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Herbert Mullin, Who Confessed to 13 Santa Cruz-Area Killings, Dies in Prison at 75

Mullin had been in California prisons since 1973, serving life terms for 11 murders. He died at a Stockton prison medical facility.

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Herbert Mullin in a California prison identification photograph dated July 28, 2022

Herbert W. Mullin died at 7:35 on the evening of Thursday, August 18, 2022, at the California Health Care Facility in Stockton, a prison for inmates with long-term medical needs. He was 75, and he had been in California state prison for almost 49 years. Corrections officials said he died of natural causes; the San Joaquin County Office of the Medical Examiner was to make the final determination.

By his own account, Mullin killed 13 people in four months, from late 1972 into early 1973, in and around Santa Cruz. The ten he was convicted of killing in Santa Cruz County ranged in age from 4 to 73. Another was a priest, killed in a church confessional booth in Los Gatos.

He was tried for 11 of the killings. In Santa Cruz County he was convicted of two counts of first-degree murder and eight of second-degree murder, and on September 18, 1973, he entered state prison to serve two life terms with the possibility of parole and eight terms of five years to life, all running together. That December 21, a court in Santa Clara County, where Los Gatos lies, added a consecutive term of five years to life for the second-degree murder of the priest. He confessed to two more killings for which he was never charged, prosecutors said.

The possibility of parole never became a release. The board last turned him down in March 2021, when Santa Cruz County District Attorney Jeffrey Rosell argued that Mullin still posed "as high of a risk to the community" as he had when he killed. He died in custody.

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