Welcome to your debarture on this crossover episode.
I joined Debbie on her podcast True Crime University to provide
some voice over work in the role of William Bonnen for this
episode on The Freeway Killer. This is your professor Debbie.
Welcome to True Crime University where we have intellectual
discussions about crime. This is a class for mature
audiences with mature language and subject matter.
I have a PhD in criminal justice and 17 years experience in the
law enforcement field and I am happy to share my knowledge with
you. Hello class, How is everybody?
Hopefully everybody is ready to get into this.
Part three of the William Bonnen case started out was going to be
a summer blockbuster and then it became kind of a Halloween,
October blockbuster and it's November 3rd and we're nowhere
near the end. So this is going to be just like
a end of 2023 blockbuster. Just an item of the business
before we get into this horrific tale here.
I may or may not have Patreon up and running by the time you hear
this, but please consider I hate to beg.
I hate to sound like somebody's mother.
You know how moms are always like or mine was what do you
mean you want this or that? Do you think money grows on
trees? Everything costs money.
Well, podcasting costs a lot of money, unfortunately.
So just to help pay the bills around the classroom, please
consider joining Patreon. You get shit.
It's just not like you're giving me money.
You actually get stuff in return.
And today we're going to be talking about the murders.
There's quite a bit of them. I don't know if we're going to
get through all of them, but major trigger warning, of
course. These are murders, No.
Murders are like clean and polite, I don't think, But these
ones are especially graphic and they involve torture, all that
kind of nasty stuff. So you know how I get into
details? And the victims are, well, they
were between 12 and 19, so basically kids.
And if if you don't think you can handle that, don't listen,
because this is going to be disturbing.
And about the victims, unfortunately, since this
happened so long ago, I don't know very much about them, but
I'll tell you everything I do know about them.
I found, as it always is, more information on some than others.
So I do know enough to create kind of AI always like to, when
I'm listening to a podcast and they talk about the victim, I
like to picture them in my head. And hopefully I have enough here
and from information on them plus their pictures that you can
relate to them and kind of imagine in your head what
they're doing or what they went through.
And as usual, I'm going to tell everything in chronological
order. Remember last episode I had you?
And to write down how many months do you think Bonnen can
be out of prison before he attacks somebody?
And we left off in 1978. Bonnen got out of prison in
October 1978. He moved into the apartment
complex. So an other dude that lived in
this complex is going to be kind of a a pivotal character here.
Now this dude lived in the same apartment complex as Bonnen did,
and he was 43 at the time. His name was Everett, but he
went by Scott Frazier. He was 12 years older than Bonn
and who at this time was 31. There's not a whole bunch of
information on him, but what he did was he lived in this
apartment complex and it it seems like every night he would
have, I don't know if I want to use the word party, he would
have guests, let's put it that way.
And most of these guests were younger than himself and of the
male variety, if you can see where this is going.
And there were always people there.
He got beer and other alcohol for the underage people and
drugs were part of this scene also.
And this reminds me of when I was OK, I don't know, 2020,
whatever. There was somebody in my
neighborhood. He was a a dude.
He was like, I don't know, maybe in his 30s.
He lived in my neighborhood. It was him and his wife, and
very often they would have guests that were underage.
And I don't mean like 1314, I mean like 20, like below the
drinking age. And this guy would supply booze
for everybody. And I think there were probably
some drugs there too. And I went there once.
It was this dude and his wife. There wasn't anything like
creepy or untoward going on, But.
Well, other than the fact that he's supplying minors with
alcohol, which probably is not a very good idea.
And I asked my mom, like, do you remember, you know, this dude?
And she's like, yeah. And I said he obviously wasn't
like a pedophile or, you know, he's married.
He wasn't, like, hitting on any of the young people.
Like, why do you think he did this?
And she said, I don't know, maybe he maybe it made him feel
young again. I was like, hmm, that's that's
interesting. Maybe if you surround yourself
with younger people, you do feel young.
Maybe that's what this Scott Frazier was doing, I don't know.
But it seems that there was a little more of a sexual motive
because he was, I guess, openly gay and he liked having the
younger men or youth there. He also at one time worked as a
bank officer. And that's kind of all I know
about him. And I do want to make this
clear, He never partook in any of Bonnen's crimes.
He was, I think, vaguely aware that he might have been into
some shit. But when Bonnen got arrested, he
came to the police and told him everything that he knew about
him. Scott described Bonnen as polite
and Placid, and they would share stories of sex with teenage boys
and teenage. I don't know if that means above
the age of consent or not. So in November 1978, I honestly
don't know how Bonnen gets these girlfriends or where he meets
them, but he met a married mother.
Yeah, he, his girlfriend was married and they used to go
roller skating in Anaheim on Sundays.
Then they would go to church, which you got to get your church
in. You know, if if you're going to
be raping and killing, going to get that church day in there, do
something sarcastic. And they also went bowling and
her kids would go too. So Needless to say, it wasn't
long before Bonnen found out that these parties or gatherings
occurred at Scott Frazier's apartment, and they were full of
his favorite kind of people, young dudes.
