, but a shift to light industry had revitalized the local economy, ensuring the sun-drenched community was still firmly on the map. Riverside was very much considered a suburb of the Los Angeles area. We were about 50 miles east of Los Angeles and in Orange County, and it was a very quiet community.
People loved it. It was very social, very friendly. It reminded me a lot of southern communities. Although crime figures were generally low, one area did not live up to the city's clean cut reputation.
This was quite the boulevard in the day where everybody hung out. Former detective Christine Kears recalls Riverside's notorious crime hotspot. University Avenue was, I would say, a cluttered street, disheveled drug dealers, gang members, prostitutes. After dark, you didn't want to drive down there if you were a normal citizen.
From the freeway up, the girls would hang out and the Johns would pick them up. They were drug users. They had families to support, so they would go out and work the streets, getting money, turning tricks, getting their heroine and taking care of their families. Although detective Kears was used to the daily challenges thrown up by the streets, a call to a factory complex in December 1991 would reveal a crime of an altogether different nature.
The middle section of this trash bin holder was open, and the body was right here. 27-year-old local prostitute Susan Sternfield had been brutally strangled. But the killer's twisted actions had not ended there. He had elaborately positioned the victim's body after she had died.
She was what we call posed. She wasn't just laid out, she wasn't just dumped there. Her feet, her hands, her legs were positioned by the perpetrator. The body was posed for us, legs open, basically saying, here's your trash, it's right here.
It brings back those four memories. But the bizarre nature of the crime had been witnessed before in Riverside. There was a worker at another industrial complex who was cleaning, and he went to the dumpster and found a body lying inside. As in the case of Susan Sternfield, prostitute Sheryl Koka had been brutally strangled.
The killer had also spent time displaying the victim's body after her death. She was basically laid there, her legs were spread apart. Rarely does the killer position the body, or take the clothes off the body. It was a very purposeful, specific killing.
When a killer poses victims, it's a kind of in-your-face statement to whoever finds them. It adds one more layer to their feeling of power. Detectives were also shocked to discover that the victim's body had been grotesquely mutilated. On Cheryl, there was a severed breast.
We found it up the hill where he would have thrown it. It was probably at least around 50 to 70 feet from the body, so it was a purposeful heave. That he obviously did not like prostitutes or did not like ladies of this nature because of the violence that had taken place with her. As detective Kears compared the cases of the two murdered women, she quickly began to fear the worst.
I went back and spoke with my superiors and told them that we've got a pattern going here. So where this is going to take us we'll find out. We were beginning to sense that we had a serial killer in our midst. The Riverside community would remain unaware of the danger lurking amongst them.
One such resident was easygoing local Bill Suff. 23 years previously, he had been fresh out of high school in nearby Lake Eltonor. As an awkward teenager, he had never managed to land a long-term girlfriend. But one local girl had caught his eye.
That was about 15. And it was at a football game in California. I saw him and he seemed like a pretty nice guy. He was good looking.
And he had a nice smile. He was kind of shy. I gave my phone number. I said, give me a call.
And I really did not expect to hear from him again. Although Bill relocated to Texas for basic military training, he exchanged a number of letters with Terrell. However, some weeks later, a phone call from the new recruit would be met by some shocking news. I did tell him that I wasn't going to be able to see him anymore because I had been raped and I got pregnant.
And he said, no, let's get married. I'll take care of your child. And so December 13, 1969, we were married. The newly wedded serviceman was away in Texas when Terrell's daughter was born.
He came back and told me that we couldn't take the baby back with us to Texas because he had told him the superiors that the baby died. And then kind of threw me. Bill would arrange for his mother and stepfather to adopt Terrell's newly born baby. Several years earlier, Suff's own childhood in a single parent family had fallen somewhat short of the All-American Dream.
Bill Suff grew up with a very dominant, cold, non-loving mother. He was always trying to acquire his mother's approval, and she denied it to him at every turn. His father left when they were young, so conversations about the past. I think he was trying to avoid him.
