Further reading for Randy Kraft
The A to Z Encyclopedia of Serial Killers by Harold Schechter
Randy Kraft is an American serial killer who, in 1989, was convicted for the murder of 16 men and sits today on San Quentin’s death row, suspected of the murder of a total of 67 men, altogether. At one time he was known as The Freeway Killer, a name he shared at the same time with two other killers, William Bonin and Patrick Kearney. Due to a peculiar piece of evidence in his possession at the time of his arrest, however, Kraft became known as The Scorecard Killer. This scorecard seemed to be a record of dozens of men that Kraft potentially abducted, raped, and murdered but evidence connecting him to the men on the list was not forthcoming and Kraft took the truth to jail with him.
Kraft’s reign of terror was allowed to go on for as long as it did, like Jeffrey Dahmer’s, due to Kraft being gay and his victims being all men. He was frequently brought in for questioning regarding the disappearances of or discoveries of his victims but often squirmed out of suspicion thanks to the police’s deeply ingrained homophobia. He would lay low for a spell and then return to murdering. and this happened numerous times before he was finally caught. This particular area of California was so thick with freeway killers at the time that it spurred the FBI to take serial murder more seriously and begin cataloging the killers in order to come up with a system of profiling that we know today.
Kraft remains on Death Row to this day and many of the victims on his scorecard remain unidentified. He will likely take their identities with him to the grave.
Episodes: 487-488
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