The Truck Driver Killer | World’s Most Evil Killers | Forensic Files

FRED DINENAGE: In 1985, 24-year-old Wayne Adam Ford was discharged from the US Marines due to his behavior.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: He's become insubordinate. He doesn't take orders from anybody.
He's belligerent. FRED DINENAGE: Ford found work as a long distance truck driver, transporting goods up and down California.
He would pick up sex workers along the route, before murdering them and dismembering their bodies.
JUDY HO: This is somebody who's dangerous because they can't control their behaviors.
FRED DINENAGE: Ford disposed of his victims' body parts in different locations, but sometimes he
kept souvenirs from his kills. VICTORIA REDSTALL: He cut off the breasts, he melted the breast in the oven.
Then he drained the oil and put it in a coffee can. GLENN PUIT: You have to be a cold-blooded brutal person
to do something like that and to be able to stomach it. FRED DINENAGE: As investigators from different jurisdictions
pieced together the gruesome evidence, Wayne Adam Ford was revealed to be one of the world's
most evil killers. [music playing] In November 1998, 36-year-old Wayne Adam Ford and his brother
spent the day together reliving their youth. JUDY HO: Ford had just spent some time with his brother
doing somewhat fun childhood activities like going to the zoo, and everything seemed fine.
FRED DINENAGE: To the shock of his brother, Ford told him that he had hurt some people,
but wouldn't elaborate any further details. GEOFFREY WANSELL: His brother says, you have to go to the police.
You have to hand yourself in. FRED DINENAGE: Ford agreed to turn himself over to the authorities, but nobody was prepared
for what happened next. BOBBY CHACON: Ford appeared at the Humboldt County Sheriff's
Office, during which he produced from his pocket a Ziploc bag with a woman's severed breast in it.
GLENN PUIT: A serial killer had walked into a Sheriff's office and produced a woman's body part to prove that he
was a cold-blooded killer. FRED DINENAGE: The unexpected confessions to follow would shock the world and reveal the true extent of Wayne
Adam Ford's gruesome crimes. This killer's story begins on the West Coast of America
in a city in the San Francisco Bay Area. GLENN PUIT: Wayne Adam Ford was born in 1961
in Petaluma, California. Very scenic area, and that's where he grew up in. His father was an American citizen,
his mother was an immigrant from Germany. FRED DINENAGE: Ford also had a brother who
was two years older than him. JANE MONCKTON-SMI: Ford seemed to have a fairly normal
childhood, although there was a question over the state of the relationship between his parents.
GLENN PUIT: When he was 10, his parents divorced. It was a very traumatic experience for him.
And he was very angry over it, by all accounts. Angry at his mother over the divorce.
His mother basically left her two sons behind in the care of Wayne's father and traveled the world.
JUDY HO: This was thought to be very difficult for Ford because he was probably still the closest to his mother,
and he was kind of left without parental supervision or somebody who could really care for him.
BOBBY CHACON: Not having a particularly close relationship with his father, Ford found this period of his life
particularly difficult. FRED DINENAGE: Although Ford carried on with his studies,
he didn't graduate from school. So instead in 1979 at the age of 17, he looked to a career
in the US Marines. BOBBY CHACON: He enlisted in the US Marine Corps, taking his job seriously.
He worked hard, he was dedicated, and he advanced in rank. GLENN PUIT: For the most part, he
was viewed as a good soldier, a good Marine. FRED DINENAGE: In October 1980 when he was 19,
Ford met a woman the same age as him on a blind date. JUDY HO: They started a very quick courtship,
they got married but their marriage was tumultuous from the start. They broke up a lot then got back together.
He had a lot of demands for her. And he was very controlling towards her. And essentially some of his demands
included being in the traditional housewife role, cooking for him three times a day,
basically tending to any of his desires and whims. FRED DINENAGE: In November 1980, a traffic incident caused
Ford serious physical problems. VICTORIA REDSTALL: The car side sweped him, threw him into a ditch which then damaged
the frontal lobe of his brain. So he ended up in a coma. As he said, it was a coma for a number of days.
JANE MONCKTON-SMI: A lot of people say that that appeared to be the point when his behavior seemed to change.
And that is quite plausible. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He was troubled before but now he became a real time bomb.
Plenty of aggression, plenty of depression all rolled into one very, very troubled young man.
JUDY HO: But aside from this traumatic brain injury, there were also earlier warning signs already
of his decompensating mental health. FRED DINENAGE: In June 1983, his wife finally
asked him for a divorce. Ford was still in the Marines at this point and his behavior didn't go unnoticed by those in charge.