As the eldest of five siblings, Suff would take on a leading role in the household. Bill's place in the family was really the substitute patriarch. The other kids got into trouble ranging from killing animals to starting fires. And Bill was always the hero who got them out of trouble.
The fact that Suff had to take over a lot of responsibilities when his father left would have affected him in some ways. But I think because of this, he probably found a way of controlling others and controlling his environment. But despite being a dominant force at home, Suff wouldn't stand out at school. He was involved in the high school marching band.
He didn't have any disciplinary issues or problems. His grades were pretty average, nothing unusual. But the reserved teenager was evidently not happy with his lot. He was trying to get attention from his different classmates.
You know, he was like a non-entity. Most of his friends and acquaintances didn't think of him as certainly the big man on campus. He was desperate for approval and recognition, and he wasn't receiving it from anybody. And it just infuriated him.
It created this powerful rage in him to prove his worth, his value, and his power, basically. As Suff continued his studies, no one could have ever imagined the extent to which he would go. To make his mark in Riverside County. In December 1990, police suspected a link between the brutal murders of two Riverside prostitutes.
Both victims had been strangled and elaborately displayed in a ritualistic manner. As police searched for leads, they were desperate to catch the perpetrator who was striking directly at the vulnerable women within the community. The women that would work University Avenue were actually pretty well known. Many of them grew up in the Riverside area.
That's where they went to school. Their families were there as well. Having worked in the Vice Squad, detective Keir's knew the girls well and was determined to restore safety on the streets. I think they felt like I understood, so they would share things with me.
I would make sure I would go out and meet the girls, and I would give them advice until, you know, be very careful. I'm not here to arrest you. I'm just letting you know that we have a crazy man out here that's killing prostitutes. Many were left with little choice, but to continue working the streets.
Ten months earlier, one such woman in nearby Lake Elsinore had been 35-year-old Carol Lynn Miller. My mom was this tiny little pretty thing, but she was like a force of nature. She was the sweet, loving mom, and she liked to write poems and draw and go to church. I have photographs that we would take during that time, and I can see them in my face.
I can see them in my eyes and my smile, just how happy I was to be with my mother. However, Carol Lynn's life was becoming increasingly troubled. Although he frequently visited her, Shannon would predominantly be brought up by his grandparents. She also had this dark side that was kind of shrouded by drugs, so I got to see both sides of her.
She was a prostitute, and I had to come to terms with that. But through all those times, she was always my mom, and as I got older, I started to understand more of her struggles. But in February 1990, tragedy struck. My grandma threw arms around me and said, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Your mom passed away. Carol Lynn's body had been discovered in an isolated spot within a citrus grove. Her body had been displayed in a brazen manner, after her death caused by asphyxiation and multiple stab wounds. She had a number of centered stab wounds to her chest.
They weren't random, not slashing, just very deliberate. I got hit with a sledgehammer, that's what it felt like to me. My body swelled with emotion. I felt like the world was collapsing and around me.
And I went out to my little trailer that I lived in behind grandma's, and I just laid on the bed collapsing. Although Carol Lynn's display body bought a marks of a brutal attack, an object discovered at the scene revealed a different side to her twisted killer. There was a partial eating grapefruit by the body. If he felt he could eat a grapefruit by standing there and looking at the body, looking at admiring his work.
That would tell one that he is definitely not worried about the police catching him. When an individual goes above and beyond what is necessary to kill the person, it tells you just how gratifying it is for him to expose himself to the risk of apprehension in order to carry out what he's doing. The sheriff's department had also discovered two other victims, bizarrely displayed on open ground. Their bodies subjected to mutilation and other grotesque forms of abuse.
One victim was found with a light bulb that had been inserted in a provaginal area. We had items stuffed down people's throats and mouths after they were dead. When detective Keir's linked the method of murder with the cases in Riverside, there could be no doubt the sadistic crimes were the work of one man. The cause of death in these cases were strangulation.
The pressure was so much it would break the bone here. So it was quite violent. The strangulation for murder is very personal. It puts the person very close to the victim and feeling the life force leaving.
