A 75-year-old man in Texas was identified by DNA evidence as the perpetrator of four 1980 murders. His victims included one teenage girl and three women.
Billy Ray Richardson, who the police connected to the murders and rapes of Kari Lenander, Debra Cruse, and her sister Beverly Cruse in Los Angeles in 1980, and Trina Wilson in Inglewood in 1995, was arrested by detectives from the police departments of Los Angeles and Inglewood, California, in Fort Worth, Texas.
Cold case investigators in Los Angeles renewed their investigation into Ms. Lenander’s murder in 2001. She was 15 at the time of her death. According to the Los Angeles Police Department, her body was discovered on July 26, 1980, in a South Los Angeles area, and she was the victim of a murder with a sexual motive.
According to a 2010 story by The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Ms. Lenander and her best friend, 15-year-old Toni Garfield, were alone at Ms. Garfield’s house the night Ms. Lenander was killed, getting ready for a party and consuming tequila. The females decided to go dancing and hitchhiked home. A white man who claimed to be Ken and to be visiting from Canada picked them up. Ms. Garfield told the magazine that Leander planned to “keep partying” with Ken after Ms. Garfield was dropped off at her house. The girls split up at 10 p.m., and it took nearly five hours before Ms. Lenander’s body was discovered.
Although DNA connected Mr. Richardson to the crimes, it was unclear whether any of the victims knew the perpetrator. According to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, Mr. Richardson was imprisoned in Tarrant County, Texas, awaiting extradition to Los Angeles after being accused of four charges of murder.
After a DNA profile revealed the suspect’s race in the middle of the 2000s, there was a significant breakthrough in the investigation. Long thought to have been picked up by a white man, a test by a private lab revealed that the girl’s killer was Black. How much that test helped to identify Mr. Richardson, a Black man, remains unknown. Detective Marcia, an officer on the original case, said that the “information limited the direction I needed to go. Instead of having one big, whole pie, I got it down to a quarter of the pie.”
George Gascón, the district attorney for Los Angeles, expressed his gratitude for those whose efforts had resulted in the arrest in a statement on Friday. He said, “I cannot imagine the pain that these families have endured. Their loss is immeasurable. We hope that together we can bring justice to the families who have endured so much and have waited years for this moment.” Efforts to locate living family members of the victims were unsuccessful.
Billy Ray Richardson, who the police connected to the murders and rapes of Kari Lenander, Debra Cruse, and her sister Beverly Cruse in Los Angeles in 1980, and Trina Wilson in Inglewood in 1995, was arrested by detectives from the police departments of Los Angeles and Inglewood, California, in Fort Worth, Texas.
Cold case investigators in Los Angeles renewed their investigation into Ms. Lenander’s murder in 2001. She was 15 at the time of her death. According to the Los Angeles Police Department, her body was discovered on July 26, 1980, in a South Los Angeles area, and she was the victim of a murder with a sexual motive.
According to a 2010 story by The Los Angeles Times Magazine, Ms. Lenander and her best friend, 15-year-old Toni Garfield, were alone at Ms. Garfield’s house the night Ms. Lenander was killed, getting ready for a party and consuming tequila. The females decided to go dancing and hitchhiked home. A white man who claimed to be Ken and to be visiting from Canada picked them up. Ms. Garfield told the magazine that Leander planned to “keep partying” with Ken after Ms. Garfield was dropped off at her house. The girls split up at 10 p.m., and it took nearly five hours before Ms. Lenander’s body was discovered.
Although DNA connected Mr. Richardson to the crimes, it was unclear whether any of the victims knew the perpetrator. According to the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office, Mr. Richardson was imprisoned in Tarrant County, Texas, awaiting extradition to Los Angeles after being accused of four charges of murder.
After a DNA profile revealed the suspect’s race in the middle of the 2000s, there was a significant breakthrough in the investigation. Long thought to have been picked up by a white man, a test by a private lab revealed that the girl’s killer was Black. How much that test helped to identify Mr. Richardson, a Black man, remains unknown. Detective Marcia, an officer on the original case, said that the “information limited the direction I needed to go. Instead of having one big, whole pie, I got it down to a quarter of the pie.”
George Gascón, the district attorney for Los Angeles, expressed his gratitude for those whose efforts had resulted in the arrest in a statement on Friday. He said, “I cannot imagine the pain that these families have endured. Their loss is immeasurable. We hope that together we can bring justice to the families who have endured so much and have waited years for this moment.” Efforts to locate living family members of the victims were unsuccessful.