And it was here that he would meet two of his accomplices in
his murder spree. That's right, too, if you can
believe there are a total of 4 accomplices that he will have.
And I mentioned earlier that that's what fascinates me the
most about this case. Not born in himself, because
really he's just a garden variety sadistic sexual
predator, but the fact that he had managed to get four other
young men to help him torture, kill and dump off victims is
very amazing. Like, how old does this happen?
How do all these people come together?
And I'm going to try my best to tell the story in chronological
order, introduce these characters as they come in.
And then in psychology I will try and put it all together.
Like how did this happen? How did all these people get
involved in this activity? And the first of these
characters I do mean character was Vernon Robert Butts.
He went by Vern at this time, he was 21 and the newspaper
described him as this is the perfect quote.
And it's so funny because it's a newspaper.
But they called him a quote lowlife drifter.
And there's not really a better way to describe him.
He reminds, if there's any fellow scooby-doo fans out
there, this is like the come to life version of Shaggy.
Remember, he's skinny. He's got like long hair.
He's like that, you know. Hey, man.
And the joke is that he was always high.
Well, he reminds me an awful lot of Shaggy, only he's not really
laid back and cool and harmless as we're going to see.
He came from a quote UN quote broken home, as do many people.
He was raised in the towns of Lynnwood and then later he lived
in Norwalk. He was 9 when his dad died and
this supposedly had a very bad effect on him.
He was described as shy and easily LED.
So write that down or remember that easily LED, because it's
going to become important. The way that he was described as
a kid sounds a lot like the descriptions of wanted, a loner,
bullied by other people. Odd just kind of was into weird
things, you know? Was known as that weird kid.
And he apparently had mental health issues.
Exactly what? I don't know.
But he had attempted suicide three times before he met
Bonham. He was also in and out of mental
institution, psychiatric hospitals, whatever you want to
call them, and jail. And one of the prosecutors would
later kind of say jokingly that he was doing life in prison on
the installment plan. And I think that's a a perfect
way of putting it. Like, you know, he would go to
jail, come out of jail for a while, go back, come out, you
know, like a revolving door. I've known many people like
that. And if you're wondering why he
was described as eccentric, like what made him so eccentric?
Well, he was into some things that a lot of people think is
odd or strange. Witchcraft, the occult, dork
things. I hate to mention this game
because it it always comes up and it's so harmless.
It's just a fucking game. Dungeons and Dragons.
He'd probably know what that is and he would have weekly D&D
parties at his house. He got also got born and
involved in the game, and he also did this thing that I think
sounds like a lot of fun. I would really like to
participate in such a thing. He called the mystery parties
and I wish I knew more about how they worked or or what went on,
but supposedly he would hide shit around Downey like he
called the murder artifacts and he would leave clues.
It was like a scavenger hunt, clues to go to one location and
find this clue. And one of the things was a
hairpin, the other was an ice pick.
And we're going to see later on that he has this thing about ice
picks. Vern actually had two jobs.
He worked at a porcelain manufacturing company and George
Sattler, who was the owner of this factory, is called Santa Fe
Springs. He gave Vern a job as a laborer
there as a favor to Vern's stepdad.
He described him as thin, pale and anemic looking, and said
that during his breaks he would sit in his beat up Pinto smoking
long stemmed pipes and in case you don't know what a Pinto is,
yeah, who drove one of them? Lonnie fucking Franklin.
It's like the serial killer called car and my mom's friend
when I was a little kid had one and it was the ugliest Google
One just for fun. The ugliest fucking car I have
ever seen. And it it's just funny because
it's said that he had a beat up Pinto and I don't know if there
were any pintos that weren't beat up or pieces of shit
because well, so his Co workers there described him as a loner
and a weirdo and he would supposedly say strange things
like you know, he had coffins, he slept in a coffin.
I'm pretty sure that this was like a tension seeking behavior.
Like I'm weird, look at or listen to my stories of the
bizarre things that I do. Like he was kind of trying to
stand out and wanted to be seen as somebody dark and eccentric
and weird. And he definitely did a good job
at it. He also had another job.
This was at Knott's Berry Farm. That's an amusement park in
Buena Park. He worked as a clerk in the
magic store there. He told people that he was a
magician, like he actually did shows at Knott's Berry Farm, but
in actuality he was just a clerk in the store after all this came
out, A spokesman for Knott's Berry Forum said they hired him
as a salesperson in December of 78 and fired him in July of 79.
They said he quote did not come up to Knott's standards and had
quote, increasingly strange and unpredictable behavior.
Also, it was mentioned that he had a problem with hygiene.
So I I guess he stunk. He's like wanted like he well, I
guess you would call him bisexual.
He has a girl, he called her his girlfriend and her nickname was
Katie. Supposedly the two of them
belong to a satanic cult, or so they called it.
They will go to Pagan festivals and graveyards, and he allegedly
participated in black magic rituals.