So that is often about domination and feeling of power. Despite a lack of witnesses, the brazen killer had left time arcs and carpet fibers at many of the murder scenes, giving investigators an insight into his movements. And so they realized the perpetrator was going back and forth between the county sheriff's department area and the city in the same vehicles and that they needed to combine resources to finding this person and stopping him. As detectives created a joint task force, Riverside County Warehouse would be called upon to help with logistics.
One of the regular stock clerks was local man, 40-year-old Bill Suff. He would provide us with all the equipment, all the desks, all the chairs that we needed to create the task force site. As well as carrying out his duties, the diligent employee would also show an interest in the ongoing investigation. He had conversations with our investigators about the homicide victims.
Matter of fact, the homicide victim was found one morning when two of the investigators were with Bill and their page went off and Bill made the comment to them, oh, did you find another body? Twenty years earlier, Bill Suff had just relocated to Texas to pursue a life in the Air Force. However, his career as an aide in a military hospital hadn't been illustrious. His military career was essentially unremarkable, certainly not glorious.
I do not know what kind of discharge he got. One day he's in, the next day he's not. And it would soon become apparent that the newly married Suff's were not headed for wedded bliss. Bill's relationship with Terrell was one of manipulation, control.
He didn't let me go into the laundromat alone. He didn't let me go into grocery shopping alone. He was the one that was supposed to be in charge of everything. Our sex life was, you know, you're ready when I am.
I would lay down and do it and be glad. And Terrell would soon discover more worrying signs from her domineering partner. We had a kitten and one night he was meowing and meowing and meowing and Bill told him to shut up. And the cat just meowing me on so he had a little BB gun and he shot him with a BB gun.
And killed it. And that scared the P.G.s out of me. Although the arrival of a baby boy was met with Suff's approval, his enthusiasm didn't last. He was pleased right after the baby was born but then really took up an awful lot of my time.
So I couldn't pay the total attention to Bill. Terrell would become increasingly disturbed as her husband's behavior towards their son deteriorated. He would smack him on the face. I told him you don't do that.
And he would kind of turn around and look at me and he was like, oh God, you know, now I'm going to get it. He had no attachment or no bonding to anybody, including children. It meant nothing to him to be the child. He doesn't see them as people.
He sees them merely as objects and very similar to the way he saw his wife. They belong to him. They're his possessions. Despite Suff's abusive behavior, the couple would have another child.
With Terrell working to make ends meet, Suff would become the stay-at-home dad until tragedy struck in 1973. He called me and said something's wrong with the baby. So I said I gotta go. When Terrell arrived back at her flat in Fort Worth, she headed straight for the couple's bedroom.
D.G.A. was laying on the bed and Bill was saying there's something wrong, she's not breathing, there's something wrong. And I'm like, did you call an ambulance? He says no.
When the emergency services finally arrived on the scene, it would prove too late for the baby girl. They pronounced it as an idiot. Then I found out that it's so abused. The injuries that the doctors were able to diagnose on D.G.A.
were extensive and indicated chronic physical abuse. Her liver had actually been ruptured by a fist blow to her stomach. He tried to give the impression that he was upset, but I never saw tears. A Texas court would sentence Bill Suff to 70 years in prison for the murder of his two-month-old daughter.
Seventeen years later, in 1991, the posed body of a sixth prostitute, Kathleen Puckett, had been discovered near Lake Elsonor. Police would focus their search on the victim's regular workplace. Riverside City is notorious University Avenue. He's the only person in the capital for his term because of his poor post-apocalyptic case.
I don't think the girls really don't like their investigation, even though they were warned. He's talking to the cops, he's talking to the cops, he's texting himself. Everybody's just never having to do anything to him. But despite the focus of their investigation, a break in the case would eventually come from out of county.
A tip-off in Wisconsin established a prime suspect for the twisted murders that had plagued Riverside for every year. We thought that the suspect might be a truck driver because they fit a lot of profile type of information. Going out there, we felt this is our guy. It was published in the newspaper that we were all back in the Midwest, looking at a suspect in this case.
