Central City East, Downtown Los Angeles, has one of the largest populations of homeless people in the United States, and has since the 1930s. As of 2019, the number stood at nearly 5000. To most people, it’s known as Skid Row.
Its infamy is due to the sheer size of homelessness in the area, as well as the length of time that it has gone on without real help from local government, only severe and harsh crack downs that punished the homeless. There was also the ‘patient dumping’ scandal, wherein hospitals and law enforcement agencies were dumping homeless people on Skid Row.
Then, of course, it is also home to the Cecil Hotel, as seen on Netflix’s recent documentary; ‘Crime Scene: The Vanishing at the Cecil Hotel’. The hotel was a temporary home to several now well-known people, including Elisa Lam who disappeared and was found dead in the hotel, serial killer Richard Ramirez, and potentially Elizabeth Short aka the Black Dahlia, a young woman who was found cut in half at the side of a road.
It still remains a dangerous neighbourhood, but in the 1970s and 80s it was especially rife with gang crime, murders, and Los Angeles as a whole fell victim to several serial killers.
LAPD detective Kirk Mellecker was one of the detectives who was assigned to the Hillside Stranglers murders which took place in LA, as well as the Skid Row Stabber case. Speaking of that time, Mellecker recalls, “Anything south of First and Second streets you wouldn’t go down there without a gun.”
In 1978, though, a new problem hit Skid Row’s homeless community. A serial killer.
As November arrived, the killings didn’t stop.
On the morning of October 23rd 1978, at around 5:30am, 50-year-old Jesse Martinez was found stabbed to death in a car park on Skid Row, between/near Fifth and Wall Street He worked as a cook.
Then at 1:00am on October 29th, another man was found stabbed to death. Jose Cortez was a 32 year old homeless man, and he was found in an alleyway in the 300 block on East 3rd Street.
The next day, also around 1:00am, a transient name Bruce Drake was found stabbed on Koehler Street, on the 600 block. He was 46 years old.
As November arrived, the killings didn’t stop.
J.P. Henderson was discovered in the early hours of November 4th. He was 65 years old and was found slightly outside of what is known as the border of Skid Row, on the pavement at 508 West 7th Street.
Next was 39-year-old David Jones, found 5 days later at around 1:45am on November 9th. He was killed by the central library, also slightly outside of Skid Row, and just down the street from where J.P. Henderson was killed.
David was also the first victim that led police to some potentially huge information. Three of his friends were also outside the library, and they claimed that they spoke to a black man that night who told them that his name was Luther and that he was from Puerto Rico. One witness claimed he had a Spanish or Caribbean accent but others disagreed. After the conversation finished, the man walked over to where David was laying. Shortly after, David shouted out that he’d been stabbed. When asked who’d done it, he said, “the man that just left.”
So, police had the first description of a potential suspect; 28-32 years old, 6ft-6ft 2, black, and about 210 pounds. Police also released a composite sketch.
The next day, two bodies were found.
On November 11th, just two days after David’s death, another body was found. 57-year-old Francisco Perez Rodriguez was found in the car park at 416 S Main Street at around 5:30am by a security guard. Like all the other victims, he had been stabbed in the upper torso. Coroners said that he had died a couple of hours before he was found, meaning that he was killed just hours after a police decoy team had left a stakeout nearby.
By this point, detectives were still not saying that they believed this was a single killer – only that it was possible. In fact, they claimed to be looking for two separate killers. There wasn’t a special task force either, despite the fact that there had been six kills in less than three weeks. However, there were undercover police officers posing as homeless men trying to catch the killer out, as well as nightly stakeouts.
The next day, November 12th, two bodies were found.
The first of the two was 36-year-old Frank Reed, who was discovered at approximately 11:30pm behind a bar at 237 E. Fifth Street. 15 minutes later, 49-year-old Augustine Luna was found just around the corner at 448 S. Main Street. This was the first double kill that the murderer had carried out.
Frank’s body was reportedly found across the street from the Central Division police HQ, and in an alleyway near to the local LA Mission that helped homeless people with shelter. That night it was raining, and due to that and the fear of the killer, they had to turn people away and lock the doors once they were at capacity – their capacity was 686, when usually the most they had was around 200.
On November 17th, the body of 34-year-old Native American Jimmy White Buffalo was found. He was with his friends in a bar immediately before the attack, and was found in the bar’s car park. Police said he was on crutches at the time of his death, so he didn’t stand much chance.