He liked horror fiction, which many other people do, and was
into cosplay like he used to. He liked to wear costumes.
He would often randomly appear dressed as Darth Vader.
That was like I could think, a favorite costume of his.
He had two coffins in his house, one was a coffee table and the
other he used for a phone booth, and I mentioned he was in and
out of jail. He had a long record of things
like arson, burglary, and later a prosecutor would say that he
thought Verne developed a fascination with sadistic
homosexuality while in jail. And I mean, that's an
interesting thought. Who knows?
And this is a little bit disturbing, kind of like John
Wayne Gacy, but he supposedly performed as a magician at small
groups like kids, birthday parties and stuff like that.
And one time he was doing a magic show at Warren High School
in Downey. And I mean, OK, it's 1979, but
why? This dude was in a school like
today? That would not go over, I don't
think. But at the school he met Scott
Frazier. And why is Frazier at the high
school, too? That's a little bit concerning
because he's like 41 years old. Anyway, those two could become
friendly. And Frazier introduces Vern and
Bonnet. And they had this instant click
like friends, but they also had a sexual relationship.
So each one of them has a quote UN quote girlfriend.
But they also have a sexual relationship with each other.
So Butts at first lived in an apartment on East Imperial
Highway, which is a really, really long road.
I I looked at it close to the apartments where Bonnen and
Frazier lived, but he was kicked out of it in 1979 for making a
mess out of it. Then he moved into a converted
garage on Dinwiddie Ave. in Downey.
And I'm spending so much time talking about butts because he
plays a very integral, very important part in these murders.
So in April of 1979, Scott Frazier met a dude named Blaine
Fraser. Turns out he was into selling
drugs too. So they would sell drugs
together at Scott's apartment, and these two ended up being
arrested on drug charges. Blaine started hanging around
Bonnen. They would drive around
Hollywood looking at boys, and once they saw a boy and Bonnen
asked Treasure if he was interested in picking him up.
This boy, Frazier said. Quote, as long as you drop me
off before doing anything, UN quote.
So this makes me curious as to why did he want to be dropped
off? Did he have a suspicion of what
Bonnen was up to? Or did he just kind of generally
sense that whatever it was, it, it couldn't be any good?
And fortunately for him, he said let me out.
Around this time, Alice Bonin's mother gave him and Paul $30,000
to buy a restaurant bar called the Alpine Inn in Silverado,
which was like 40 miles from Downing.
I don't think it's there anymore, but this place was
already known as what you call a nuisance bar.
I think you know what that is. We have somewhere around here,
and supposedly they played their music so loud that the neighbors
couldn't hear their own TV's. I'm like, Oh my God, I could not
stand living somewhere that made so much noise.
Well, the bar deal ended up falling through.
They didn't buy the bar and in the meantime, Bonnen and Paul
moved into a house on Cactus Way.
Paul bought a plumbing business in Costa Mesa and Bonnen started
working with him. So now the brothers are
plumbers. OK, we're going to talk about
the first murder that Bonnen is suspected of committing.
He was charged with it, but he was acquitted of it.
And we'll talk about that after you're You're going to see why.
The victim was 13 year old Thomas Glenn Longren or Tommy.
He was born on May 24th, 1966. He lived in the Los Angeles
suburb of Resedo. He had a sister, Brenda, who was
two years older and a young younger brother named Michael.
Real cute kid. I have a picture of him on my
Instagram. It's a picture of him sitting in
his bedroom. He has all these, like, rock
posters around. And I was curious because I like
to learn as much as I can about victims.
I had my boyfriend look at the picture he's into like that kind
of music. And I said, do you recognize any
of those bands or singers? He said that one is Ted Nugent.
So in case you're curious, that's the kind of music he
liked. He was in the Boy Scouts and
later a friend came forward. This, this is ridiculous.
He went to Boy Scout camp with Tommy.
Apparently Tommy like to get into shit.
He was described as a quote, very hyper kid.
This was 1976 or 1977. So the scout master tied a rope
around Tommy's waist like a leash and made his friends hold
on to him. And I'm like, I don't know, I've
never been any kind of scout or scout leader or even had a
child. But that just doesn't sound
right to me. Like here I'm going to tie up
your friend and lead him around like a dog so he'll behave.
So Tommy's favorite hobby was skateboarding and he broke his
arm doing skateboarding and painted a rainbow on the cast.
Fran said. He was silly, but I think it's
creative and cute. One of his friend's parents
owned a store that sold pinball and video games and it was
called Pachinko Palace. Tommy really wanted a pinball
machine and he would go there often to play them.
And it just is an interesting fact.
Guess what Serial killer also went to this shop?
Angelo Buono of the infamous pair known as the Hillside
Stranglers. So one day Tommy told his friend
that some dude had approached him, he was skateboarding and
said he would pay him to pose with his skateboard for a
skateboard magazine. And he'd made plans to meet said
dude on May 28th at the Skating Gate park.
He told his friend that his mom knew about this and said OK.
But later his mom was like, no, the fuck I did not.
