Reign of horror: 30/7/57 - September 1958
Motive: Sex, and the fulfilment of his sado-masochistic desires.
Crime:
|
Date |
Victim |
Place |
30/7/57 |
Judy Ann Dull |
Desert near Indio |
8/4/58 |
Shirley Ann Bridgeford |
Anza State Park |
23/7/58 |
Ruth Rita Mercado |
Anza State Park |
Glatman also attempted to rape and kill other girls as he did the above three. However, these three were the only ones with whom he was successful.
Method: Glatman would pose as a photographer, and encourage the girls to pose bound and gagged by saying that it was for a detective magazine. Bound like this, they were at his mercy. He then raped them repeatedly, gloated over them for some time, and eventually strangled them, using the same piece of rope each time. He took a momento of each crime - the girl's pair of knickers or the photographs that he had taken. Ruth Mercado had touched him in a different way to the other two, and he liked her. Apparently he didn't really want to kill her.
Sentence: Glatman asked for the death sentence, and this is what he got. On the 18th August 1959, he died in the gas chamber.
Rope: The Twisted Life and Crimes of Harvey Glatman by Michael Newton
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