John Floyd Thomas Jr. Pleads Guilty to Seven Murders of Older Women in Los Angeles County and Gets Life
The plea deal took death off the table. A prosecutor noted capital punishment had not been legal in California when all but one of the seven killings took place.
Published
John Floyd Thomas Jr. was linked by DNA to killings of older women in Los Angeles County in the 1970s and 1980s. On April 1, 2011, he pleaded guilty to seven murders.
Thomas, 74, a former insurance claims adjuster, pleaded guilty in Los Angeles County Superior Court to seven counts of first-degree murder and admitted special-circumstance allegations of multiple murders, murder during rape or attempted rape, and murder during burglary or attempted burglary. Judge George G. Lomeli sentenced him the same day to life without the possibility of parole under a plea deal. Deputy District Attorney Rachel Moser Greene called the deal "an act of pragmatism" rather than "an act of mercy," noting that the death penalty was not legal in California when all but one of the killings were committed. "This provides certainty and finality for surviving family members who lived with this for so long," she said.
The victims were Ethel Sokoloff, 68, killed in the Mid-Wilshire area in 1972; Cora Perry, in Lennox in 1975; Elizabeth McKeown, 67, in Westchester in 1976; Maybelle Hudson, 80, Miriam McKinley, 65, and Evalyn Bunner, 56, all in Inglewood in 1976; and Adrienne Askew, 56, in Claremont in 1986. "For me the death penalty would've been too easy," said Tracy Michaels, McKeown's great-niece. The attacks of the 1970s appeared to stop in 1978, when Thomas was imprisoned for the rape of a Pasadena woman, and a new wave began in the Pomona Valley area after his release in 1983. In 2004 the Los Angeles Police Department matched male DNA from two of the crime scenes, and in October 2008 officers collected Thomas's DNA while trying to identify the serial killer known as the Grim Sleeper. It matched evidence from four of the killings, and he was arrested on March 31, 2009.
The Los Angeles Times reported that detectives suspected Thomas in at least 10 to 15 more killings, while City News Service reported that he was suspected in at least two dozen more.
Sources
- Serial killer John Floyd Thomas Jr., dubbed the Westside Rapist, is sentenced to life, Los Angeles Times
- 'Westside Rapist' Pleads Guilty, Receives Multiple Life Sentences, NBC Los Angeles (City News Service)
Related News
- April 29, 2009: DNA Leads Los Angeles Police to John Floyd Thomas Jr., Charged in Two 1970s Killings of Older Women