John Floyd Thomas

Case record

John Floyd Thomas, Jr. (born July 26, 1936) was an American criminal who was arrested and charged with the murders of seven women in the Los Angeles area during the 1970s and 1980s.

Background

Thomas was born in Los Angeles. His mother died when he was 12 years old. He was alternately raised by his aunt and a godmother. Throughout his childhood, Thomas attended public schools, including the Manual Arts High School in Los Angeles.

Thomas served in the U.S. Air Force in 1956 for a brief period of time. While stationed at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada, a superior noted that Thomas was regularly “late” and “slovenly” in appearance. He received a dishonorable discharge, according to his military records.

Thomas was arrested for burglary and attempted rape in Los Angeles. He was convicted of these crimes and sentenced in 1957 to six years in the California state prison system. As a result of a pair of parole violations, Thomas remained incarcerated until 1966.

Investigation

A break in solving the related murders came in October 2008 when Thomas Jr. provided a DNA sample to authorities as part of an effort to assemble an offender database in the state of California.

Police said that DNA evidence linked Thomas to all of the cases charged. Authorities also said he could be responsible for as many as 30 homicides.

The killings were described as occurring in waves. In the first wave of killings in Los Angeles in the mid-1970s, a man police nicknamed the “Westside Rapist” entered the homes of elderly women who lived alone, raped them and choked them until they passed out or died. At least 17 were killed. The victims were typically found with pillows or blankets over their faces.

A decade later, and 40 miles to the east, five elderly women in Claremont were found raped and killed, also with blankets or pillows over their faces. The case became a cold case for the investigators until Thomas came to light in 2009.

The “Westside Rapist” was also believed to have raped and killed older women in the Pomona Valley and Inglewood areas in the 1980s.

Prosecutors also linked Thomas to five more slayings, and he pleaded not guilty to seven murder charges.

Arrest

Thomas was arrested on March 31, 2009. Police arrested Thomas on April 2, 2009.

At the time of his arrest, police said newly available DNA technology was used to solve “cold cases”.

Charges

On April 2, 2009, Thomas was charged with the murders of Ethel Sokoloff in November 1972 and Elizabeth McKeown in February 1976.

On September 23, 2009, Thomas was charged with five further murders of Cora Perry in September 1975; Maybelle Hudson in April 1976; Miriam McKinley in June 1976; Evalyn Bunner in October 1976; and Adrian Askew in June 1986.

With the latest charges, Thomas faced a total of seven murder counts.

Trial

Thomas appeared in court and pleaded not guilty to all seven murder charges.

Sentencing

No sentencing information was provided for the seven murder charges.

Outcome

He was currently being held without bail at the LA County Jail.

Other details

Ethel Sokoloff was described as 68 years old and was said to have died in the Mid-Wilshire area in 1972.

Elizabeth McKeown was described as 67 years old and was said to have died in Westchester in 1976.

Cora Perry was described as 79 years old and was said to have been killed Sept. 20, 1975, in Lennox.

Adrian Askew was described as 56 years old and as a retired school crossing guard. She was found lying face-up with bedding pulled over her head and was said to have been sexually assaulted.

Isabel Askew was described as 85 years old. Twenty-six years earlier, police discovered her partially nude body in a vineyard near Ontario International Airport. She had been reported missing from her Claremont apartment more than a week earlier. The cause of death could not be determined because of the condition of her body.

It was stated that three years later, Adrian Askew was found strangled in the same West Bonita Avenue apartment where she had lived with her mother.

Authorities were said to have linked Adrian Askew’s slaying to an alleged serial killer.

Authorities were described as trying to determine whether Isabel Askew was also one of the man’s victims.

The story included the following quotations:

“When all is said and done, Mr Thomas stands to be Los Angeles's most prolific serial killer.”
— Richard Bengston, an LAPD robbery-homicide cold case detective, speaking to the Los Angeles Times

In addition, the story included the following quotations:

“the stunned relatives, the terrified neighbors, the heartbroken friends of all the old women who have met such indecent deaths. People who now live in small colonies of terror.”
— quoted from a Los Angeles Times story about the Westside Rapist

Thomas was described as a claims adjuster and as having two previous convictions for sexual assault. The second-wave killings were described as beginning after his release in 1983 and as being in the Claremont area, about 40 miles east of Los Angeles. The killings stopped the same year that Thomas took a job with the state workers’ compensation agency in Glendale.

Investigations were described as not linking the two waves because witnesses gave differing descriptions of the assailant and DNA technology was not in use.

The investigations were described as involving the Los Angeles Police Department, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, and the Inglewood Police Department, and the Los Angeles Police Department established a Cold Case Homicide Unit in 2001.

It was stated that in 2004 the crime lab matched male DNA taken from the McKeown and Sokoloff killings but could not identify a suspect in the state database. The break came in October when Thomas was required to give a DNA sample as part of a programme to swab convicted sex offenders. His DNA was allegedly matched to the McKeown and Sokoloff samples as well as a 1975 Los Angeles murder, a 1976 Inglewood murder, and a Claremont killing in 1986.

A separate claim about the “Zodiac killer” was mentioned, involving Deborah Perez, 47, and Guy Ward Hendrickson, but no outcome relating to Thomas was stated from that claim.