Mack Ray Edwards
USABiography of Mac Ray Edwards
Early Life and CareerMac Ray Edwards, an American serial killer, was responsible for the deaths of at least six children in Los Angeles County, California, between 1953 and 1970. He was born in 1918 in Arkansas and moved to Los Angeles in 1941. After his contract with the California Department of Transportation as an operator expired, Edwards worked on highways.
Killing Spree
One of Edwards' victims was found below the Santa Ana Freeway. According to his confession, another victim was buried beneath the Ventura Freeway. Edwards killed three children between 1953 and 1956, and then three more between 1968 and 1969. In 1970, Edwards and a teenager conspired to kidnap three girls from Sylmar. When the girls managed to escape, the serial killer surrendered to the police and admitted to killing six children.
Additional Crimes
In addition, Edwards confessed to three additional murders. However, due to a lack of direct evidence, he was never officially charged with the deaths of Donald Lee Baker and Brenda Jo Howell, who disappeared together on August 6, 1956. Edwards also never stood trial for the murder of Roger Dale Madison, a 15-year-old who went missing on December 16, 1968. It is possible that Edwards committed other killings, as he claimed to have killed a total of 18 children while in prison. However, the information about these additional murders was too contradictory. In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, Edwards stated that he was responsible for only six killed children. Yet, the 12-year gap between the disappearances of Baker and Howell and Rochet's murder led investigators to believe that Edwards may have claimed more lives during that time.
Further Investigation
As of March 2007, the Los Angeles Police Department was examining the possibility of Edwards' involvement in the disappearance of eight-year-old Thomas Eldon Bowman from Redondo Beach, who went missing in Pasadena on March 23, 1957. Weston DeWalt, an author who investigated Bowman's disappearance, noticed a resemblance between Edwards' photo and a composite sketch of the suspect. Later, DeWalt showed Edwards' letter to his wife, in which he claimed to have "forgotten" to mention Thomas Bowman during his confession to the police. Edwards is also considered a suspect in the cases of Bruce Kremen from Granada Hills, Karen Lynn Tompkins, and Dorothy Gale Brown from Torrance. Kremen, a six-year-old, disappeared from the YMCA camp in Angeles National Forest on July 12, 1960. Tompkins, 11, went missing on August 18, 1961, and Brown, also 11, disappeared on July 3, 1962. Brown was raped and drowned, and her body was discovered near Corona del Mar.
Death
After the bodies of three victims were found, Edwards pleaded guilty to three counts of murder and was sentenced to death. On October 30, 1971, after two failed attempts, Edwards finally managed to take his own life. He hanged himself with a television cable in his cell at San Quentin State Prison.
