CA CA - I-5 Strangler - Roger Reece KIBBE, 1970's-80's

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http://www.kcra.com/news/15527659/detail.html

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STOCKTON, Calif. -- A convicted murderer known as the I-5 Strangler has been accused of six more killings and may now face the death penalty, officials said.

Roger Reece Kibbe, 68, has been indicted by a grand jury in San Joaquin County on suspicion of homicides that took place from 1977 to 1986.

  • Lou Ellen Burleigh, Sept. 11, 1977
  • Lora Heedick of Modesto, April 21, 1986
  • Barbara Ann Scott, July 3, 1986
  • Stephanie Brown of Sacramento, July 15, 1986
  • Charmaine Sabrah of Sacramento, Aug. 17, 1986
  • Katherine Kelly Quinones, Nov. 5, 1986
 
I remember when these murders happened.
Thankfully these victims will receive justice.
 
Are there more that we may not know about??

Interesting that the I-5 Killer (Randy Woodfield) was also active during the same period of time. Sadly Amanda I think there are so many serial killers and their victims we may never know about.
 
1970s serial killers sowed fear in Contra Costa
By Matthias Gafni
Contra Costa Times
© Copyright 2011, Bay Area News Group
Posted: 07/16/2011 10:12:11 PM PDT
'I-5 Strangler'
Roger Kibbe found himself in Contra Costa after being paroled to the Oakley area in 1972.
He started stealing women's underwear off laundry lines and cutting them up. When he began killing, he unnecessarily cut victims' clothing, Holes said.
Kibbe's first and only Contra Costa victim was Walnut Creek resident Lou Ellen Burleigh, 21, who disappeared Sept. 11, 1977, after agreeing to meet a man advertising a job at a cosmetics studio.
Kibbe, who confessed to the crime, got her into his van. Last month, DNA testing confirmed that it was Burleigh's remains found near Lake Berryessa in March.
http://www.believermag.com/exclusives/?read=excerpt_strand
 
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Are there more that we may not know about??

There is at least one, possibly two. He had a "signature" of cutting up victims' clothing for no reason (non-functional cutting). He had started with this as a teenager when he stole women's clothing from clotheslines.

Karen Higgins Finch, who went missing on June 15, 1986 and was found a week later, has been connected with him well enough that she was included as a known victim in "Trace Evidence" and the "Forensic Files" episode about Kibbe. She was stabbed instead of strangled - police believe she fought back and he became enraged and stabbed her with the scissors he used to cut clothing. Everything else about her case was similar, though. She was found on the side of the road, she had been tied like the other victims, her clothing was cut the same way. When he pled guilty, the deal was LE wouldn't bring anymore charges against him. I think, though I cannot recall, he may have admitted to killing Karen Finch under the deal. http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090929/A_NEWS/909299991

There's another case, Robbin Simpson, that was followed here. If I'm understanding his plea deal correctly, they may be able to charge him with her death if they get enough evidence, because he did not confess to it. Personally, given that her clothes were cut up in a manner similar to what he did to confirmed victims, I think she was probably a victim of Kibbe's. That's a really, really weird signature, and is how they connected the murders in the first place (though they couldn't gather enough evidence for the others to convince a prosecutor to charge him until DNA testing). Unfortunately, because the remains were skeletonized, there may not ever be enough evidence to charge him, and since he will never get out of jail, they may not feel it is worth the expense of another trial: http://www.websleuths.com/forums/sh...nty-California-Robbin-Simpson&highlight=kibbe

Personally, I think he was behind a lot more murders. He killed Lou Ellen Burleigh in 1977. That's a wide gap, both from when he first started stealing and cutting up clothing in his teens to when he killed her in his mid-30s, and from her murder to his next known victim in 1986. I think he only confessed to her murder because, according to Bruce Henderson's book, he had been a suspect when she disappeared, so he knew that LE would be looking at her case again once DNA tied him to the five 1986 cases. He wasn't convicted of most of his crimes until 2009. I'm thinking there are probably a bunch of murders across Central California in the 1970s and 1980s he is responsible for, if departments go back and check their cold cases for strangled or stabbed women found with cut up clothing, especially in areas where his known victims were found. They are all very remote areas where it would be easy to hide a body and it not be found for months or years.
 
