Old Broad
New Member
I did not find a thread to either of these 2 murders, if there is one, please delete this thread.
I'm so happy to see this man has finally been caught, but no telling how many victims he's had through the years.
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/atoz/article_1187755.php
NEWPORT BEACH - There was a time a few years ago when John Laurence Whitaker was a deep-voiced community activist in Pasadena who gave motivational speeches to students, ran for the school board and claimed to be a Vietnam War hero.
But Tuesday, Whitaker was an inmate standing slumped over in a courtroom hold cell in Newport Beach while his attorney entered not guilty pleas to two counts of murder.
Whitaker, also known as John Betances, was charged with killing Patricia Carpenter, a Los Angeles woman whose bruised and battered body was found in a Laguna Canyon parking lot in 1983, and Bodil Rasmussen, a school clerk who was found strangled and dumped in a Santa Monica parking lot in 1975.
Orange County Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy said that DNA specimens taken from both crime scenes link Whitaker to the slayings. Murphy hopes to try both killings in Orange County under a new state law that allows similar crimes to be tried together regardless of where all crimes took place.
Whitaker was linked to the Dec. 16, 1983, slaying of Carpenter two years ago by Paul Litchenberg, who was a Laguna Beach cold case detective. Litchenberg submitted tissues of skin recovered from under the victim's fingernails to a DNA database.
Carpenter, who was 26 when she died, was last seen in Los Angeles getting into a car with an unidentified man on Dec. 16, 1983. A newspaper carrier found her body shortly after dawn the next day. She was nude from the waist down and had been strangled.
There were no suspects in her killing until Litchenberg ran the fingernail scrapings through the DNA database. The tests came up with a hit on Whitaker, who once served 10 years in prison for rape.
He was arrested in Oregon in 2004 and fought his extradition for several months before he was returned to Orange County. Santa Monica detectives then reopened their investigation into the June 25, 1975, death of Rasmussen, a native of Sweden who was working as a school clerk when she was killed. She allegedly had been raped and strangled.
Whitaker was an early suspect in that investigation, when police learned he had been with the victim the night before her body was found in a Santa Monica parking lot. But no charges were filed.
Last year, however, DNA evidence found on Rasmussen's body was tested and determined that it was likely left by Whitaker, who has a lengthy arrest record and is required to register as a sex offender.
But that history did not prevent him from becoming a well-known community activist in Pasadena, where he bragged about being a colonel in the Green Beret and serving several assignments in Vietnam, and being captured once there.
Detectives found no evidence of such a distinguished military career, Murphy said.
More at link.
Old Broad
I'm so happy to see this man has finally been caught, but no telling how many victims he's had through the years.
http://www.ocregister.com/ocregister/news/atoz/article_1187755.php
NEWPORT BEACH - There was a time a few years ago when John Laurence Whitaker was a deep-voiced community activist in Pasadena who gave motivational speeches to students, ran for the school board and claimed to be a Vietnam War hero.
But Tuesday, Whitaker was an inmate standing slumped over in a courtroom hold cell in Newport Beach while his attorney entered not guilty pleas to two counts of murder.
Whitaker, also known as John Betances, was charged with killing Patricia Carpenter, a Los Angeles woman whose bruised and battered body was found in a Laguna Canyon parking lot in 1983, and Bodil Rasmussen, a school clerk who was found strangled and dumped in a Santa Monica parking lot in 1975.
Orange County Deputy District Attorney Matt Murphy said that DNA specimens taken from both crime scenes link Whitaker to the slayings. Murphy hopes to try both killings in Orange County under a new state law that allows similar crimes to be tried together regardless of where all crimes took place.
Whitaker was linked to the Dec. 16, 1983, slaying of Carpenter two years ago by Paul Litchenberg, who was a Laguna Beach cold case detective. Litchenberg submitted tissues of skin recovered from under the victim's fingernails to a DNA database.
Carpenter, who was 26 when she died, was last seen in Los Angeles getting into a car with an unidentified man on Dec. 16, 1983. A newspaper carrier found her body shortly after dawn the next day. She was nude from the waist down and had been strangled.
There were no suspects in her killing until Litchenberg ran the fingernail scrapings through the DNA database. The tests came up with a hit on Whitaker, who once served 10 years in prison for rape.
He was arrested in Oregon in 2004 and fought his extradition for several months before he was returned to Orange County. Santa Monica detectives then reopened their investigation into the June 25, 1975, death of Rasmussen, a native of Sweden who was working as a school clerk when she was killed. She allegedly had been raped and strangled.
Whitaker was an early suspect in that investigation, when police learned he had been with the victim the night before her body was found in a Santa Monica parking lot. But no charges were filed.
Last year, however, DNA evidence found on Rasmussen's body was tested and determined that it was likely left by Whitaker, who has a lengthy arrest record and is required to register as a sex offender.
But that history did not prevent him from becoming a well-known community activist in Pasadena, where he bragged about being a colonel in the Green Beret and serving several assignments in Vietnam, and being captured once there.
Detectives found no evidence of such a distinguished military career, Murphy said.
More at link.
Old Broad