Ted Bundy, Jack the Ripper and DNA: New Technology Solving Murder
From Ted Bundy to Jack the Ripper, new DNA technology solves murder mysteries, finds serial killers, and exonerates innocent people.
Just a FAQ, USA TODAY
The murder victim, which remained unknown for more than 40 years, has been identified as a 30-year-old Vietnamese veteran who could potentially die from the so-called serial scorecard killer convicted of committing a California murder case in the 1970s and 1980s.
Oregon State Police said DNA samples led to the identification of an unknown victim as Larry Eugene Parks, whose bodies were found along Oregon’s interstate highways in July 1980.
Investigators suspected the killings of the two were linked, but the lead was exhausted and the case became cold.
Investigators said his identity is now known, and they have resolved the 45-year-old case and confirmed whether the killing is tied to a Landes Steven Craft, which is known alternately with scorecard killers, Southern California stranglers and highway killers.
According to author Jack Smith’s “Scorecard Killer: The Life of a Serial Killer Landre Stephen Craft,” Craft is a computer programmer who preys on hitchhikers and unsuspecting bar hoppers, who mostly tortured, mutilated and sexually assaulted gay victims.
Evidence from both Oregon killings was used during Kraft’s trial and remained with authorities in Orange County, California until last year.
Who was Randycraft?
It was discovered that the bodies of several young men were killed in Orange County and Southern California in the 1970s and early 1980s.
Randy Stephen Kraft was taken into custody in 1983 after being handed over to a California highway patrol officer who observed him shaking on Interstate 5 near Mission Viejo in Orange County. According to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, officers found the dead male victim in the front seat of the craft vehicle, along with an empty beer bottle and an open bottle of sedative Lorazepam.
The victim was later identified as Terry Lee Gambrell, a 25-year-old Marine, and was riding with Kraft to meet friends at the party, the Sheriff’s Office said on another release.
In the trunk, officers found a coded list that authorities believe crafts will be used to document incidents involving at least 67 victims.
Kraft, who is alternately known as a scorecard killer, a Southern California strangler and a freeway killer, was ultimately convicted of 16 murders in California in May 1989, but authorities say they could be in charge of killings of more than 60 people on the West Coast and Michigan. Currently 80 years old, he remains on death row inmate at the California Agency for Men in Chino, California.
How the Parks case unfolded
Parks’ family lost contact with him in 1979, according to Oregon State Police. His last known home was in Pensacola, Florida.
The 1980 discovery of his unidentified body near Woodburn in Marion County, Oregon between Portland and Salem prompted the opening of a homicide investigation. However, the detectives were unable to identify him, and he remained John Doe until last month.
Last year, Orange County Sheriff’s Investigators contacted the department’s Cold Case Unit to help identify park artefacts using forensic genealogy. Possible families were contacted and DNA samples were submitted for comparison, leading to the definitive identification of the park.
Similarly, in October 2023, Orange County investigators used the technique to use Michael Leishlicht of Cedar Rapids, Iowa in their identity. The body was found in 1974 near the unedited Laguna Hills, Alisoviejo, California. The detectives are similarly working to determine whether Kraft is related to Schlicht’s death.
Contribution: Whitney Woodworth
