MORRIS SOLOMON JR: THE SACRAMENTO SLAYER

The attributes of Morris Solomon Jr’s murders were rape, as all of his victims had sexual undertones when they were discovered. However, because his victim’s corpses were in the later phases of decomposition, definitive causes of death was extremely challenging to resolve.
           
Morris Solomon Jr. was born in Albany, Georgia on March 15, 1944. Though he would later be described as a quiet, friendly man, he was raised in a troubled and abusive home by his grandmother, Bertha. He was beaten on a daily basis during his childhood and into his teenage years. He was not a bad child, but his grandmother abused him for offenses like wetting the bed, poor grammar, or even complaining while she was beating him. The abuse got so bad that she forced him to strip off all of his clothes and cower in the corner where she would beat him all over his body, including his testicles, with weapons such as electrical cords or switches that she even made him collect. One time, she tied him to a bed to prevent him from running from her wrath. Solomon was on occasion beaten until he was bleeding.

Up until he was thirteen, he had very limited contact with his parents. He rejoined his parents when he and his grandmother moved to a little agricultural town called Isleton, California, just 40 miles from Sacramento where his future killings would take place. His family, along with a small number of other African American families, lived in an impoverished part of Isleton called “Cannery Row” or “Tinpan Alley”. Reuniting with his parents, however, did not relieve Solomon from abuse. His mother and father often hit and sexually abused each other in his presence.  Both his grandmother and his mother frequently abused him, verbally and physically, out in the open. Acquaintances of his mother characterized her as “loose” and disclosed that she “entertained” various men on a regular basis.

In his early adult life, Solomon maintained a much more traditional existence. After he graduated high school, he went to community college and was employed at several different businesses. He made a living working as a carpenter, a car repairman, and a bus driver. In the summer of 1966, he deployed to Vietnam until the summer of 1967 when he went home to Isleton. Upon his return, he proposed marriage to a woman he had been acquainted with before his tour of duty in Vietnam.

Though engaged, Solomon never married the woman. She called off the wedding and he moved to San Francisco. There, he did marry someone and a daughter was born to them. The marriage did not last and after their divorce, he moved yet again. This time to Sacramento where he worked as a handyman. Only a select few knew Solomon was an ex-convict with a past of sexual aggression and brutality. This led to his confinement in the state mental hospital where he was branded as a mentally disturbed sex offender (MDSO). When he was freed from his hold in the hospital, he began to trade free lodging for his repair services around Sacramento. It was in Sacramento that his murderous rampage began.

His first victim was a twenty-two year old named Yolanda Johnson. Her body was discovered partly naked on June 18, 1986. Johnson was a prostitute and a drug addict. The police began their investigation after they received a phone call from a man regarding the finding of Yolanda Johnson’s corpse. The man that called was Morris Solomon Jr. Some authorities believe that Solomon took action to divulge the information of Johnson’s body for the sake of coming across as a concerned citizen instead of a killer. Authorities brought Solomon in for questioning after the finding of Johnson’s body. Solomon provided them with fingerprints and a sample of blood. However, he delivered a handful of contradictory assurances. In addition, he neglected to accurately identify himself. Police found Johnson in a closet of a house that Solomon had previously occupied. It was two to three days after he had murdered her that she was found. His second victim was Angela Polidore, a twenty-five year old woman who was found on July 20, 1986 tied up and partly undressed. Her body was found hidden in rubble at a different home in which Solomon had done some of his handyman work. The police suspected Solomon in both murders but he was not detained because police could not present satisfactory evidence to charge him. At this time, Solomon had four unresolved warrants for misdemeanors he had committed, counting one for propositioning a prostitute. 
 
Solomon’s third victim was an eighteen-year-old girl by the name of Maria Apodaca. Like his first victim, she was also a prostitute and a drug addict. She was discovered on March 19, 1987 tangled in sheets underground in the lot of a house located in Sacramento’s neighborhood of Oak Park. Police suggested that the bedding in which Apodaca’s body was incased was from the bed of Solomon. Police summoned him for questioning again after Maria Apodaca’s corpse was found. He administered dishonest reports to law enforcement officers but subsequently disclosed that he was worried about his warrants for outstanding misdemeanors. By this time, Morris Solomon Jr. was officially classified as a serial killer, as he had three murders under his belt. But he wasn’t finished.