He was last seen in front of his house with his skateboard by a
neighbor and it was like 11:00 AM on May 28th, 1979.
Unfortunately, Tommy disappeared.
His body was found by a sightseer later that day, caught
in bushes on a hillside. And this person would later say,
quote, all I could see was the blood.
It was bright red. It was fresh then, Oh my God.
I saw the boy's crotch. I thought I would be sick.
I couldn't believe what I was seeing, UN quote.
So he calls the police. What ended up being the LA
County Sheriff's Department and Sergeant Dave Kushner came to
the crime scene and he will play a big role on this whole freeway
killer investigation, the sheriff testified in court.
This is going to be graphic by the way, quote.
When I first arrived, the first thing I observed was that the
body had been emasculated. The penis and scrotum appeared
to have been removed from the body and there was a large pool
of blood under the victim's head.
I walked on up to the boy and saw a complete slashing through
the throat. There was a ligature mark too.
UN quote UN quote He found his penis and scrotum about two feet
away lying in the dirt. His tennis shoes were up in a
tree about 10 feet away, along with his underwear and his short
cut off pants. Doctor Coogan, who performed
Tommy's autopsy said that he quote died of severe slash
wounds to the throat that severed his carotid arteries and
larynx which extended nearly to the back of the neck.
He also had bruises but that could have been bite Marks and
quote. His chest and skull have been
fractured by a blow from an object like a tire Jack handle
UN quote. A friend later said that they
went to Tommy's funeral and I just cannot picture this.
It doesn't make any sense to me. Apparently Tommy wasn't in a
coffin. He was laying on a table with
like a sheet over him and maybe the friend like misremembered or
something because it's just, I can't imagine this.
And the friend said they did a shitty job of covering up the
stab wounds like you. You could see this gaping wound
on his throat. And I'm like, Oh my God, it's
bad enough if you're a kid and somebody your age dies.
But to have to see that that is really, really awful.
And somebody played Stairway to Heaven on a guitar, throwing the
service. So the friend said that she
thinks of him anytime she hears that song.
Tommy's dad went to all of the trials, all of Bonnen's trials,
and his mom was the opposite. She's like, I don't want to see
and hear about that. Interestingly, Bonnen always
denied killing Tommy and he said, quote, I don't cut the
Dicks off, little boys, UN quote.
Now, if we're going to look at the specifics of Tommy's murder,
I have my doubts. Also, the jury did acquit him on
this, and I can see why. No other victim of Bonnen's was
emasculated like that. And whoever killed him used the
ruse about. Hey, do you want to pose for a
skateboarding magazine? I'll meet you on such and such a
date. Bonnen never did anything like
that. He just spurred the moment.
Hey, that looks like a good one. So in my own opinion, which, of
course, it doesn't mean anything.
Tommy's killing sounds more to me like the work of Randy Kraft
who was known to cut off the genitals of his victims.
So on July 19th Bonnen goes to Downey Ford and buys an ugly
puke green 1972 Ford E-100 Shorty van.
I have a picture of it. It's ugly as fuck.
So go ahead and and start with the serial killer in their van
jokes because this is exactly what it's going to be used for.
He would eventually nickname it The Death Fan and really that's
very creative. It had new carpet, fake wood
paneling, and curtains between the front and the back.
So there was some discussion on whether or not he planned to
kill people and bought the van for this purpose or that he
bought the van 1st and the killing started afterward.
I think in my opinion, that the reason he bought the van was to
pick up people and do not necessarily kill 'cause I don't
know if this was in his mind yet, but knowing him, he did
have some nefarious purpose. He intended I think, to abduct
and rape boys in the back of the van.
And if we believe that he didn't kill Tommy, there's no way to
know if killing was on his mind yet or not.
He set about customizing his new van by removing all the inner
handles from the passenger side and back so that nobody could
get out and put some tools in the van.
Ligatures, knives, pliers, wire coat hangers, which kind of
shows some premeditation that he's going to be up to
something. Remember the guessing game we
were playing about How long would he be out of prison before
he abducted and killed? If we don't include Tommy, it's
going to be 10 months. So according to what Bonnen said
later, this is how the subject of killing boys came up.
I'll just tell you what he said and you can decide for yourself
if you believe it or not. Supposedly.
According to Bonnen, he had discussed killing people with
Vern before, like casually, and this is usually the way that
killer couples get started. Like one will mention something
like murder and the other reacts and the person who brought it up
weighs the other person's response.
Like if they think they have a favorable response, like if they
say something like oh that'd be fun.
I've always wanted to do that too.
Or if they say, Oh my God, get the fuck out of here, are you
crazy? That would be an unfavorable
response. So we know for a fact that their
first killing, I'm not County Tommy, occurred on August 4th,
1979. This was Bonnen and Vern.
Bonnen picked up Vern in the ugly van and they went to the
drive in theater on Hwy. 39 in the town of Westminster in
Orange County. And the defendant later said to
the police quote during the break between movies, we got
around to talking about murder and picking up a guy and having
sex with him and then killing him.
