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Westside rapist captured

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Los Angeles, CA — Los Angeles Police held a press conference Thursday to announce the arrest of a man who they believe to be the “Westside Rapist” who raped and murdered a string of elderly women in Claremont, Inglewood and Los Angeles.

Police believe that John Floyd Thomas, Jr., 72, former State Compensation Insurance Fund (State Fund) claims adjuster, may be responsible for as many as 30 more murders and scores of rapes occurring in the Southland during the 1970s and 1980s. Police believe that he could be linked to crimes dating back to the 1950s and might be the most prolific serial killer in Los Angeles history.

Police believe Thomas would slip at night into the homes of elderly woman who lived alone, first raping them and then squeezing their necks. He placed pillows or blankets over their faces until they passed out or died.

“His arrest is a very big deal to me,” said Los Angeles Police Department Deputy Chief Charlie Beck. “When you have the most vulnerable attacked, people who should be able to finish their life in comfort and safety and then to hear about their lives violated like this is unconscionable. We have not yet reached the depth of what he’s done,” said Beck.

Thomas was arrested March 31 on suspicion of murder for two sexual-assault strangulation deaths of Ethel Sokoloff, 68, in the mid-Wilshire area in 1972 and Elizabeth McKeown, 67, in Westchester in 1976.

Three more of the slayings linked to Thomas occurred in Inglewood. In April of 1976, Maybelle Hudson, 80, was beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled in her garage. Two months later, Miriam McKinley, 65, was beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled in her home. Evalyn Bunner, 56, was attacked as she was entering or exiting her garage. She, too, was beaten sexually assaulted and strangled.

DNA testing also linked Thomas to killings committed in Claremont in 1986.

Thomas was arrested and is being held without bail. He is scheduled to be arraigned on May 20 on two counts of murder with the special allegation that the killings occurred during the commission of a rape and one took place during a burglary.

Because California did not have the death penalty at the time the crimes were committed, Thomas faces a maximum penalty of life without parole if convicted.

Thomas has a troubled criminal history. He was sentenced to six years in state prison in 1957 for an attempted rape in Los Angeles. Two parole violations sent him back to prison until 1966. In 1978, a witness took down Thomas’ license plate after he raped a woman in Pasadena. He served time for that crime.

As a convicted sex offender, Thomas was legally required to provide law enforcement with a sample of his DNA, which he did in 2008 at the LAPD’s Southwest station. The California Department of Justice’s DNA lab revealed that Thomas was the perpetrator in the Sokoloff and McKeown cases.

“He was calm and cooperative,” said Robert Lannigan and Amber McDowell, the two officers who administered DNA swabs to Thomas when he arrived at the Southwest Division headquarters.
“He didn’t mention anything about the murders.”

Bob Kistner, a retiree from the Long Beach Police Department and the great-nephew of Hudson, said he always hoped that DNA testing would solve the case. “I’m looking forward to this (case) progressing through the courts,” said Kistner, who was a 21-year-old rookie when his great aunt was murdered. “I waited my whole career for that phone call telling me that they had caught the killer,” said Kistner. “I am grateful for all of the officers in this case.”

Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable founder and community activist Earl Ofari Hutchinson was a co-worker of Thomas when he was a State Fund insurance claims adjuster. Hutchinson said he was stunned by Thomas’ arrest. “Thomas was very friendly, affable and outgoing,” recalls Hutchinson.  “He was always smiling. Whenever I would go to the Glendale branch office where he worked, I would always bump into John. He always seemed to be very interested in what was going on in the community. Since I host the roundtable every Saturday, I asked him, Why don’t you come? He came at least twice.”

Hutchinson said that former co-workers of Thomas are all shocked by the news of his arrest. “In the last 24 hours, I’ve been inundated with calls from co-workers who worked with John in the State Fund office in Glendale,” said Hutchinson. “Everybody is saying the same thing; they can’t possibly be talking about the same John we knew. One thing I will never forget, John always had that big smile on his face.”

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