Anthony McKnight

Case record: Anthony McKnight

Background

Anthony McKnight was sentenced to death for murdering five young women and girls in the East Bay over a four-month span in 1985.

Anthony McKnight was a former Navy-enlisted man who was assigned to the Alameda Naval Air Station. He was a career navy man stationed at Northern California's Alameda Naval Air Station since 1982 and lived off-base with wife and child. Tenants of McKnight's apartment complex knew him as “one of the most outgoing people” in the building.

Investigators used new DNA analysis techniques to connect McKnight to the murders in his current case. The killings occurred in secluded locations in Oakland, Emeryville, Berkeley and Richmond between September and December 2005.

The offence

McKnight was convicted of five counts of first-degree murder and found guilty of five special circumstances.

The five special circumstances included:

• Three special circumstances for committing murder during the course of a rape.
• One special circumstance for committing murder during sodomy.
• One special circumstance for committing multiple murders.

McKnight testified during his trial that he never met any of the women who were killed.

The women McKnight was convicted of killing were:

• Diane Stone, 17
• Talita Dixon, 13
• Monique Franchone Davis, 18
• Beverly Ann Bryant, 24
• Betty Lynn Stuart, 22

Police later described that Talita Dixon’s killer raped her, stabbed her repeatedly, broke her neck and ripped an arm from her body.

Investigation

Police arrested McKnight after Emeryville police descriptions of an attacker led to their suspect, 32-year-old Anthony McKnight.

Emeryville Chief of Police Ken James said the attacks were “vicious” and that the killer “was playing a cat and mouse game.” James said: “He would give them the opportunity to think they were getting away, and then come back and stab them.”

James said he had a hunch that McKnight might also be Oakland's serial killer and said he told his lead detective: “Go down to Oakland, sit down in the captain's office, let him know what you have, and don't leave until they recognize that this may be a connection.”

Lt. Paul Berlin of the Oakland police said police charged McKnight after DNA samples taken from sexually assaulted victims proved McKnight committed the crimes.

Berlin said: “We pursued this so there could be closure for the families,” and described their reaction as “relief.”

Police suspected McKnight was behind the killings, but because DNA testing was not commonly used then, the crimes went unsolved.

Arrest

McKnight’s small world collapsed on January 24, 1986, when he was picked up by police at home and booked on two counts of rape and four counts of attempted murder in a series of attacks dating from the previous September.

In custody, he was identified by five victims, including three prostitutes, who had been variously beaten, raped, and stabbed in attacks committed on September 16, October 31, December 27 (two assaults), and January 21, 1986.

Two days after his arrest, McKnight was named by lawmen as a suspect in seven “identical” rape slayings around the Oakland area, with evidence conforming to the pattern of attacks where victims had survived.

Trial

Jurors on Sept. 17 convicted McKnight of five counts of first-degree murder and found him guilty of five special circumstances.

On Oct. 20, at the end of the penalty phase of McKnight's trial, the same jurors recommended the death penalty.

Before being convicted of murdering the five women, McKnight was already serving a 63-year term in state prison for his 1987 conviction on 11 felony counts, including attempted murder, mayhem, kidnapping and forced oral copulation, for attacks on six prostitutes between 1984 and his arrest in January 1986.

Before Horner sentenced McKnight, he denied two motions for a new trial that were filed and argued by McKnight's lawyers.

Prosecutor Jim Meehan said McKnight laughed when Alameda County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Horner sentenced him at the conclusion of a daylong hearing on Monday.

At sentencing, nine of the women’s family members and friends spoke and said they believe he deserves the death penalty.

Judge Jeffrey Horner spent nearly an hour listing the reasons why he thinks there was sufficient evidence to support the jury's finding that the aggravating evidence outweighed the mitigating evidence and that the death penalty is the appropriate punishment for McKnight, Meehan said.

Sentencing

Alameda County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Horner sentenced McKnight to death.

Prosecutor Jim Meehan said McKnight laughed when Horner sentenced him and said McKnight was “a sociopath.”

Appeals

All death penalty sentencings were automatically reviewed by the California Supreme Court.

Outcome

McKnight was sentenced to death on November 17, 2008.

Aftermath

Families of the victims said they remained in the dark for years due to delays, including continued court appearances.

CBS 5 Investigates counted 46 court appearances over the past 8 years and said attorneys assigned to the case often got replaced with new attorneys who asked for more time, while judges granted continuances.

Marsha Dixon said she remembered Talita as “a funny, funny child. She used to make jokes and play games and stuff and just make you laugh,” and recalled: “I guess that was me knowing that was the last time I would see her alive.”

Dixon said: “When they had the DNA testing to prove that it was him, then I thought we were gonna move forward with the case” and said she was later “slapped in the face with, ‘Well Marsha, we have to put the case back, I'm sorry, we have another case that has to come before this one.’”

Dixon also said: “He looked at me and laughed in my face” and later said: “I will feel a sense of justice when this case is resolved and I see that he is sent to the electric chair for what he has done.”

Ken Bryant said: “He's still alive, she's not,” and also said: “All those people he killed, whatever, was--you know--was just nothing,” and: “Their lives were worth nothing.”

Timeline

• January 24, 1986 — McKnight was picked up at home and booked on two counts of rape and four counts of attempted murder.
• Sept. 17 — Jurors convicted McKnight of five counts of first-degree murder and found him guilty of five special circumstances.
• Oct. 20 — Jurors recommended the death penalty at the end of the penalty phase.
• November 17, 2008 — McKnight was sentenced to death.
• June 28, 1999 — Police announced DNA evidence linked McKnight to the murders and prosecutors charged him with five counts of murder with special circumstances.

Other details

Marsha Dixon said she felt relieved after DNA testing.

Talita Dixon left her home to walk to school by herself for the first time on October 5, 1985.

Three days later, a jogger found Talita’s body near a walking path in the Oakland Hills.

CBS 5 Investigates stated that prosecutors promised to bring McKnight to trial next year and that he would appear in court on Friday.

Anthony McKnight was lodged in Salinas Valley State Prison.

Victims and locations given with the June 28, 1999 announcement:

• Betty Lynn Stuart, 22-year-old mother of one, killed in Berkley
• Diane Stone, 17-year-old, found dead in Oakland
• Talita Dixon, 13-year-old, found on a secluded jogging trail in East Bay Regional Park
• Monique Franchone Davis, 18-year-old, found dead behind a warehouse in Richmond
• Beverly Ann Bryant, 24-year-old, found in an Oakland schoolyard

Anthony McKnight was born in 1954.

Michael Newton - An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers - Hunting Humans listed:

• “SEX: M”
• “RACE: B”
• “TYPE: T”
• “MOTIVE: Sex.”
• “DATE(S): 1984-86”
• “VENUE: Oakland, Calif.”
• “VICTIMS: Seven suspected”
• “MO: Rape slayer of women, including severa l prostitutes DISPOSITION: Never charged with murder; 63 years for rape and attempted murder of six women who survived attacks, 1987.”