I was sort of joking at the time.
Verne thought the idea was real neat.
He told me. I always wanted to see what it
was like to kill someone. One of my fantasies is to kill
someone using an ice pick and put it into his ear.
We continue to talk. And then I thought I noticed he
was very serious. I was surprised.
So I asked him, are you serious? He said, yeah.
I then said if you can handle it, so can I.
OK, then why don't we leave right now?
Verne said, OK, let's go. And we left.
You know, I was kind of testing him, really.
I didn't think he would go for it, but he did.
I don't like doing stuff by myself.
End Quote. Notice how in Bonnen's version
of events, he said that he was joking but Verne was serious,
thus putting the blame on Verne for coming up with the idea.
And this is just your typical serial killer bullshit.
You know nothing is my fault. Thinking pattern.
They left the drive in and drove down Beach Blvd. where Bonnen
had seen hitchhikers before. Again, he emphasized that he had
no intention of killing the person.
They picked up that he was going to quote have the sex IE rape
and then let him out. The boy they picked up wasn't
hitchhiking, he was just walking home to his home in Westminster.
This was 17 year old Mark Dwayne Shelton.
He was born on December 19th, 1961 in Garden Grove and was one
of five kids. Sadly, that's about all the
biological information I have on him.
According to Bonnen. He pulled up and asked Mark for
directions, but then offered him a ride.
Mark got in the van and Bonnen asked him if he had ever quote
gotten head from a guy before, UN quote, to which Mark replied
no according to Bonnen. I'm stressing that he offered
Mark $400 for four or five hours of his time.
That's a lot of money, supposedly.
Mark agreed, and Bonnet started driving to a cabin in the
mountains of the the Cajun Pass. I don't even know if this cabin
really existed, but this is what he told Mark.
He's like we'll we'll go to my cabin.
Supposedly. He asked Mark how late he could
stay out and Mark said quote all night, it doesn't matter really.
UN quote. Then according to Bonnen, he
told Mark that he wanted to quote, see what he got and
proceeded to unzip his shorts and rub his penis trigger
warning this is going to get graphic.
Then he said that he said quote. Nice package Vern.
Check it out. I can't wait to get to the cabin
and quote. Supposedly Vern then squeezed
Mark's penis and hurt him and Mark cried out and went to the
back of the van. Then according to Bonnen this it
gets. The story gets even more
ridiculous as he goes on while Bonnen is driving Verne is in
the back with Mark entertaining him with magic and card tricks.
And during the hour long drive Bonnen said that he could hear
Mark laughing and having a good time.
He said quote he was happy he was going to earn $400.00 and
quote. So Bonnen pulled into a boarded
up gas station and went in the back with Mark.
He told Verne to sit up front and act as a lookout.
He then said that he and Mark started to make out and he
undressed him. This quote is is just like wow,
he said quote. I could tell that the kid was
real relaxed and sexually excited making little groans of
contentment. UN quote.
I can't tell if this is just an out and out lie or did he
somehow imagine this or wish that this was happening like
this was just wishful thinking on on his part.
Then Verne supposedly fileted Mark and Bonnen ordered Mark to
fillet him. He said that he did, although he
was quote nervous and shivering. Then Bonnen ordered to ordered
Mark to lay on his stomach to quote let me fuck him, and Mark
supposedly nodded yes. It's this OK, Bullshit.
I don't believe this. Then Bonnen said that when he
started to insert his penis into Mark, that Mark quote screamed
out in pain and reared up. Which the of course this scent
born into a rage And he supposedly yelled.
Quote man, you scared the shit out of me, you little bastard.
UN quote. Then he said he punched Mark in
the chest, abdomen and grabbed him by the balls and squeezed
and then knead him in the face several times until Mark was
unconscious. Then supposedly, he told Verne,
quote, we can't let him go. We better just go ahead and
finish him off right now, UN quote.
So Verne supposedly readily agreed.
And now, in his own words, let's hear what Bonnen said during his
taped confession. We flipped the kid back over on
his stomach. He had a long sleeved shirt so I
tied the sleeves and wrapped it around his neck, then slipped a
tire iron through the loop and started twisting.
Vern was on top of him holding his hands behind his back.
I twisted and twisted the shirt around his neck real tight.
Then the kid woke up and started wiggling around and Vern
couldn't hold him so I used my right hand to keep his hands
from getting free and kept a strong grip on the tire iron
with my left. Vern eventually got a better
grip and after three or 4 minutes the kid stopped moving
and we let him go. We thought he was dead, so we
relaxed. I united the shirt.
Within about 10 seconds we hear this long inhaling of air coming
from Mark. Vern panicked and screamed.
He's not dead. That put me in a panic.
Also, I jumped up and put the shirt around his neck again and
began twisting. I screamed at Vern to get back
on top of him and hold it tight while I drove.
Then Vern starts talking about the ice pick thing.
I look around for something to use.
I knew there wasn't anything like that in the van.
