The Smiling Boy Who Became One of America’s Most Notorious Serial Killers
The topic of America’s Most raises many questions. It remains a difficult truth to accept that even the most infamous criminals in human history — despots, mass murderers, and predatory killers — once existed as innocent children with bright futures ahead of them.
The individual examined here would eventually become one of California’s most dreaded murderers, with authorities believing he was responsible for the deaths of 51 young males.
Between 1971 and 1983, he instilled terror throughout the entire state, and even now, decades removed from his crimes, the memories remain deeply painful for those who endured that period of fear and for the families forever changed by his actions.
A Quiet Beginning in Southern California
Born on March 19, 1945, in Long Beach, California, this child was the sole son in a humble, working-class household that had relocated from Wyoming in pursuit of stability and warmer weather.
From an outsider’s perspective, everything appeared perfectly normal — a family chasing the American dream in the freshly developed suburbs of postwar Southern California.
Yet within that modest, pale-blue house, an unusual silence always seemed to hang in the air.
During his youth, the boy was intelligent and perceptive. He was courteous, reserved, and almost excessively neat. He had a passion for puzzles, mathematics, and organization. His educators considered him bright and well-behaved. His mother, Opal, showered him with affection, while his father, Harold, put in long shifts at a factory and demanded strict discipline.
Neighbors would later remember how immaculate his bedroom was, how his belongings were always arranged in perfect order.
Even as a child, he craved control — a characteristic that would take on a far more sinister dimension as he aged.
A Student Who Seemed Destined for Success
When the family relocated to the expanding suburb of Westminster in Orange County, the young man adapted seamlessly to the conservative atmosphere of the 1950s. During his high school years, fellow students remembered him as “smart, clean-cut, and quiet.”
He performed exceptionally well in his studies and was described politically as “somewhere right of Attila the Hun,” holding fervent support for traditional values, the military, and structured society.
He participated in student government, joined the debate team, and appeared headed toward a respectable and conventional life. After completing high school in 1963, he enrolled at Claremont Men’s College, pursuing a degree in economics. He immersed himself in campus political activities, campaigning for Barry Goldwater and voicing support for the Vietnam War.
However, by his junior year, noticeable changes began to emerge.
He grew facial hair. His political views moderated. He began attending anti-war demonstrations and, gradually, started confronting an aspect of his identity he had long kept hidden.
By 1969, he had acknowledged his homosexuality — a disclosure that stunned his family and resulted in his removal from the Air Force Reserve, where he had been undergoing training. The official reason given was “medical reasons.”
Unofficially, the discharge was due to his sexual orientation.
The Slow Descent
Following his departure from the military, he remained in Southern California, taking on various jobs — bartender, computer programmer, and waiter.
He was articulate, well-groomed, and consistently polite. To those who knew him casually, he was a mild-mannered, sophisticated young man with an IQ of 129 and a talent for engaging conversation.
But beneath that composed exterior, something was beginning to unravel.
He started experimenting with drugs, primarily amphetamines and barbiturates. He also developed a growing reliance on alcohol. Friends observed increasingly erratic behavior: periods of complete isolation, sudden outbursts of anger, and prolonged disappearances without any explanation.
The coastal nightlife scene in Long Beach and Sunset Beach was flourishing during this era, and the young man found himself drawn to its energy, particularly the gay bars that served as sanctuaries for those still living in secrecy. He worked at an establishment called The Stables, serving drinks and conversing easily with the regular clientele.
But he was also hunting. Observing. Pushing boundaries.
The First Known Incident
In March 1970, a frightened and disoriented 13-year-old runaway named Joseph Fancher stumbled barefoot into a Long Beach bar, shaking and barely coherent. Police quickly determined that he had been drugged and assaulted by an older man who had offered him lodging.
Authorities eventually identified a suspect, and when officers searched his apartment, they discovered the boy’s shoes alongside a cabinet filled with sedatives and prescription medications. However, because the search had been conducted without a warrant, the evidence was deemed inadmissible, and the man was released without charges.
Nobody realized it at the time, but the Fancher case would mark the beginning of a series of horrors that would persist for more than a decade.
Bodies Discovered Along the Highways
In the years that followed, a disturbing pattern started to develop throughout Southern California. Young men, typically in their teens or early twenties, often Marines or hitchhikers, began disappearing without a trace.
Their bodies would subsequently be discovered along highways, in ravines, and in remote rural areas.
The murders were exceptionally brutal. Victims were sedated, bound, and killed with calculated precision. Many showed evidence of extended torture. Investigators from Orange County, Los Angeles, and San Bernardino came to understand that they were dealing with a single predator — a man who seemed to move through the freeway system like a ghost.
By 1975, police had connected several of the cases but still had no suspect in custody.
They had no idea that the killer was living comfortably in Long Beach, employed as a computer programmer, and spending his weekends searching for new victims.
For years, he managed to remain ahead of law enforcement, even as the bodies continued to surface. Between 1971 and 1983, he abducted, tortured, and murdered at least sixteen men and boys.