But as investigators headed out of state, detective Kears would be forced to return to the back alleys of Riverside City, as yet another murder was unveiled. The body was located over here in the dirt outside the back door here. And there was no mistaking whose work it was. Riverside's serial killer had struck again.
The body was laid out, annued, exposed. Her legs were spread out and her arms were not just randomly dumped. To expose their genitalia in private areas would be disgusting for a woman to know that somebody has done that to her. The body would be identified as another prostitute, 24-year-old Sherry Pacer.
Sherry Pacer was a deaf girl, young, sweet. This was a very sad situation. As the remainder of the task force returned from the false lead in Wisconsin, police felt there was little doubt that the killer was sending them a very personal message. He was mad.
He was responding to the fact that this task force had gone off and diverted attention from whatever he was doing. I think he thought, oh, I'll show them. I'm right here still. In 1991, Riverside Police and the Sheriff's Department had formed a task force to hunt a prolific ritualistic killer, praying on local prostitutes throughout the county.
But as the body count hit seven, the elusive perpetrator remained one step ahead of the authorities. I'm in the body. We're in the body. I've been in the body.
I've been in the body for one of one typical kids. It's all. And once we have an announcement of the newspaper that a body had been found, it wasn't much longer we'd have another body. So it told me that this guy is just running wild.
Seven years earlier, in 1984, local man Bill Suff had been paroled in Texas, having served just 10 years for the murder of his baby daughter. Newly divorced, the 34-year-old had decided to relocate. Despite the fact that he was supposed to not leave the jurisdiction, Bill came back to his old stomping grounds at Riverside and Lake Elsinore, and just started his life over as if anything wrong that had occurred to him in just a big mistake, and he was an innocent man. He was very mild-mannered.
He was friendly. He was outgoing. He was helping people. He was your next-door neighbor.
Bill Suff liked to be known as somebody who was standing up for Truth Justice in the American Way. And he was going to be there to protect you, certainly to the extent of being someone who was out, watching your back when you weren't watching it. Bill would hold down a variety of jobs in Riverside City, and was always keen to get involved in the community. He won the Chile cook-off at the County Employees' Picnic one year.
And the county had a ride-share program, so employees would get together and environmentally do the right thing, and commute to and from work together. He was the poster boy with his silver van. He was there smiling on the cover, and the headline said, Take a Ride with Bill. In 1990, 40-year-old Suff would marry an 18-year-old supermarket girl.
His second wife would soon learn there was a very different side to the happy-go-lucky Bill Suff. He basically was like a boss to her. He just dominated her completely. She was just pushed around and scared off.
He wanted you in a position where you would never dare investigate or ask a question or intrude on him in any way. Despite his prior conviction for the murder of his child during his first marriage, Bill would father another baby girl. The problem with adding a child to any Bill Suff relationship is that he's the narcissist, he's the egoist, it's all about him, and it ceases to be when you have a child to take care of. Increasingly absent from home, Suff would focus his attentions on an issue that he insisted was plaguing the area.
He would go around telling people that there was a problem with the prostitutes, and they needed to clean up the area and get rid of the prostitutes. He would just make raving comments about the prostitutes being a plague upon the city, because they're dirty-the-carry disease, they discourage other business. But despite his campaign to have the working girls removed from the streets, Suff was leading a double life that was at odds with his impassioned rhetoric. In fact, he was partaking of the prostitute's services.
He was very much too personous in the same body. And all the time, Bill Suff's secret life would remain hidden. It's not like he came home with a load of excuses as to why he was gone for hours and hours. He would just simply come home at whatever weird hour it was and go, Hey honey, I'm home.
I don't think he wanted to tell anybody about anything of what he was doing or what he was thinking. He had no attachment to adults, to women, to children, to animals, to anything. Just six months later, the ritualistic killer plaguing Riverside County struck again, with the murder of prostitute Kelly Hammond. But this time, the elusive perpetrator had slipped up.