I found a rusty wire in the bushes and pushed the wire into
his ear as hard as I could and I didn't get any reactions, but I
was actually still not sure if he was dead.
As we walked back to the van I saw a short, dried out tree
branch and picked it up and walked back to Mark's dead body
and I shoved it up his ass. He didn't move now I could
relax. He was definitely dead.
We left there and headed home. We were laughing as we felt we
got away with it. Mark's new body was found on
August 11th off I-15 in the Cajun Pass area.
Reportedly, he was so eaten by animals that he was barely
recognizable. His cause of death was
determined to be shock due to the shoving of a stick into his
rectum. Sadly, he was considered a John
Doe until March 1980. His parents, Dawn and Ramona,
never stopped looking for him, hiking Miles through the Canyons
of Orange County. Finally, Dawn got Mark's dental
records and took them to the Westminster police himself,
proving the fact that sometimes if you want something done, you
just have to do it yourself. Finally, Mark had been
identified, his dad told the newspaper.
Quote, the police have always been nice to me, but they gave
us the impression they just didn't give a damn.
It seems like I've done all the work since this started.
End Quote. Mark's parents actually sued the
City of Westminster for what they believed was negligence in
trying to identify Mark, but they lost.
If the dates on this are right, born and killed again the next
day. This one he did alone.
The victim was 17 year old. Marcus Grabs an exchange student
from Germany and I don't have very much information about him.
He was born in Germany on March 4th, 1962 and he planned to
hitchhike around the United States.
He left Germany in February of 1979 and on August 2nd a couple
who was driving along saw him. They noticed the British flag on
his backpack and stopped to talk to him.
And Marcus told them that he was going South and planned to sleep
on the beach. And they said, well, you know
that's illegal, you can't sleep on the beach.
Why don't you stay at our place? So he did for three nights and
on Sunday, August 5th, they dropped him off on the Pacific
Coast Highway in Newport Beach. Unfortunately, he was picked up
by Bonnen, who was, like I've said before, was alone.
He got in the van on the PCH Pacific Coast Highway in Newport
Beach somewhere between 6:00 and 10:00 PM on August 5th.
And here is Bonnen's version of what happened.
I felt really strange that morning.
After all, Vernon and I had just killed a kid the night before.
That would make anyone feel jumpy.
But man, I really felt a new kind of power from killing that
first one. I'd never done that before and
it was a real high. Still kind of can't believe that
we actually killed him. I needed to get out.
I was so jumpy and driving always makes me feel peaceful.
Guess that's why I like driving trucks.
Hell, I would just go out and start driving anywhere just to
gear down. Thinking back to that day, I
didn't really go out to kill anyone, really.
I can truthfully say killing wasn't on my mind.
When I left that morning I spotted a kid hitchhiking and
you know, I started getting horny.
Figured I'd just pull up and feel him out about gays.
I found out he was a student from Germany and was backpacking
around during summer vacation. I think he was going to Mexico.
I can't remember, but I'll tell you.
His looks turned me on. Tall, lean, nice tight body with
light colored eyes and hair. I started talking about sex and
asked him if he was gay. He smiled and crawled in the
front seat with me. I started feeling a little
better thinking about fucking him.
There are a lot of cars parking along the highway, so I pulled
them between a couple of campers.
Most of the people were out walking along the water, but I
still closed the windows. I I didn't want anybody to
disturb us. We got in the back of the van
and took our clothes off. Then we started giving each
other head. It was so good.
We did that for a little while and then I had it in my mind
somewhere about trying out bondage.
I'd never done it before, so I got out some electrician type
wire out of my tool kit and hooked him up.
I guess he thought it wouldn't hold him if he really wanted to
get free. When I finished hooking him up,
I looked down at him, lying there on his stomach with his
hands tied behind his back. It felt good.
I felt like I was really something.
I felt strong, you know? Growing up, I always felt
helpless. I started caressing his body by
running my buck knife blade up and down his skin.
His body was almost hairless, nice and smooth.
All the while I kept telling him how easy would be to kill him.
Guess I kind of wanted him to be afraid of me.
I still didn't plan to kill him. I wanted to play with him, show
him who's boss. I held the knife up to his
throat, told him I should cut him.
He looked at me like he was starting to feel scared all of a
sudden, realizing he was helpless.
The kid couldn't tell if I was serious or not.
I didn't know if I was or not either.
I backed off because I want to enjoy him some more.
We were getting excited, so I reached down between his legs
and checked out his Dick. It was hard, like mine was too.
I got him up on his knees and pushed inside of him, stroking
back and forth until I exploded. Then I grabbed the whole of his
nuts and squeezed him real hard. He screamed, broke loose, and I
fell back. Then the kid twisted around and
faced me and was fist raised in the air, ready to punch me.
I had to defend myself. I didn't have any choice.
He was strong and he might overpower me, maybe even kill
me. I just wanted him to be afraid
of me, to look up at me. No, I could kill him at any
second. I wanted him to show me respect
anyway. I'm afraid of knives and didn't
have any intention of using it as a weapon.