On April 20, 1987, Solomon allowed police to examine his vehicle on the premises where he resided. The car was abandoned. However, while present on the lot, the police noticed a differentiation in the dirt, acquired a shovel, and unearthed what they discovered to be the body of Cherie Washington. Cherie Washington, a twenty-six year old drug addicted prostitute was discovered in her resting place in the ground in the same region of Apodaca. Washington’s body was found tied up, naked, and swaddled in bed materials. She fit Solomon’s target type of victim being that she was a drug abuser and a prostitute. On April 22, 1987, police discovered the corpses of Linda Vitela, 24, and Sheila Jacox, 17. They were both found underground at a property that had a connection to Solomon. Both women had been deceased for approximately one year before police found their lifeless bodies. Following the pattern, both were found naked, and cloaked in sheets. The two women had also been drug addicts and prostitutes, just like the women before them.  The last victim, Sharon Massey, had been deceased for about six months before the police found her body on April 29, 1987. Massey was twenty-nine years old and had been disposed of in an identical fashion as the victims before her. She was also a prostitute who used drugs, discovered naked, tied up, and disposed of in sheets. Massey’s body was located in the same area as Maria Apodaca’s body. Because every victim they found was discovered in almost identical form, the police believed they were searching for only one serial killer.

Morris Solomon Jr. was arrested on April 22, 1987. He was jailed without bond and was charged with seven counts of murder in the first degree. However, the prosecuting attorney had a case that was mostly presumptive because they had no evidence plainly indicating that Solomon was connected to the murders, though there were witnesses that linked him as an acquaintance of several of his victims. Law enforcement officers did indicate that Maria Apodaca had been in his company at his home more than once. Effectually, all of his victims, save one, were discovered at venues where Solomon had either resided or had labored as a handyman. During the times when they had questioned him in regards to a few of the murders, the police had obtained a blood sample from Solomon. Unfortunately, the testing of DNA was in its early stages so no association could be made by that course of action. On the other hand, a specimen of semen had been taken from Johnson’s corpse and tests concluded that it was a match to the blood of Morris Solomon Jr.

Peter P. Vlautin III and Constance Gutowsky, the defense attorneys for the trial against Solomon, gave a considerable argument in court. They provided eighteen witnesses that all gave their testimonies in a span of one week. Their position was in pursuit of proof that Solomon’s atrocities were the result of instability brought on by the injustice and misconduct he was exposed to in his youth, akin with the abuse that was inflicted upon him. They also argued that his stint in Vietnam and use of cocaine played a role. The defense introduced Brad Fisher, a clinical forensic psychologist, and John P. Wilson, a clinical psychologist. Both of these professionals declared that the nature and quantity of offenses inflicted upon him as an adolescent drove him to embody psychological, emotional, and behavioral issues that actively and heavily influenced his crimes and his need to commit crime.

When word of the lawsuit made it to the ears of the public, the surviving victims of Solomon’s assaults presented themselves and testified against him, detailing their encounters. Mary K., 18, disclosed in court that she had been stabbed on September 19, 1969 by Morris Solomon Jr. Virginia J., a woman in her twenties, told the court that she had been snatched from behind, imperiled by a gun, involuntarily put into a vehicle and was the victim of rape and sexual abuse. Her attack occurred on January 12, 1971. Dale W. declared that Solomon had kicked her in her face on May 17, 1971. Solomon was also found guilty of assault and intent to commit rape. Connie S., deposed that Solomon had strangled her with a chain until she lost consciousness. He proceeded to urinate on her face, beat and rape her. Her attack took place on October 18, 1975. Subsequently, he was also found guilty of aggravated assault. Darlene G., 18, testified that Solomon had asphyxiated her to the point of unconsciousness. For this crime, Solomon was found guilty of assault with intent to commit rape. Her attack happened in December 1976 at San Quentin State Prison when Solomon was employed there as the operative of a forklift. In addition, Solomon had also been found guilty of three charges of grand theft in Arizona in 1984. 

Morris Solomon Jr.’s first death penalty hearing was proclaimed to be a mistrial. However, a secondary jury was unanimous in their finding in favor of the death penalty in July of 1992. The California Supreme Court ratified the second jury’s decision. Morris Solomon Jr. was  the 342nd person to be given the verdict of death in California. 
 
It would seem such a gruesome and public case would have made bigger waves in the media. However, it failed to garner the national attention it may have otherwise received because he was not the only serial killer claiming the lives of Sacramento’s population. Another serial killer was also operating on the same turf. Seven corpses were discovered in the yard of female serial killer Dorothea Puente’s house. Amidst the killings of Dorothea Puente and Morris Solomon Jr., Sacramento had two serial killers victimizing citizens at the same time.

On August 29, 1991, Morris Solomon Jr. was found guilty of murdering six of the seven women. The charges against him regarding the Angela Polidore case were dismissed. He was sentenced to death on September 16, 1992. He is still sitting on death row in San Quentin, California. Solomon, to this day, denies he murdered anyone.