Okay, after searching through news archives, I found a few strong possibilities. Figured I'd list them here.

· Nancy Feusi: Found by a fisherman in Sutter County in a remote area after disappearing late at night from Sacramento three days earlier. Was partially clothed with clothing strewn around. However, she was stabbed, not strangled, and there is no mention of nonfunctional cutting of her clothing.
http://s1106.photobucket.com/user/truthandsoul/media/signore/nancyFeusi_argus_072573.jpg.html

· Deena Shariese Scott, 26: Stabbed and her throat was slashed on Dec. 1, 1985, similarly to Karen Finch. Lived in Manteca, but spent time in Ceres, where Roger Kibbe was living at the time, the day she disappeared. Went to a bar off of Highway 99 in Stockton, and had a solo-vehicle crash just south of the bar - Kibbe targeted stranded motorists on highways in the area. Her body was found in Manteca, so not across county lines, and no mention of scissor cuts to her clothing, but the locations and similarity of her abduction and murder to those of Stephanie Brown, Charmaine Sabrah and Karen Finch is worth looking into.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/San-...omicideMissing-Persons/107929415935434?ref=mf

· Cora Carillo, 24: Found in Douglas County, where Kibbe often visited his brother, who worked as a homicide detective, in 1981. Strangled with a ligature made from her own clothing, which Kibbe did with his confirmed victim Lora Heedick. Disappeared from Carson City, which is independent, so crossed county lines/jurisdictions. I think this is a really strong possibility, and since Kibbe asked his brother about how people can remove evidence and was the brother of a detective, he likely would not have been considered as a suspect in this case.
http://www.officialcoldcaseinvestig...hp?13908-Information-sought-in-unsolved-cases
http://www.8newsnow.com/story/13992...icides-and-unidentified-missing-persons-cases

In Trace Evidence, two possible Jane Doe cases were mentioned, one in El Dorado County that ended up being Robbin Simpson, and one in Nevada that I can't find anything about.

For what it's worth, police only went back a few years from 1986, mainly checked in Sac, San Joaquin and Ellen Dorado counties, and may have only reviewed strangulation cases (Karen Finch wasn't stabbed until 1987.)

I've found others with similarities to Kibbe's known victims (almost all strangulation victims), but either no body was ever found (Kimberly Stewart), or they didn't fit for other reasons. For example, two women, Penny Coyle and Nina Wilkerson, disappeared from Lodi a few months apart in 1981 and were found in the same place in the Delta just 12 miles from where Kibbe dumped Stephanie Brown's body, clothed like some of Kibbe's victims. However, no cause of death was determined, there was no mention of non-functional cutting to their clothes, and given how close they were to where Stephanie Brown was found, I can't imagine the SJ County detectives did not review their cases at the time.

Some of the Santa Rosa hitchhiker murders seem similar to Kibbe's known victims, but they were linked to other murders that sound nothing like him and don't fit his victim profile, and most did not cross county or jurisdictional lines.

Charlotte Cook was strangled and dumped behind a Ranger Station in Daly City, San Mateo County, the day after testifying in a robbery in Alameda County in 1974. Sounds like a possibility, except Kibbe's victims were mostly dumped in remote areas, and if she testified the day before, it's more likely to be connected to that.

I really feel like he has a lot more victims, though, and with him behind bars for the rest of his life and more pressing homicide cases, I worry that his other victims' families will never have closure.
 