I didn't want blood all over my new van, but I I had to defend
myself. I had no choice.
He was strong, maybe even stronger than me.
What could I do? What if he had gotten the knife
away from me? He might have even killed me.
The kid landed a hard one right across my jaw, and I fell back
and hit my head against the van. I was shocked.
He he nailed me good. The knife was in my hand.
I didn't know what to do, so I raised it up and dug it hard
into his upper arm. The kid screamed in horror,
really loud. His eyes were wide open.
He couldn't believe it. Fuck.
I couldn't believe I'd done it, and something inside me clicked
and I was on automatic pilot. I had to survive.
So I got a better grip on the knife and I started stabbing him
wildly over and over. But he was twisting and turning.
I hit him in the back in the butt.
I don't know where else I was just stabbing blindly.
His blood squirted all over the place on the walls, the curtains
on me. He tried to grab the knife, but
I wouldn't let him get it. I couldn't let him live.
He tell the police and I'd be in prison again.
I've been in too many times, raped and beaten by other
inmates and no one helped me out.
I just kept stabbing him frantically till he stopped
fighting. The kid was asking me take him
to the hospital. I said sure, I mean, what else
could I say? But he was getting on my nerves
with all the whining. Finally I told him to shut up.
I said I was going to take him to a place, drop him off and
then call a doctor to come and help him.
He quieted it down. I drove down Malibu Canyon and
found a lonely side Rd. I started dragging him out.
He was screaming all over again. He was weak and I had to hide
him real good, so I wrapped him up in a blanket.
But then I was all covered in blood again, so I got him on his
stomach and started strangling him.
That wasn't working because I wasn't getting enough leverage,
but I had to kill him. I wrapped an orange cord around
his neck and tried to strangle him, but I couldn't manage it.
I didn't like using the knife. I didn't like that blood going
everywhere, but there was no other way.
I got the buck knife out of the van and put my mind in a sort of
Zen state in order to bring myself to the point of being
able to stab him again. I stabbed him, I don't know how
many times, but I just kept stabbing him like I was in a
frenzy. I had to make sure he was
finished off, so I ran my fist up his ass and he didn't flinch.
I started thinking about how it was when I got beaten as a kid.
I used to beg my old man to stop.
Shit, he wouldn't. Notice that all of Bonnen's
statements are self-serving, stressing that these victims
willingly got in the van, and most egregious sex.
I find it hard to believe that all of these kids said to this
dirty old man because at this time Bornan was 32.
OK, sure, I'll have sex with you.
It's just not believable. Note a couple of things he says
besides his story of consensual sex.
He claimed that he was just defending himself from Marcus,
who supposedly became aggressive.
This is important to note. He said he got a thrill from
Marcus's fear and that he was enjoying the power that he had
over him. And this right here is the key.
And you know what? Somebody who gets enjoyment from
having fear and power over others is a sadist, of course.
The next morning, at about 6:30, a man named Harold was driving
on loss for Jean's Canyon Road and saw what looked like a body.
He stopped, and sure enough, it was the body of a nude male.
The LA County Sheriff's Department, particularly
Sergeant Kushner, arrived and found what was Marcus with
bruises on his face, multiple stab wounds and orange cord
still around his neck, and blue ignition wires binding his
ankles. He also had ligature burn marks
indicating that he'd been strangled from behind.
His shoes were across the road and he had nothing of value in
his backpack like no identifying things.
An autopsy revealed, quote, severe injuries to the anal
region consistent with the defendant Bonnet saying that he
put his first into Mark's anus. And this next part, You're just
not going to believe this. It's so ridiculous.
Bonnen got arrested again. This information is from the
Orange County Sheriff's Crime report on August 9th, 1979 at
about midnight Bonnen had picked up a 17 year old boy and was
parked in a school parking lot and Officer Duncan observed that
the van was quote moving slightly due to movement inside
and quote so he decided to investigate.
Inside were of course Bonnen and a 17 year old boy who said that
Bonnen had picked him up hitchhiking.
According to the police report. Quote Shortly after the ride
started, Bonnen reached over and fondled his genital area.
Saying Does this feel good? He replied.
I don't get into this and pushed his hand away.
Bonnen said that he was bisexual and he should try it.
Bonnen again touched his genital area while driving.
The defendant parked in the school parking lot, then again
fondled the boy saying, quote, can't you get it hard for me?
Bonnen then pulled the boy into the back of the van saying,
quote, don't you want a good blowjob?
The defendant pulled his pants down and tried to kiss the boy,
who again said, hey, I'm not into this.
As we know by now, Bonnen doesn't take no for an answer.
He unzipped the boy's pants and had just started filleting him
when the cop happened upon the scene.
Thankfully for the kid, Bonnen was arrested for sexual
perversion in jail from August 9th to August 13th.
Thanks to his attorney who filed a writ of habeas corpus, he was
released and scheduled to appear for a hearing on August 24th.
A parole revocation hearing was scheduled for September 18th.