A Chance Encounter Changes Everything
Then, on a warm spring night in May 1983, fate finally intervened.
Around 1:00 a.m., two California Highway Patrol officers stopped a Toyota Celica on the 405 Freeway near Mission Viejo. The driver appeared to be under the influence of alcohol. A partially consumed beer bottle rested beside him.
When one officer glanced toward the passenger seat, he froze in shock.
Slumped lifelessly against the window was the body of a young Marine named Terry Gambrel. His belt was wrapped around his neck.
The driver’s license revealed a name that would soon become widely known: Randy Kraft. The media would later label him “The Scorecard Killer.”
Inside the vehicle, officers discovered a briefcase containing drugs, alcohol, and a notebook.
At his residence, investigators uncovered a disturbing collection — photographs, personal items belonging to victims, and evidence linking him to a series of murders stretching from California to Oregon. But the most alarming discovery was a neatly written list: more than sixty cryptic entries, each one serving as a clue.
Every Line Represented a Victim
The brief, coded phrases — “Stable,” “Marine Drum,” “Iowa,” “Parking Lot” — appeared meaningless at first glance. But detectives quickly realized what they were examining: a scorecard of death. Every entry, they believed, corresponded to a victim.
One entry, “Stable,” appeared to reference the bar where Kraft had once been employed. Another, “Airplane Hill,” matched the location where a body had been found near an airfield. The list spanned more than a decade — a meticulously maintained record of atrocities.
He documented everything, as though each life taken was merely a statistic, each murder another exercise in control.
All of his victims were young white males, predominantly in their late teens or early twenties — many discovered with drugs or alcohol in their systems.
Kraft’s approach rarely varied: he would approach victims, offer them drinks laced with sedatives, and once they were unconscious, commit unspeakable acts. Many were found without clothing, their bodies displaying evidence of systematic torture.
Then there were the photographs.
Victims were posed with unsettling precision, some appearing to be asleep, others unmistakably deceased. The Polaroid images, found in his possession, would become some of the most disturbing evidence presented in the case.
Randy Steven Kraft’s arrest stunned his friends and coworkers. One of his closest acquaintances described him as “a normal kid, just like everybody else.” To the outside world, he was a loyal friend, a devoted family member, and a skilled computer professional.
“Everybody liked Randy,” said Kay Frazell, a former classmate who admitted she once had a crush on him.
Trial and Public Reaction
In 1989, following one of the longest and most costly trials in Orange County history, Randy Steven Kraft was found guilty of sixteen murders, along with multiple counts of sodomy and torture.
In his defense, Kraft offered only a single statement:
“I have not murdered anyone. I believe any reasonable review of the record will show that,” he said before calmly sitting down and pouring himself a glass of water.
When the judge delivered the verdict — death — Kraft sat completely still, displaying no emotion whatsoever.
He was transferred to San Quentin’s death row.
Several relatives of Kraft’s victims breathed sighs of relief as the sentence was announced. Some wept, while others smiled. One grieving father shouted, “Burn in hell, Kraft. Burn in hell,” as the convicted killer was escorted from the courtroom.
“Even after he’s executed, the anger is still going to be there,” said Rodger DeVaul Sr., the father of victim Rodger James DeVaul, 20, at the time.
The sensational news of Kraft’s arrest drove his family into hiding from the press. They were ordinary, private people suddenly thrust into a nightmare of headlines and flashing cameras.
“It has been devastating for them,” said Kraft’s attorney, C. Thomas McDonald, in 1989.
“But they love Randy, and they have been very devoted to him since his arrest.”
Looking Like Everyone Else
In more than forty years behind bars, he has never admitted to a single killing.
Detectives continue to believe there are dozens more victims who will never be identified.
In 2012, retired homicide detective Dan Salcedo came face-to-face with Kraft inside San Quentin.
“It’s weird — when you look at him, there’s nothing memorable,” Salcedo said. “He’s not the prototypical media version of what a killer looks like. If you put him in a room filled with people, he’s the last one you’d pick.”
Salcedo had hoped for a confession, or at least a clue about the cases still haunting California’s files. But Kraft said nothing.
“When I looked into his eyes,” Salcedo recalled, “I felt nothing. No aura of evil. Just a bitter old man.”
When the interview ended, Kraft quietly called for the guard and was led away.
America’s Most: Death Sentence Upheld
To Salcedo, Kraft represented the purest form of “quiet evil.”
“The banality of evil,” he later called it. “He looked like a neighbor, a coworker. Nothing about him screamed danger. And maybe that’s the most terrifying part.”
Even today, investigators revisit unsolved murders, searching for connections to the mysterious entries on Kraft’s list. Some families have finally found answers through DNA testing; others are still waiting for closure that may never come.
Kraft now spends his days confined to a small cell — aging, silent, and unrepentant. A man who once kept everything in order, except his soul.
His conviction and death sentence were upheld by the California Supreme Court on August 9, 2000. As of 2025, he remains on death row at the California Institution for Men in San Bernardino County, still denying any involvement in the murders for which he was convicted, or the many others he’s suspected of committing.