On a side note, I've been reading about Joseph Naso and I'd really like to map out where he and Kibbe were and when, where they dumped bodies, and so on. I feel like between the two of them, many of the strangling deaths of women in Northern California and the Reno area in the 1970s and '80s could be accounted for. Their hunting and dumping grounds overlapped, both liked to bind and strangle their victims, and both targeted prostitutes as well as luring in other women, Kibbe targeting stranded drivers and Naso seeking out photography subjects. And both went undetected for long periods of time, though Naso made it a lot longer.
 
That is a great idea! I think it would also be helpful to take a look at where close family members lived.
 
It looks as though Kibbe kidnapped his victims on certain days of the week.

Lou Ellen Burleigh, Sept. 11, 1977 (Sunday)
Lora Heedick of Modesto, April 21, 1986 (Monday)
Barbara Ann Scott, July 3, 1986 (Wednesday)
Stephanie Brown of Sacramento, July 15, 1986 (Tuesday - was this the day she disappeared or was found?)
Charmaine Sabrah of Sacramento, Aug. 17, 1986 (Sunday)
Katherine Kelly Quinones, Nov. 5, 1986 (Wednesday)

Does anyone know the date of Darcie Frackenpohl's disappearance?

Karen Finch, disappeared June 15, 1986 (Sunday)
Deena Shariese Scott, disappeared December 1, 1985 (Sunday)

Is this just a coincidence or does it show a pattern?
 
Roger and his wife got married in Tahoe right around 1971 or so and moved to Antioch. I put together a timeline when I read Trace Evidence (fantastic book) but it's on my computer. It was a smaller organization - I want to say Volunteers of America or a name like that? I'll check when I get a chance.

I agree with you on the hitchhiker murders, that most of the victims seem too young. I'm not sure what links them all (I read chipmunk fur somewhere? And probably other stuff too), so he may not be connected to any of them. But Nancy Feusi, who was connected to the series by the FBI, sounds eerily like two of his known victims (Charmaine Sabrah and Karen Finch), and some of the others don't quite fit, but are close enough it's worth running his DNA IMO. Especially Theresa Walsh and maybe Kim Allen and Laura O'Dell.

I sent a tip in for Nancy Feusi since she was in Sacramento and the case was so similar - her killer even crossed county lines like Kibbe did - but haven't heard anything. (on a sidenote, Wikipedia says her body was found in Redding, but I looked up news articles from the time and she was actually found in Sutter County.)

EDIT: Forgot I have the book right here. He was living first in Pittsburg, then in Oakley and driving a truck for Volunteers of America from at least the late 1970s until the Kibbes moved to Ceres and opened a furniture business in 1984, according to his wife and a 1984 police report after he assaulted a prostitute. There is no exact date for when he started, but he and Harriet married and moved to Pittsburg around 1971.

(Also, we should probably move this convo over to his thread, so we don't derail this one. Sorry, everyone!)

Following up on PricklyPear's post regarding Volunteers of America, I checked their website and discovered that their California locations are all along I-5. They have locations in Portland, OR, and Everett, WA, that are also along I-5. As for the California locations, they are located in Oakland (where Kibbe worked when he assaulted Janice Evans, a prostitute working near his place of employment, April 1984), San Diego, Sacramento and Los Angeles. There is a VOA in Reno, NV. This is some coincidence. Did Kibbe use these locations to pick up prostitutes/victims? Below I have listed the addresses of the VOA locations. Perhaps there might be a correlation between locations and unknown victims.

Southwest - 3530 Camino Del Rio North, San Diego, CA
Greater Los Angeles - 3600 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA
Bay Area - 672 Thirteenth St., Oakland, CA
Northern California and Northern Nevada - 3434 Marconi Ave., Sacramento, CA
Northern Nevada - 335 Record St., Reno, NV
Oregon - 3910 SE Stark St., Portland, OR
Western Washington - 2802 Broadway Ave., Everett, WA
 
I am adding the link to the Websleuths closed thread for Lynn Ruth Connes.

http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?115825-Lynn-Ruth-Connes-(20)-Berkeley-CA-1976

Circumstances surrounding her disappearance could place her on the list of possible victims of Kibbe.