BOBBY CHACON: Ford begins to decline psychologically and starts having trouble with work,
to the point where Ford's superiors recommended that he be psychologically evaluated.
And he was sent to a psychological facility, and the doctors that evaluated him diagnosed him with depression and alcohol abuse.
JUDY HO: Certainly for Ford it appeared that a big part of it was anger and anger towards others,
thinking that others are out to harm you in some way, not being able to trust other people,
and having a lot of ups and downs in all of his interpersonal relationships he had at the time.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: He was never calm. There was nothing about Wayne Ford that you could say was steady or solid.
He was always trembling on the edge of something dreadful, something extraordinary.
FRED DINENAGE: Ford was sent to the Naval Psychiatric Hospital in Long Beach by the Marines to deal with the issues
that he was exhibiting. BOBBY CHACON: The doctors deemed him a possible threat to himself because he
had suicidal tendencies. And he was further evaluated by doctors and put on drug therapy.
FRED DINENAGE: Ford seemed to recover enough to return to active duty. And in 1984, he was sent on an assignment to Japan.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: But that really doesn't work. He's become insubordinate. He doesn't take orders from anybody.
He's withdrawn, he's sulky, he's belligerent, he's-- all this mixture of things that are going on
inside his personality all bubble to the surface and make him incredibly difficult to control.
JANE MONCKTON-SMI: He became violent. And eventually he was diagnosed as having borderline personality disorder, which now we're
getting into the kind of territory where we might think, yes, this man's got some serious problems
and they might be played out on other people. And he was honorably discharged from the Marine Corps
after that. FRED DINENAGE: But at the age of 25, Ford was involved in an incident with a sex worker
in Garden Grove in Southern California. BOBBY CHACON: He came into contact with the Garden Grove Police for beating
and raping a prostitute. Those charges were never filed because the victim refused to press charges.
JUDY HO: I think that he felt like perhaps he was above this person and he could
do whatever he wanted to this person because she was a sex worker. FRED DINENAGE: That same year, Ford's
reckless and aggressive behavior came to light once again. GLENN PUIT: There is also a case where
he was in a dispute with a neighbor, and he pulled out a handgun and shot and killed the neighbor's dog.
He was arrested and convicted of that crime, and spent 10 days in jail for it. FRED DINENAGE: Ford was 26 years old
and had already exhibited deviant and dangerous behavior towards humans and animals.
And the man who was living on the edge was showing no signs of slowing down. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He becomes fascinated
with sexual perversion, and particularly both exhibitionism and teenagers. He becomes extremely promiscuous.
JANE MONCKTON-SMI: He was accused of being sexually inappropriate with young women.
And this then does start to be a predictor that this person is on a journey that we don't want to escalate.
FRED DINENAGE: But while all these was going on behind the scenes, Ford was presenting
himself as a completely different person in public. GLENN PUIT: He was really a chameleon.
If he were to walk in the room right now, you would have no indication that he is
a very dangerous human being. Good looking guy, big, strong, muscular guy, former Marine.
Kind of that All-American look to him. So his appearance was very disarming. And that allowed him to prey on people.
FRED DINENAGE: In October 1994 when Ford was 32, he married a woman who would become his second wife.
BOBBY CHACON: But it's not long before cracks start developing in the relationship.
Early in the marriage, Ford becomes controlling and abusive. GEOFFREY WANSELL: In particular she
doesn't realize the levels of sexual promiscuity he indulges in and, indeed, encourages
her to take part in too. To some extent Wayne Ford's puppet, and she quickly comes to learn it.
BOBBY CHACON: In 1995 when his wife was five months pregnant, she left to go live with her mom in Nevada.
But during the course of the pregnancy, they began to have an on again, off again relationship.
FRED DINENAGE: In 1995, their son was born. And for a while Ford and his wife tried to work through their problems.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: In a sense, that was one reason why they wanted to try again, a new life in Las Vegas, but it didn't work.
And in the summer of 1996, she takes her son away and announces that's the end of their marriage.
GLENN PUIT: There was a lot of tension in the relationship. And when the couple divorced, he accused his ex-wife
of keeping their son from him. He repeatedly said that he was denied access to his son,
and he hated his ex-wife for it. FRED DINENAGE: It was a claim his ex-wife denied.
After the breakdown of their marriage, Wayne Adam Ford moved over 700 miles away from Nevada
to Northern California. GLENN PUIT: He ended up living in a mobile home trailer park
in the Arcata California area. While he was in Arcata, he found work as a truck driver.