The next day, the police announced that they had plans to talk to a man called Tracy Scott who had been arrested by Las Vegas police. LA police had been informed that he fit the description of the man they were looking for in relation to the case, and believed that, “there were a number of things that indicate[d] he is a suspect.” He was soon arrested, questioned and released.
The killer took his tenth victim on November 23rd, Thanksgiving Day. Frank Garcia, aged 45 wasn’t homeless, and in fact worked as a janitor for the county government who lived in East Los Angeles. He was found sitting upright on a bench next to a fountain between City Hall South and City Hall East, which are also across the street from the main City Hall. It was also around 200 feet from the LAPD headquarters.
During their investigation of the area, the police found a palm print on the bench next to where Frank’s body was found. It couldn’t be proven, but police believed it may have belonged to the murderer.
Throughout this period, there were also three people stabbed who survived. Police didn’t seem to think that these were connected to the others though, as the survivors’ descriptions didn’t match the one given by the witnesses near David’s murder.
As a result, police arrested John Wesley Porter, aged 42. He matched the descriptions given by two of the survivors and, because of this, he was arrested only on suspicion of those stabbings – not the murders. Porter actually spoke to police officers in the street after approaching them after the stabbings. After they asked for a description of the man who stabbed the previous men, they thought of him.
December 7th saw the police make their third arrest. Gary Lee Stinson was arrested after police had investigated him for two weeks. On the 11th, he was released. Police said that although they had “probable cause” to arrest him, they didn’t have enough evidence to hold him.
Then suddenly, the Skid Row Stabber’s month of terror was over.
Until two months later on January 21st 1979, when Jose Luis Alvarez, 26, was found stabbed to death in an alleyway near 415 Harlem Place, just outside of Skid Row. He was the killer’s last confirmed victim.
Shortly after, graffiti was found inside the Los Angeles Bus Terminal building that said, “My name is Luther. 11-16-78. I kill wino’s. I put them out of their misery.”
For three months after that, police made no advancements in the investigation. The only leads they had were the handprint, the graffiti, and the witness descriptions. But, after their last three arrests, they had no more suspects.
Then, the following April, 29-year-old Bobby Joe Maxwell, described by police as “a regular of Skid Row”, was arrested.
Police say they were initially suspicious of Maxwell because the killings stopped. On December 14th 1978, just three weeks after the 10th killing, he was arrested after being found standing over a sleeping homeless man with a 10 inch knife concealed in his pocket.
He was charged and released on January 18th – 3 days before the last confirmed victim of the Skid Row Stabber was killed – and in the time that he was in prison, no stabbings were committed.
After three failed attempts, police were now certain they had their guy.
At the preliminary trial in May, Maxwell pleaded innocent to 11 counts of murder and five counts of robbery, and the Deputy DA said he expected to call 80 to 90 witnesses and also seek the death penalty.
In the subsequent months, evidence would be presented at various hearings and trials. Though, for various reasons, the actual trial was delayed until 1984.
After they obtained the search warrant, police found various things in Maxwell’s home that led them to conclude he was a Satanist.
Detective Mellecker said that the knife that was confiscated from Maxwell when he was arrested back in December was, “compatible in all respects with the knife that killed Frank Garcia.” It was also described by a coroner examiner during the trial as, “compatible with these wounds administered to all these victims except two.”
The prosecution would claim that his handprint matched that of the one on the bench that Frank Garcia was found on.
They also took a handwriting sample from Maxwell, and a police handwriting expert stated that it matched with the graffiti on the bus terminal building.
One of the witnesses who was with David Jones when he died, testified that Maxwell was the person who he saw just before David died. However, under cross-examination he said that the man he spoke with was 6ft and weighed around 200lbs. Maxwell was 5ft 8-5ft 9 and weighed between 150lbs and 180lbs.
Another witness said that he saw a man who resembled Maxwell in the alleyway where Augustine Luna was found, but also admitted that he didn’t see the man’s face.
The prosecution also came forward with a jailhouse informant called Sidney Storch. Storch claimed that Maxwell admitted to all of the murders, stating that they were “an effort to obtain souls for Satan.” He also said that Maxwell told him that he was part of a Satanic cult. Guards and inmates at the Tennessee prison where Maxwell served two years for robbery from 1976 to 1978, said that Maxwell would perform rituals in his cell and try to recruit other inmates.