The victim's best friend had witnessed her being picked up in a silver van. She told me that he was a white male, probably in his late 40s who wore glasses. So now we have a colored vehicle, we have a description of an individual. Now we need to find the individual, we need to find the van and we can tie it all up.
As the task force attempted to close the net around the killer, Bill Suff's nighttime visits to the Red Light District would remain under the police radar. However, during the day, he would regularly brush shoulders with the law, as he handed out police equipment in a county warehouse. Bill really enjoyed this role because he got to be seen as the boss of the warehouse. They knew he was not the boss, but whenever they wanted anything, they had to go see Bill.
Bill was simultaneously a popular okay guy, and yet for other people, he was that guy who seemed to make you a little bit uncomfortable, but you didn't know why. Although Bill wasn't employed by the police force, he would take a keen interest in law enforcement, in his spare time. It's a part of a complex, he always would like to view himself as the protector, as a security guard type of individual, he'd have a jacket that almost looks semi-official. If people saw him in an odd place, they wouldn't have got what he doing there.
It's like, oh, that's Bill, he's supposed to be in that odd place. As Suff continued to patrol his neighborhood, Riverside Police were desperately chasing up leads, following a detailed description of the suspected serial killer. However, Detective Kears was about to experience another unexpected turn to the horrific case. I made a comment that this particular individual had a specific desire for white women.
The chief at that point made a statement indicating that our suspect didn't like African-American females, he liked white girls. And it was after that that we found the body of the McDonald. Catherine McDonald had been a black prostitute, last seen working Riverside's University Avenue. The publication and the paper, I think drove our suspect to say, I can get an African-American, I don't need to just get wise, I'll show you.
Part of that is disdain. They think they're superior to the investigators, but also it's a feeling of I'm the one in charge, I'm the dominant person here, I'll make decisions about what I do or don't do. Worryingly, the killer's change of MO appeared to be partnered by an increased level of violence. Her breast was removed, which was one of his traits, but she also had additional stab marks.
The wounds on her were so severe and so violent that she was almost decapitated. And the killer's heinous crimes were becoming more frequent. Because of the manner in which these homicides were occurring now, the exponential rate became more concerned. Why don't you get the taste of blood like that in your serial murder?
You're going to continue doing it. In 1991, a Riverside task force finally had the description of a man suspected of murdering at least 11 innocent women. But as police tried to close the net around the elusive killer, the hunt was becoming increasingly desperate. We had to catch it, we had no choice.
He wasn't going to stop obviously. Matter of fact, he was expediting his rate of killing. Just take a 24-7. As they continued to be targeted, detective Kears would stay close to the working girls on the street.
I would talk to the girls, build up that rapport with the women that were out there working, so that they would trust me, that they would call me if something happened, that they knew that it wasn't just about catching a murder, it was about helping them. The detective had built up a particularly close relationship with 39-year-old Eleanor Kazarez. Eleanor Kazarez and I got along very well. Eleanor was sweet, soft, just a gentle person.
It was such a difference from her family background. As the festive season approached, Eleanor would continue to work University Avenue, despite the fact that a serial killer was on the loose. Just two days before Christmas, he would strike again. As usual, police would discover a meticulously posed body when they attended the murder scene in a suburb of Riverside City.
Another class area, so rather interesting. The condition of her body was displayed. Some of her fingernails were broken, and her body had been moved from one spot to another. The killer's trademark brutality was also plain to see.
The victim had been horrifically mutilated, her breast cut off and thrown away from the corpse. I wanted to move the hair off of her face so I could see who it was, and that's when I moved the hair and it was Eleanor. An autopsy would later reveal that Eleanor Kazarez had been murdered and dumped in broad daylight by the increasingly brazen killer. When I saw who it was, I was very, very upset.
I just felt sick inside that this happened on my watch. I felt really responsible to get this solved and get it solved immediately. And Eleanor's death might just provide the key to unlock the sordid case. There was a lot of evidence here.