VICTORIA REDSTALL: So he was able to go up and down the five freeway, so he was in Lodi, he was in Vegas,
he was in Southern California, Northern California, up to the Oregon border. So that was his stretch for his job.
FRED DINENAGE: The town of Arcata where Ford was living, lay North of Arcata Bay.
And the town of Eureka lay on the other side, seven miles away. Many waterways weaved around the area, and one of those
was the Ryan Slow. BOBBY CHACON: In October 1997, a kayaker on the Ryan Slow noticed what he thought was a mannequin
stuck along the riverbank. Upon closer inspection, he realized that it was a human torso.
GLENN PUIT: It was a truly shocking discovery in that the body of the female had her head removed,
her arms removed, her legs removed. And she had been cut up the center of her torso
and basically disemboweled. GEOFFREY WANSELL: She had 30 stab wounds. She's been mutilated, dismembered.
A killing of the most extreme rage and the most violent depravity. JUDY HO: Because there were no special markings on the torso,
the police could not identify the body. The torso was also disemboweled and had been there for at least
three to four days before it was discovered. JANE MONCKTON-SMI: There are very clear problems
for the police in beginning investigations when bodies are found like this. First of all, there is an issue of identification.
Second, there is the issue of what is the relationship of this person to the killer.
FRED DINENAGE: With no way to know who the victim was, police could only refer to her as Jane
Doe, a placeholder name for when an identity is unknown. And with no way to trace who killed her,
their investigation stalled. BOBBY CHACON: In June 1998, another woman's body is found floating in the California Aqueduct,
near the town of Bottom Willow. Fingerprints were able to be obtained from this victim.
And it was determined that she was Tina Renee Gibbs, 26. And she had worked as a sex worker
in Las Vegas in the months leading up to her disappearance. FRED DINENAGE: Glenn Puit was a crime reporter in Las Vegas
during the period Tina had gone missing, but her disappearance had gone relatively
unnoticed at the time. GLENN PUIT: When Tina Gibbs was reported missing, it was barely a blip on the map.
Literally in Las Vegas dozens of people go missing every day, and the vast majority of them are found safe and sound.
JUDY HO: Tina Renee Gibbs was 26 years old when she was murdered. And she actually sounded like she had a lovely upbringing.
It was very close to her mom. They used to do each other's hair and makeup. And her mom described her as just a person
with a sunshine personality. GEOFFREY WANSELL: She fell into what I suppose we would describe as a bit of a rum
group, the wrong crowd. And in particular got a boyfriend that her mother didn't approve of, and there was a separation.
Tina went off with the boyfriend, and hadn't been in touch with her mother for six months leading up to her discovery
before her body was found. JUDY HO: It was clear from the forensic investigation
that the person had died from strangulation. Strangulation is a very close up method of killing that involves
the person not only overpowering the victim, but also being able to see all of their emotions
and all of their reactions very very close. FRED DINENAGE: Only three months later in September 1998,
another body was discovered again near the I-5 highway. But this time the woman was found naked in an irrigation
ditch at the side of the road. GLENN PUIT: She was stabbed repeatedly, multiple stab wounds.
And the authorities actually thought that she had possibly been discarded from a moving vehicle.
JUDY HO: Dissimilar to the other two bodies and how they were found, it seemed like this was a much
less meticulous disposing, almost like it just been done on a whim. And it may show us that if this is the same killer,
that their mental capacity was not only decompensating more but that they were starting to do things that were truly more
impulsive and in the moment rather than carrying out with something that was planned in advance.
BOBBY CHACON: The autopsy determined that the woman was dead for several days, had been strangled,
had a puncture wound in her breast, and was likely thrown from a moving vehicle into that ditch.
FRED DINENAGE: The victim was identified as 25-year-old Lanette White, a resident of Fontana
in Southern California. And it was thought she was last seen at a nearby truck stop.
JUDY HO: She was the mother of a nine-month-old, and her mother thought that she had just started a new career
in interior design when police actually told her that she had fallen into working as a sex worker.
BOBBY CHACON: Her mom maintains that she went out one night going for groceries, going for milk
for her nine-month-old baby and never returned. FRED DINENAGE: The discovery of Lanette's body revealed more
about the changing mindset of this deadly predator who was killing innocent women across California.
GLENN PUIT: He had killed a third woman. He was simply dumping the victims on the side of the road, so the chances
of them being discovered and identified were great. So you see that as time progresses, with each crime
he gets sloppier and sloppier. And you see almost like a laziness as far as taking the steps necessary to get away with it.
FRED DINENAGE: The killing seemed to be escalating and with less effort to dispose of the bodies.
