By: Adam Zhang
Detectives working for Los Angeles and Inglewood police departments arrested a Texan man charged with murder in Fort Worth. What is interesting is one murder is over a quarter-century old, and the other is almost twice that at over four decades! Officials said DNA evidence helped them find this man.
Some of the murders committed by this man dates back to 1980, involving the deaths of three women and a teenage girl. All murders were committed in California, specifically Los Angeles and Inglewood. The police departments there traveled to Texas to arrest Billy Ray Richardson. The victims were Kari Lenander, Beverly and Debra Cruse, and Trina Wilson. Prosecutors declared that all of them had been raped.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said Billy Richardson was charged with four counts of murder and similar charges just last week. The day after, he was thrown in jail in Tarrant County, Texas.
Authorities attempted to contact relatives of the victims, but all were unsuccessful.
“I cannot imagine the pain that these families have endured,” Los Angeles district attorney George Gascon said, “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.”
Investigations into Ms. Lenander’s death, who was 15 when killed, started in 2001. Her body was found in a South Los Angeles Neighborhood the summer of 1980. A $50,000 reward was approved by the Los Angeles City Council for anyone that could identify and provide information on the murderer.
Ms. Lenander and her friend Toni Garfield were alone in Ms. Garfield’s house on the night of the murder. They were preparing for a party and drinking tequila. They decided to go dancing and hitchiked their way back, a detective explained.
The man who picked them up was white and said that his name was Ken and he came from Canada. Ms. Garfield was dropped off at her house while Ms. Lenander said she was going to keep partying with Ken. They separated at 10 p.m, and the body was found 5 hours later. A detective said that something crucial was discovered in the mid-2000s over the case, when a DNA profile determined the race of the killer.
The evidence proved that the killer was black, and not white, like the driver that picked them up. More details were found when detectives looked into the murder of two women a few months before. These two were Beverly Cruse and Debra Cruse, both in the early-mid twenties. The Los Angeles Times reported that their brother had found their naked bodies.
He reported it to the police and the prosecutor’s office said that they had been shot in the head.
Over 15 years later, Ms. Wilson’s body was found at Inglewood park the last day of 1995.
“That information limited the direction I needed to go,” the same detective said, “Instead of having one big, whole pie, I got it down to a quarter of the pie.”
Now, the killer has been found, and the case was solved.