Breast-Bearing Trucker Enters Plea
He's already confessed to killing four women. And that's got detectives throughout the West wondering if Wayne Adam Ford should be a suspect in any of their unsolved crimes.
Ford is the truck driver who walked into the sheriff's office in Eureka, California, and made his stunning admission. As proof, he pulled a plastic bag from his pocket with a woman's breast inside. Police are now saying the confessed serial killer may be involved in as many as six murders in California.
Washington state investigators are among those interested in Ford. A task force is looking into a string of killings in Tacoma and Spokane.
As KCBS Reporter Sophie Choi reports from Los Angeles, California, investigators are also trying to prove Ford cruised the interstates between Northern California and San Bernardino County, looking for women to mutilate and then kill.
Ford allegedly helped investigators identify 29-year-old Patricia Ann Tamez, who was found floating in an aqueduct in San Bernardino County, missing a breast. Police described Tamez as a prostitute who worked truck stops.
Authorities say Ford also confessed to the killings of an unidentified woman whose dismembered body was discovered in October 1977 outside Eureka; Lanett White, 25, of Fontana, whose body turned up in a canal along Interstate 5 near Lodi, and Tina Gibbs of Washington state, whose nude body was found in an aqueduct near Buttonwillow in Kern County.
Two years ago, Ford's wife left him, taking their toddler son. From that, his hatred for women reported grew and snowballed into a killing spree. Ford's father-in-law, who has asked to remain nameless, says that's no excuse: "This is incredible that an accused murderer would blame anybody but himself for what he's done."
Ford's ex-wife in Las Vegas is ``devastated and saddened for the victims of this evil person,'' a source told The Associated Press.
His father, Calvin Ford of Napa, also seemed shocked. ``It's devastating enough and I have nothing to say,'' he told the San Francisco Chronicle.
Ford is being held on a $1 million bail on a single charge of first degree murder. Despite his confession, Ford's public defender entered a not-guilty plea for him.
His boss at his long-haul trucking firm says Ford always kept his truck clean -- adding, ``Now we know why.''
Reported by KCBS Reporter Sophie Choi