In 1984, five years after his initial arrest, he was found guilty of two of the murders – David Jones and Frank Garcia – and acquitted of three others. The jury were deadlocked on the other five. He was sentenced to life without parole, with the jury deciding against the death penalty.
Bobby Joe Maxwell never stopped protesting his innocence.
Bobby Joe Maxwell never stopped protesting his innocence and would regularly lodge appeals for the next 40 years, as cracks emerged in the prosecution’s already weak case against him.
Perhaps their strongest evidence against Maxwell was their jailhouse informant, Sidney Storch. But 1989 saw a scandal be exposed in Los Angeles over the use of jailhouse “snitches”. After an investigation, it would be discovered that Storch would simply read about the cases in the newspaper, then lie about them confessing to him. He would also teach other inmates how to do the same.
He even admitted this himself, demonstrating how he could call the police and make something up about an inmate confessing to him and they would believe him.
Storch had testified in at least eight cases in LA, repeatedly winning leniency and having time taken off his sentences; for Maxwell, he got released from custody a year and eight months early.
Storch was arrested for perjury in 1992, but died before any action could be taken.
In March 1991, Maxwell filed an appeal but the California Court of Appeal denied his petition for rehearing. He then filed a review which was also denied.
In October 1991, he filed a habeas corpus petition (wherein a prisoner is brought before a court to determine if their imprisonment is lawful) with the Los Angeles Superior *494 Court which was denied in 1993.
In 1995, he filed another habeas corpus petition but this time with the California Supreme Court.
In May 1996, they finally issued an order to show cause on whether Storch, the jailhouse informant, had lied in his testimony at trial. It ran from 1997 to 1999 and, in February 2000, the Superior Court ruled that “while Storch might have become an established liar and sophisticated jailhouse informant, Storch had not lied at the trial.”
In April 2001, Maxwell filed a second habeas corpus petition in the California Supreme Court. It was denied in December of that year.
He would continue to protest his innocence.
Along with the damning revelation that Storch lied in several of his court cases, there were several issues with the little, and already weak, evidence provided.
A Bic lighter that was found in the pocket of Maxwell was claimed to belong to one of the victims and while the victim’s wife confirmed that it looked like her husband’s, she couldn’t pick it out of a line up of similar ones. And, in reality, it was just a standard Bic lighter that countless other Americans owned.
Then there were the three men who spoke to “Luther” before David’s murder. When Maxwell was put in a lineup, one of the men was quoted to have said, “You’ve got everyone up there that doesn’t look like him.”
It was also argued that, though the handprint found near Frank’s body could have been Maxwell’s, that didn’t mean anything. Maxwell frequented Skid Row and the specific area that Frank’s body was found in. Since prosecution couldn’t determine the age of the handprint, that handprint could have been there long before Frank died.
Then, in 2010, the verdict was overturned. While they couldn’t determine that Storch definitely had lied at the first trial, they agreed that his testimony could not be believed. Alongside that, they asserted that the rest of the evidence was circumstantial at best.
And, although he wasn’t free to go, Maxwell was finally given the chance at a retrial.
Convinced that he was guilty, prosecutors refiled five murder charges against him in 2013 – the two he was found guilty of, and Jose Cortez, Bruce Emmett Drake, and Frank Floyd Reed. Maxwell stayed in prison, waiting for his retrial.
That was, until December 2017 when a severe heart attack would put him into a coma.
At the new trial, the LA County Prosecutor’s Office dropped all charges against him. As a result, in August 2018, he was found not guilty. His conviction and prison sentence were seen as a miscarriage of justice.
Bobby Joe Maxwell would unfortunately never learn of his release, though. He died in April 2019, having never woken up from the coma.
All in all, it’s difficult to see how someone could be convicted of such serious crimes, on so little evidence. With DA thirsty to make another conviction to reassure the public in an era of serial killers and just off the back of the Hillside Stranglers in LA, it seems that Bobby Joe Maxwell was just another victim.
So, if Bobby Joe Maxwell wasn’t the Skid Row Stabber, who was?
Neither the prosecution nor defense ever proposed an alternative suspect.
We may not know who the Skid Row Stabber really was, but one thing we do know is that a man who was later found innocent spent 40 years of his life fighting for his freedom and to clear his name of these horrendous crimes. And he never got the chance to find out that he eventually got the outcome he desperately fought for.
Maxwell’s younger sister, Rosie Harmon, summed it up by saying, “They stole his life.”
Sources:
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=5367
Exploring True Crime 