Mack Ray Edwards

Mack Ray Edwards was born in Montgomery County, Arkansas, on October 17, 1918,[2] and moved to Los Angeles County, California in 1941.[3][4] In 1942, Edwards joined the United States Army Corps of Engineers and served as a combat engineer, trained in the use of heavy equipment.[5][6][2] Between 1950 and 1957, he resided in the cities of Pico Rivera, El Monte, and Azusa in Los Angeles County.[7]

In the 1950s, Edwards joined the International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE).[2] As a heavy equipment operator contracted by the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) and other agencies, he worked on freeway construction sites in the 1950s and 1960s, driving backhoes and other equipment.[5][1][8] In the 1960s, Edwards moved to Ralston Avenue in Sylmar, Los Angeles, with his wife and two children, both adopted.[1][2]

Edwards sexually molested and murdered three children from 1953 to 1956;[1] he molested and murdered three more in 1968 and 1969.[1] He later stated that all of his crimes were motivated by a desire for sex.[4] The body of one of Edwards's victims was found underneath the Santa Ana Freeway, and he claimed to have disposed under the Ventura Freeway.[9]

In 1970, Edwards and a 15-year-old male accomplice kidnapped three sisters, former neighbors of his who were aged between 12 and 14, from their home in Sylmar.[1] After forcing the girls to write a note to their parents saying that they were running away from home, Edwards and his accomplice then took them by car to remote Bouquet Canyon in Angeles National Forest north of Newhall, California.[1][8] When two of the girls escaped, Edwards – knowing they could identify him – walked into a San Fernando Valley police station on March 6, 1970, and surrendered to Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) Foothill Division detectives.[10][2][4][1] He handed them a loaded handgun, confessed that he had planned to molest and kill the three girls, and confessed to having murdered six other children.[8][2][11][1]

In prison awaiting trial, Edwards twice attempted suicide, first on March 30 by slashing his stomach with a razor blade, and then again on May 7 by taking an overdose of tranquilizers.[4] After three bodies were recovered, Edwards pleaded guilty in Van Nuys Superior Court to three counts of kidnapping and three counts of murder. He was sentenced to death in a gas chamber.[10][12][2] He was transferred to San Quentin State Prison on June 11, 1970.[13]

On October 30, 1971, Edwards committed suicide by hanging himself with an electrical television cord in his cell in San Quentin State Prison.[14][15][1]

Edwards was convicted of murdering three children:

• Stella Darlene Nolan, 8, of Compton, California, who disappeared while at a refreshment stand at a flea market in Norwalk, in June 20, 1953. Edwards confessed to kidnapping her, taking her to his then-home in Azusa, then raping and murdering her. In March 1970, Edwards brought the police to her skeletal remains, buried eight feet under an embankment near a Santa Ana Freeway abutment in Downey;[1][2][8][4]
• Gary Rochet, 16, of Granada Hills, California, who was found shot to death at his home on November 26, 1968. Edwards said he shot him after breaking into the boy's Sylmar home, seeking to kidnap his 13-year-old sister; she was not at home;[1][2][6]
• Donald Allen Todd, 13, of Pacoima, California, who disappeared May 16, 1969, after leaving his home.[2] His body was found that year; he had been sexually abused and shot with a .22 caliber handgun.[1][6]

Edwards confessed to three additional killings. Because their bodies were not recovered, he was not charged with these murders:

• Donald Lee Baker, 13, and Brenda Jo Howell, 11, of Azusa, California, who disappeared while bicycling together in the San Gabriel Canyon on August 6, 1956.[2][1] Howell was Baker's sister-in-law.[1]
• Roger Dale Madison, 15, of Sylmar, Los Angeles, California, who disappeared on December 16, 1968; Edwards had a social relationship with Madison's family and was trusted by Madison, who was friends with and a classmate of Edwards' son.[14][15][1][2] Edwards said he killed Madison in Sylmar and then buried him with a bulldozer in a compaction hole under California State Route 23 in Thousand Oaks, which was under construction.[1][2] In 2005, a search conducted by units from the LAPD and the Ventura County Sheriff's Department, assisted by a special unit of the FBI, sought to find Madison's remains focused on a spot along a southbound off-ramp at the Tierra Rejada Road exit on Route 23 that Edwards had helped build.[6][15][16] Four cadaver dogs noted the presence of human remains.[15] The search proved to be unsuccessful.[17]

Edwards may have committed other murders, but his own account was inconsistent. Before he was transferred to San Quentin State Prison, he claimed to both a Los Angeles County jail guard and another inmate that he had killed eighteen children.[2][1] Edwards told the guard that he refused to tell the police about the other killings because they had disparaged him in court.[2] However, in a 1970 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Edwards said the number was only six.[12] The twelve-year interval between the disappearance of Baker and Howell and the shooting of Rochet led investigators to suspect Edwards may have committed similar crimes during that time.[9]

As of March 2007, the LAPD was investigating the possibility of Edwards' involvement in the disappearance of Thomas Eldon Bowman, 8, of Redondo Beach, who disappeared while hiking with his family in the Arroyo Seco in Pasadena on March 23, 1957.[1][2] Author G. Weston DeWalt noted the similarity between a photo of Edwards and a sketch of Bowman's abductor. DeWalt was later shown a letter which Edwards had written to his wife, in which he stated that he was going to add but "left out" Bowman from his confession to police.[1] Bowman's body was never found.[18]

Edwards is also considered a suspect in other disappearances:

• Bruce Kremen, 6, of Granada Hills, Los Angeles, disappeared from a YMCA camp in Angeles National Forest on July 12, 1960.[19][1]
• Karen Lynn Tompkins, 11, of Harbor Gateway, disappeared on August 18, 1961, at she was walking home from an arts and crafts summer class at Halldale Elementary School, four blocks from her home, just east of the Torrance city limit.[1][7][18]
• Dorothy Gale Brown, 11, of Torrance, disappeared on July 3, 1962, as she was bicycling near her home.[18] The following day her unclothed body was discovered in 25 feet of water by recreational divers and recovered from the ocean off Corona del Mar, Newport Beach; she had been molested and drowned.[1][18]
• Ramona Price, 7, of Santa Barbara, disappeared in August 1961 while walking near her home in an area near a 101 Freeway overpass at Winchester Canyon Road that was under renovation. A witness described a girl matching Price's description as getting into a Plymouth automobile; Edwards was known to drive Plymouths, and a sketch of the car's driver shows a man matching his description.[20] On June 15, 2011, the Santa Barbara Police Department announced plans to search for Price's remains in an area near a 101 Freeway overpass that was under renovation at the time of her disappearance.[21][22][17][8][23] The police did not announce at the time what evidence led them to believe her remains may be buried there, but local news reports suggested[23] a possible link to Edwards, who was working at the location.[17] The following day, four teams of cadaver dogs had alerted on the same "area of interest" at the site, but a decision was not made about whether to undertake further excavation. The news reports indicated that comments made by Edwards about other victims, along with the fact that he worked in Goleta at time of Price's disappearance, suggested a link. The search did not lead to a discovery of her remains.[24][8]