As the victims were being found in different parts of California, it would be harder to know
if the murders were linked. JUDY HO: Committing crimes in one state and then depositing the remains in another state could
on the face seem like a very clever way to try to evade police investigations because then all
of the jurisdictions would be split up in terms of the investigations, and they may
or may not even be talking to each other or connecting the dots. GLENN PUIT: Could be more than one killer
going across county lines. So it was a real difficult case. And there was a very real possibility
that they might go unsolved. FRED DINENAGE: There seemed to be little that could be done to track
down this brutal murderer. And on the 23 of October, 1998, the nude body of a woman
was found floating in an aqueduct near Hesperia, California, not far from the I-15, a highway
heavily used by trucks. It was determined that this woman was named Patricia Anne
Tamez, a resident of Hesperia. JUDY HO: She was 29 years old when she was murdered.
She had been working as a sex worker for a long time and also had drug habits, as well as
known mental health concerns. And her death appeared to be particularly grueling,
and that there were several physical traumas that were found on her body before she died.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: She had, in fact, been strangled. And when her body was found, one breast had been removed.
FRED DINENAGE: This was the fourth body in two years to be discovered in similar circumstances
along California's transportation routes. Less than two weeks after the latest discovery,
truck driver Wayne Adam Ford was staying at a resort in Trinidad, North California.
It was from here that he made a phone call to his brother. GLENN PUIT: He simply had told his brother that I've been
drinking all day, I'm drunk. And I just want to tell you that I've hurt people. And his brother was kind of shocked by this and said,
well, what do you mean? And Wayne wouldn't elaborate. FRED DINENAGE: Ford's brother was
so worried by the phone call that he drove for five hours to be with him. VICTORIA REDSTALL: So his brother came along,
and they spent that day doing everything they used to do as children. They went to the zoo, they ate at the restaurant,
they walked around Eureka in Humboldt County. JUDY HO: His brother really had to piece everything together
because Ford was being very abstract in talking about how he had hurt these people because he
didn't share any other details like who they were or when or how. GLENN PUIT: Over time, Wayne's brother convinced him--
without knowing the full details-- that if he had done something that was truly wrong,
he needed to turn himself in. FRED DINENAGE: On the advice of his brother, Ford agreed to go to the Sheriff's office.
His brother was still unaware of what Ford was claiming to have done. But what happened when they arrived at the station
was something that nobody could have predicted. JUDY HO: On November 3, 1998, Wayne Adam Ford
walked into the Humboldt County Sheriff's office and made a shocking revelation to the officers
behind the desk. He proceeded to confess to killing four women. And as proof, offered up a truly horrifying piece of evidence,
which was he produced a ziploc bag with a woman's severed breast in the bag. And turned it over to the authorities and said,
see, I'm telling the truth. BOBBY CHACON: I'm sure they were quite shocked that he
actually brought this in. I mean, confessions are kind of rare. Legitimate confessions are kind of rare.
And when the person brings evidence of their own guilt with them through their voluntary
interrogation, it's unusual. FRED DINENAGE: 36-year-old Wayne Adam Ford then confessed to the murders of the four women, Lanette White,
Patricia Anne Tamez, Tina Renee Gibbs, and the victim known only as Jane Doe. BOBBY CHACON: He gives great detail
and goes on at length about how he killed these women and what he did with their bodies.
And this is a treasure trove of a confession for police. GLENN PUIT: The MO was almost always the same, picking up
prostitutes, drug addicts, people who would let down their guard, be willing to get in a stranger's
truck for money. And once they were inside, he would be their worst nightmare. He would violently assault and torture
them oftentimes for days. And would take them to his trailer, brutalize them. Ultimately culminating with a sexually motivated homicide.
It's very disturbing, his behavior. And clearly this is someone who took pleasure in sadistically
assaulting and killing women. FRED DINENAGE: When asked why he decided to hand himself in,
Ford claimed it was because of his hatred for his ex-wife, the mother of his child.
JUDY HO: Eventually he confessed his crimes because, according to him, he was afraid that the next target
was going to be his ex-wife. And although he had a lot of anger and hatred towards her,
he didn't want to leave their son an orphan. BOBBY CHACON: I think that Ford's claim of being angry
at his ex-wife is an excuse for him to carry out his compulsion-- these compulsive acts that he had.
I think that had he not been caught or had he not been persuaded to turn himself in,
he might have continued killing people and not killed his ex-wife. FRED DINENAGE: The breast that Wayne Adam Ford presented
to the police had been cut from his last victim, Patricia Anne Tamez. JUDY HO: Ford seemed like he had some type
of obsession or fixation on breasts and essentially harming breasts. And it appears that there was a part of him that really wanted
to injure something that was really associated with femininity. And that was possibly his way of asserting dominance
over women to begin with. JANE MONCKTON-SMI: Ford had sometimes what we call trophies
from the bodies of his victims, and sometimes he kept the bodies in his truck for days afterwards.
