Riverside Prostitute Killer: William Suff

William Lester Suff was convicted of his first crime in 1974, when he and his wife Teryl were accused of fatally beating their infant daughter. Although Teryl’s conviction for the murder was eventually reversed because of a lack of evidence, William ended up receiving a 70 year sentence…but, after only a decade behind bars, he was released on parole. 

By now, William was 34 years old, and he seemed to turn his life around, getting a job as a stock clerk in Riverside County, California. He found it easy to make friends in the area, and those who knew him described him as “a friendly nerd, who was always doing things to help people.” When he wasn’t at work, he was a passionate chef who wrote his own cookbooks, and even won prizes for his homemade chili in local cooking competitions.

Two years after William was released from prison, a body was found in a drainage ditch in Riverside. A member of the public was walking along picking up aluminum cans when he saw a young woman lying on her back, covered in blood and wearing clothes that had been ripped and shredded. The man stepped closer, realized that the woman was dead, and quickly ran to get help.

Although the female victim had been severely mutilated, her face was identifiable. Her name was Michelle Yvette Gutierrez, and she had only been 23 years old when she died. Her autopsy revealed that she had been strangled, stabbed in the torso, buttocks and face, and her genitals had been deliberately mutilated. It was clear that Michelle’s death was a murder…and although investigators thoroughly searched the scene for evidence, they had no clues pointing them towards the perpetrator.

Only two weeks later, another body was found. A 24-year-old homeless woman, Charlotte Palmer, had been dumped by the roadside, only 25 miles away from where Michelle Gutierrez had been discovered. However, unlike Michelle, Charlotte’s body had been exposed to the elements for a long time, and her autopsy wasn’t able to reveal any helpful information - in fact, her cause of death was ruled as inconclusive.

The next death came in January 1987, when 37-year-old Linda Ortega’s body was found by a road in the city of Lake Elsinore. It was clear that her remains had been left there for a while - the medical examiner estimated that she had been killed at least three days before she was found, possibly even longer. Now, California law enforcement was aware that they had found the mutilated bodies of three women, all disposed of in a similar way. For the first time, they began to wonder if they were dealing with a serial offender.

Three months later, 27-year-old sex worker Martha Young was found dead in a ravine, only a few miles away from Linda Ortega’s body. Martha was stripped naked, had high levels of amphetamines in her system, and had died around three weeks before she was discovered. Her autopsy ruled her cause of death as being a combination of strangulation and a drug overdose.

Martha’s death confirmed police suspicions: a serial killer was at work in Riverside, targeting vulnerable women whose disappearances were less likely to be discovered quickly. The Riverside police formed a task force dedicated to solving the case…and, almost immediately, the killings stopped. It was as if the murderer was aware that the police were onto him, and either stopped his crimes, or found a new way of disposing of his victims.

For two full years, there was complete silence from the Riverside Killer…until the body of a 37-year-old sex worker was found partially buried on the shore of Lake Elsinore. Linda Mae Ruiz had died from asphyxiation; her head had been partially buried and her throat was full of sand. Once again, the case didn’t move forward for another six months, and then another prostitute was found dead. The task force were devastated to learn that another victim appeared to have been taken by the killer. 

Kimberly Lyttle was a 28-year-old woman who shared many characteristics with the Riverside Killer’s previous victims: she had been under the influence of drugs and alcohol, she was a sex worker, and she had been killed by asphyxiation. However, Kimberly’s body provided the task force with something that they had been searching for: physical evidence that they could use to narrow down their search. During Kimberly’s autopsy, several pieces of clothing fiber and a couple of pubic hairs had been found, which were confirmed to not belong to her. While this evidence alone couldn’t be used to identify who the murderer was, it would be incredibly useful if investigators had a suspect in mind.

Kimberly’s murder was also the crime that truly brought the case into the public eye. Reporters from nearby towns began traveling to Riverside to find out more about the deaths, and before long, the media had nicknamed the murderer “The Lake Elsinore Killer” and “The Riverside Prostitute Killer.” The police captain ended up holding multiple press conferences about the murders in an attempt to stop the public from panicking. He insisted that the task force was pulling out all the stops in order to find the culprit…but even though the task force was working endlessly, they seemed to be no closer to apprehending the Riverside Killer.

In November 1989, 36-year-old sex worker Judy Lynn Angel was found dead close to Lake Elsinore. It was clear during the autopsy that Judy had not died quickly. In fact, she had viciously fought back, sustaining deep defensive wounds to her hands before she was overpowered. Her skull had been crushed by multiple blows to her head and face, and her body had been mutilated.

After Judy’s murder, the killer seemed to become more and more bold. It was as if he was less afraid of being caught - he was killing more frequently, sometimes posing the bodies of his victims or torturing them in new ways, but the key details of the cases remained the same, making it easy for law enforcement to link the crimes together.

The first real break in the case came in August 1991, when a sex worker was picked up by a man in a gray van. Out of nowhere, the man became angry and violent, and the woman managed to escape from his van and run away…only for the same man to then pick up one of her friends, 23-year-old Kelly Hammond. Kelly’s body was found that same day on the side of the road. She had been strangled to death so recently that she was still warm. The survivor who had managed to escape from the killer’s car provided a description, which was used to create a composite sketch. 

Over the rest of 1991, the killer was still at large, taking at least one victim every month. By October, the Riverside Killer’s body count was at 18, and he had started to mutilate the bodies of some of his victims by removing their right breasts. It also seemed like he was starting to toy with the task force, placing their bodies in locations near the police station to taunt them.

On the 9th of January, 1992, a police officer pulled over a gray van that matched the description of the Riverside Killer’s vehicle. The driver was William Suff, who had now been out of prison for almost two decades. After discovering that William had an expired vehicle registration and a suspended license, the officers took him back to the station.

During hours of questioning, William denied any knowledge of the crimes, but he was still arrested, and samples of his hair were taken to compare with the samples from the bodies of the Riverside Killer’s victims. Ultimately, Judge Becky Dugan ruled that there was sufficient evidence of William’s guilt for the case to go to trial.

In March 1995, the trial began. The prosecution described William as a “sexual sadist” who got pleasure from torturing and killing his victims. A criminologist from the Department of Justice testified that William’s hair matched samples taken from two of the crime scenes, and so did fibers from William’s clothing, sleeping bag and bedding. After more than 50 days of testimony, the jury found William Suff guilty of 12 counts of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to death.

Despite the Riverside Killer now having received justice, one question remained unanswered: what had he done with the breasts that he had cut off two of his victims? Although this has not been confirmed, it is suspected that William may have used human meat in his award-winning homemade chili, which he then fed to the employees of Riverside County.