1. Blonde hair, long
2. She advertised for employment as a photographer's model (1977, Kibbe used ad ruse to lure victim Lou Ellen Burleigh; 1986, Kibbe offered potential victim Debra Guffie $1500 to pose for photographs)
3. Disappeared from Berkeley, Alameda County (Kibbe lived in Pittsburg, Contra Costa County, in 1978; it is about 30 miles, a 35 minute drive, from Pittsburg to Berkeley)

I think Connes could also be considered a suspect for Joseph Naso.
 
Connes seems like a really strong possibility for Joseph Naso, but I don't think Kibbe can be ruled out without her being found, especially given how much more bold he was in snatching victims at the time. He took a lot more risks with Lou Ellen Burleigh than he did with any of his other, later victims. Since he was questioned when Burleigh vanished, that may have scared him into changing how he picked up victims.

I found a really, really strong possibility on the Sacramento County Sheriff's cold case page: Daphne Elizabeth Collier, who Steph54 created a thread for. Here's what the sheriff has:

On September 1, 1977, Daphne Collier, a 16 year old female, was discovered on the side of Grantline Road. She had been strangled to death and sexually assaulted. It was learned that Daphne had hitchhiked from Seaside, California the previous day. She was last seen being dropped off on the I-5 on-ramp at 15th Street and W Streets in the evening hours of September 31, 1977.

Pretty much anywhere on Grantline would have been VERY rural in 1977. Elk Grove only had around 5,000-7,000 people at that time. It wasn't across county lines from where she was picked up, but it was many counties from where she'd started in Monterey County, something whoever killed her could have learned if they'd made conversation after picking her up. It was also across county lines from where Kibbe lived at the time, which is consistent with how he chose some victims. She was picked up on I-5, she was assaulted and strangled (Kibbe's preferred M.O.) with her own clothing (which he did in other cases), and he had a confirmed victim in 1977, Lou Ellen Burleigh, just a few days later. It would be a short cooling off period, but he killed Barbara Ann Scott and Stephanie Brown 12 days apart in 1986, so it's possible with him.

I'll try and track down the timeline I made a couple of years ago; I lost my password for this site for a while. I think Kibbe had a lot more victims and I don't think it's right that those families never get closure. I do suspect he was probably much more active during certain time periods than others due to stress in his life, though.

EDIT: Actually, him being more active in times of stress (something mentioned in Trace Evidence) would make the case for him murdering Collier even stronger: He was being questioned in the Burleigh case, which would have been extremely stressful, and that could explain why he went clear to Sacramento instead of finding another victim close to home.

EDIT 2: Okay, I just mapped from the Volunteers of America office in Sacramento to Pittsburg, where Kibbe lived, and guess which intersection right next to Interstate 5 the driver would pass, whether he was taking 80 to 680 and around to Pittsburg, or I-5 to Highway 12/4 and over to Pittsburg? 15th and W, where Collier was last seen.
 
Browsing through some of the cold cases here, and Pamela Jean King John is sticking out to me. She's not a strong possibility, but she fits with his other victims in a few ways: http://www.websleuths.com/forums/showthread.php?264700-CA-Pamela-Jean-King-John-23-Napa-1979

- She was a prostitute, like several of Kibbe's victims.
- She was abducted in one county (Solano) and dropped in another (Napa).
- She was strangled or suffocated.
- She was left in standing water. Several of Kibbe's victims were left in watery areas in the Delta, and Lou Ellen Burleigh was left at Lake Berryessa, also in Napa.
- Kibbe was living in Pittsburg at the time, which is close to Vallejo. He liked to go for drives around the area, including up to Napa.

However, she was found nude. All of Kibbe's known victims were found with at least some of their clothing. Investigators also weren't sure if she was suffocated or strangled; most of Kibbe's victims were strangled with a ligature, which is pretty distinctive even if the ligature is missing.

Still, I thought I'd mention this case here and see what others thought.
 