I was able to determine that the perpetrator had actually backed up into the place where he stopped. I was able to tell the investigators exactly what tires that we were looking for. Unusually, none of the tires on the killer's vehicle were of the same make. How many people drive around with four different types of tires on their vehicle?
That's very unique and unusual to begin with. Police now had detailed information on the van, and an eyewitness description of their prime suspect. The task force was placed on high alert to catch the prolific killer before he struck again. The plan was that if anybody stopped a vehicle and the individual driving it matched the description, they were to call me.
It would not be long before a traffic officer pulled over a silver van for an unauthorized U-turn in the red light district of University Avenue. You looked inside the van and saw a green blanket which snatched a lot of the fibers. I mean saw rope in the van as well. When she got the call, detective Kears had just one question for the patrolman.
Look down and tell me what the driver's side front tire brand was. And when I asked them to go to the passenger side and give me the brand of that tire, that's when I said, okay, I'm en route. Christina arrived at the scene and was finally confronted with the man she had been hunting for every year. 41 year old Bill Suff.
I looked at him and I was around a shock that he was so plain looking. Very calm, spoke very softly. Didn't look like somebody that could commit the atrocious acts. At that point, he was arrested and brought to the station.
My family was contacted by a detective and they said we got him. And there was a huge ripple over that went through my family. And for every family that was involved in that case. But despite his arrest, Suff remained unperturbed until detective Kears steered the questioning to the recent murder of Eleanor Kasaris.
I leaned forward to him and I said to him, you were in the orange groves. His attitude then did a complete change, a 180. He said that when he was out picking oranges that he ran across this body and there was a knife in her and he pulled the knife out. And then he made a spontaneous statement of a and I didn't cut her breast off.
I never even asked him about that. Despite Suff's claims of innocence, a search of his van at home would unearth damning evidence. We found what we characterized as trophies or souvenirs, personal items belonging to the victims. Matter of fact, some of the victims had jewelry that he had taken off the victim's bodies and given to his girlfriend.
Three years later, in 1995 Paul Zellaback would lead the case against Bill Suff. Well, I had Jarsie with committing 13 murders of the prostitutes. We believe he probably murdered 20 to 25 victims. The victim's families would play a significant role in the ongoing trial.
The mothers and the sisters and the children got to testify during the penalty phase. I took pride in demonstrating to the jury that these weren't just prostitutes. Despite an overwhelming case against him, Suff would continue to plead his innocence. Prosecutors Zellaback in the news meeting have all painted a grotesque picture of me as a cold-blooded heartless monster.
They couldn't have been more wrong about me. I am a caring, loving and helpful person. Ask anyone who was close to me. In August 1995, Bill Suff was found guilty of 12 murders.
The jury turned to a death verdict and ultimately he was sentenced to death 12 times. Although the brutal killer was safely off the streets, many were left wondering why he had waged his vengeful campaign against Riverside's women. He was bitter, very bitter and a lot of that was towards women. I had a domineering mother.
Your wife leaves you in prison, divorces you. Women are always doing something wrong to you. His mind, the prostitutes would represent the lowest of all possible females. At the same time, because he can pay them and tell them what to do, they're also objects to be controlled.
But where Bill Suff's brutal actions, the inevitable result of the troubled path he trod, or was he born to kill? It's hard for me to say someone's really a boring killer, but he certainly had a lot of predisposition. I think he was born with his tendency to violence and cruelty, and he actually had that within him. But so do a lot of people and they don't act on it and they never do anything with it.
Something triggered his actions that allowed all the past upbringings and challenges to surface. Maybe our marriage breaking up might have sparked it. Killing D&A might have sparked a little fire and then it had 10 years to burn in prison in Texas. For many, the memory of Suff's murderous campaign has finally faded, but some will never forget the vulnerable women who lost their lives.
When I reflect on my mom and remember her memories, I smile. I don't really dwell on a lot of that negativity. My life now, I try to live with honor, be trustworthy, and set a good example. And that honors her memory, because I'm her son.