So as a former probation officer, I have absolutely no
idea how he was able to get out of jail while on parole for a
serious sex offence. Every time he gets lucky or
slips through the cracks like this time, Bonnen thinks he's
even more invincible, which is common with serial killers or
any career criminals. He called Scott Frazier for a
ride home from jail and again declared this is never going to
happen again. Nobody's ever going to testify
against me again. Unfortunately, Scott, like
everybody who'd heard this previously, thought nothing of
it or took to mean that Bonn planned to stop abducting,
raping, and killing. So then Bonnen gets the genius
idea of establishing a sort of alibi for the murder of Marcus,
and for this he enrolls the help of his shady friend Scott
Frazier. On August 17th, 12 days after he
killed Marcus Bonn and took Frazier to lunch at a restaurant
where he told Frazier that he had killed a dude in
self-defense. In 1/2 assed tale, he claimed
that he and Vern had picked up a hitchhiker for sex.
Remember, Vern wasn't even there for this one.
Things had gotten out of hand and he had been forced to stab
the kid to death in an act of self-defense.
Apparently Frazier bought this load of bullshit.
Bonnen also said that he'd been shaken up over the incident.
Apparently he wasn't too shaken up because three days later, on
August 20th, he and Vern were at it again.
This victim was 18 year old Robert Werrostek, who had been
born in Flint, MI on October 30th, 1960.
He was one of six kids born to Robert and Joan and was
described as very athletic. He played football and graduated
from high school in Michigan in 1978, then moved to California
with his family. He was riding his bicycle to
work at a grocery store called Ralph's Market that day when he
ran into Bonham. Bonham actually gave 2 versions
of the events of Bob's murder, the version he told the
detectives and the written one. I'm going with the written one
since it's slightly less self-serving and more graphic
and I think it's closer to the truth.
He starts off by saying that he was taking a drive along the
shore because it was a sunny day, which is bullshit.
When he happened to Pawn Bob hitchhiking near Newport Beach,
he never mentioned the bicycle, so we know this isn't accurate.
It starts out like all the other confessions he saw.
A good looking dude picked him up politely, asked if he was
interested in homosexual activities, etcetera.
Then, according to Bonin, this is what happened next.
We got back in a van. I started sucking on him and
rubbing his chest. Oh yeah, that feels great, he
said. I had him hooked.
He was laying on his back and really enjoying it.
I went in the back to get tissue and came back with an 8 inch
steak knife. I held it to his throat.
I said if you move I'll stick you with this knife.
He was petrified and said I'll I'll do anything.
I tied him up and told him One false move and I'll stick you.
I could see sweat on his tan skin and was really turning me
on. I pulled down my pants and I
butt fucked him. He started complaining.
I told him if you make any noise you're a dead mother fucker.
I drove my Dick into him and fucked him real hard.
I then found a photo booth and called Vern all the way to
Vern's place. He asked me to loosen his hands
because they were hurting. I told him to shut up.
After I got Vern in the van, I headed out towards the I-10
freeway. During the time I was driving,
Vern learned his name was Bob Wierstick.
Vern gave him head and slapped him around a little bit.
Then Vern drove and I got back there and rolled him onto his
stomach. I asked Vern would you like to
hear him scream? And Vern said sure, why don't
you do that finger trick? That was the thing we discussed
the night before where we break the guy's fingers.
I said OK. I grabbed Bob's little finger
and bent it back till he screamed in pain.
After I finished I went for the little finger on the other hand
and he begged me not to. I pushed it back for a while but
didn't break it. I then grabbed his nuts and
squeezed. Then I took the tire iron and
rolled them over on his back and hit him as hard as I could on
both knees and ankles. I hit him on his shoulders and
elbows. Then I told him we're going to
let you out, but you will be unconscious.
I gave him the choice of either choking him out or hitting him
over the head. He said he didn't know I hit him
across the head with the tire iron and I thought he was out.
I hit him again and he raised up saying you fucking bastard.
He had momentarily scared me. I said I'll choke you.
Instead, just let yourself go and it won't be as bad.
Don't struggle as it'll only make it worse.
And don't try to pretend you're out.
I can tell I started choking him with his T-shirt and twisting
the tire iron. After I got tight I saw he was
full of conscious. He was trying to stay that way.
He started to struggle and I said struggle baby, it'll only
make you death come faster. In 15 seconds he was out.
I relaxed and held the shirt and tire iron tight for about 5
minutes. We dumped him in the desert
around Palm Springs and went home.
Bob's badly decomposed body was found on September 27th, but
wasn't identified until July of 1980.
An autopsy concluded that his cause of death was
strangulation. I'm going to leave off for here.
Remember Patreon is up and running so check that out.
It's patreon.com and it's True Crime Uni.
Or just search for Patreon True Crime University and you'll find
it. The voice of Bonin was done by
the one and only Dave Jorry, voice actor extraordinaire and
host of Criminal AF. So if you want to hear more of
that awesome voice, check out Criminal AF.
Are you a true crime fanatic? Do you want to know all the
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