Skeletal remains were found by hikers in Placer County, on a rural road just off of Interstate 80, one of the routes between Sacramento and Reno.

http://www.sacbee.com/news/local/crime/article197039324.html

There's not much information known yet - they're not even sure how old the remains are, and nothing about clothing or anything found with the body. And Kibbe's preferred route was Highway 50, if I remember correctly (Darcie Frackenpohl and suspected victim Robbin Simpson were both found along 50). ETA: Even if they are from the period Kibbe was active, David Rundle had three known victims in Sacramento and Placer counties along I-80. /ETA

But may be a case to keep an eye on here anyway.
 
Roger Kibbe, The I-5 Strangler, Raped And Cut His Victims’ Clothing In Strange Ritual (with clip)
A carpenter by trade, Roger Kibbe struck fear in the hearts of California women for his deranged and repeated murders around Sacramento.


FEBRUARY 14, 2019

"California has spawned many a notorious killer, from the Zodiac Killer and Manson family in the late 1960s to the next decade’s Co-Ed Killer to the Golden State Killer. Chances are if you were a California girl in the late ’70s, someone warned you about the I-5 Strangler.

The I-5 Strangler’s “mark,” so to speak, was how he left victims along Northern California’s interstate highway. He preyed on sex workers and women waiting for roadside assistance. In addition to raping and asphyxiating his victims, he was known for methodically cutting away their clothing in a bizarre fetish. “Mark of a Killer,” airing on Oxygen on Sundays 7/6c, offers an explanation for the I-5 Strangler’s mark, while uncovering how Roger Kibbe was finally identified as the serial killer....

Roger Kibbe is currently incarcerated at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California, about 30 miles east of where he once cruised Interstate 5 looking for women to brutalize and murder. He is 79 years old. ..."

Roger Kibbe, The I-5 Strangler, Raped And Cut His Victims’ Clothing In Strange Ritual Blog

kibbe-victims.jpg


kibbe-victims.jpg

(Lou Ellen Burleigh, 21 [Sept. 11, 1977]
Lora Heedrick, 20 [April 21, 1986]
Barbara Ann Scott, 29 [July 3, 1986]
Stephanie Brown of Sacramento, 19 [July 15, 1986]
Charmaine Sabrah, 26 [Aug. 17, 1986]
Katherine Kelly Quinones, 25 [Nov. 5, 1986]
Darcie Frackenpohl, 17 [1987])

Roger Kibbe : I-5 Strangler

Nov 18, 2016

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Press release from the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation:

Mule Creek State Prison Officials Investigating Inmate Death as a Homicide - News Releases

Mule Creek State Prison (MCSP) officials are investigating the death of inmate Roger Kibbe, 81, as a homicide.

At approximately 12:40 a.m. on Sunday, Feb. 28, a MCSP correctional officer was conducting institution population counts when the officer observed inmate Jason Budrow, 40, standing in his cell with Kibbe, Budrow’s cellmate, lying unresponsive on the floor.

Medical staff immediately responded to the incident and transported Kibbe to the institution health care facility for higher level of care. Life-saving measures were unsuccessful and Kibbe was pronounced deceased at 1:23 a.m. by institution medical staff.

Kibbe was sentenced on Nov. 5, 2009 from San Joaquin County to serve life without the possibility of parole for two counts of first-degree murder. He was also sentenced in El Dorado County on May 10, 1991, to serve a consecutive life-with-parole sentence for first-degree murder and admitted to state prison on June 7, 1991.

Budrow was sentenced on June 29, 2011 from Riverside County to serve a life without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder as a second-striker. Budrow has been rehoused in the Administrative Segregation Unit pending the investigation.

MCSP’s Investigative Services Unit is investigating this incident and the Office of the Inspector General has been notified.

MCSP opened in 1987, houses 3,864 inmates and employs approximately 1,700 people. MCSP provides several vocational, academic, self-help, volunteer, and other rehabilitative programs.
 

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