Serial killers are driven by this kind of internal sexual motivation. So they will want to relive what they have experienced.
The ritual part of it, they will want to relive time and time again. So sometimes taking a trophy will
help them relive that moment. FRED DINENAGE: The breast wasn't the only memento that Ford had kept as investigators would discover
when they searched his home. GLENN PUIT: When the authorities went to his trailer,
they found a coffee can with human flesh and fat in it. And they believed that that was used
to contain the breasts and other body parts of his first victim Jane Doe. He had also taken body parts from his first victim
and parts of her thighs and stored them in his freezer. Even for a killer, it's horrible.
You have to be a cold-blooded brutal person to do something like that and to be able to stomach it.
FRED DINENAGE: Police interviewed Ford about these new findings. BOBBY CHACON: During these interrogations,
Ford went into detail about what he did with some of the missing body parts, including throwing some of them in the Mud River.
Ford described going to a campsite in Trinidad and burying some of those body parts there.
FRED DINENAGE: Ford claimed he'd buried the head of Jane Doe in the banks of the Mud River, but this couldn't be found.
Meaning that another opportunity to identify his unknown victim was lost. GLENN PUIT: One factor of this that
always sticks with me is the way he disposed of the bodies. He discarded these women like trash.
Dismembering, dumping people, trying to conceal their identities, it's very troubling.
And so it's heartbreaking to know that one human being could treat another this way.
FRED DINENAGE: On the 6 of November, 1998, Wayne Adam Ford was arraigned at Humboldt County Superior Court,
but he was only charged with one count of murder, that of Jane Doe. VICTORIA REDSTALL: It was difficult
because these women were found in different counties. It made it difficult to bring it to trial, where were
they going to have the trial? FRED DINENAGE: Ford would have to be tried for the other murders in the counties
where the bodies were found, making convictions much more complicated. Then two months after Ford's arrest,
a new serial killer law was enacted. Meaning prosecutors could combine all of the murders
into a single trial. GLENN PUIT: He ultimately was prosecuted under that law, in a single jurisdiction.
So they could try him for all four murders at once. This was really important to getting justice
because otherwise you would have to have four different trials in possibly four different counties.
FRED DINENAGE: Ford had been transferred to West Valley Detention Center in San Bernardino in August 1999.
And due to delays in the legal system, he wouldn't stand trial until six years later.
But before this, in November 2003, there was another issue that could jeopardize
the entire murder trial. GLENN PUIT: When Wayne Adam Ford first started to confess,
he referenced a desire to have a lawyer. In the United States, once you invoke your right to a lawyer,
that's it. The cops can't talk to you anymore. But in this case there was a back and forth with the police.
Are you sure? Are you sure you want a lawyer? And he retracted it and said, no, I changed my mind.
I don't want a lawyer. But what that ended up doing was creating a legal malaise, so to speak, of should these confessions
be allowed in court? FRED DINENAGE: Wayne Adam Ford had handed himself in and confessed to four brutal murders.
But if those confessions were ruled to be inadmissible in court, Ford may never face
justice for his heinous crimes. Crime reporter Glenn Puit covered the case at the time.
GLENN PUIT: It ended up causing a lot of legal issues because if he had, in fact, requested a lawyer
and they had denied him access to counsel, then everything they said after that would be inadmissible in court.
FRED DINENAGE: In January 2004, a superior court judge ruled that most of Ford's confessions were, in fact,
admissible at trial. And on the 13 of March, 2006, 44-year-old Wayne Adam Ford finally went on trial for his crimes.
JUDY HO: Ford at first admitted guilt to his crimes, but then during the course of the trial
changed his plea to not guilty. FRED DINENAGE: Throughout the trial, a number of mitigating circumstances
were suggested by Ford and his defense team. JANE MONCKTON-SMI: He put forward that he was feeling a rage against his former wife
and the fact that she wouldn't allow him access to his son. And this just feels like I'm going
to blame anybody except myself. BOBBY CHACON: He said that he was angry that he was denied visitation to his son,
and that he took it out on these sex workers. And he would really escalate his violence
when one of these sex workers may have mentioned their own children. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He said, I can't stand it when
they talk about their children. Now, I think that that was because he was very conscious that he was isolated from his own child.
GLENN PUIT: The trial was actually where we found out many facts that we didn't know previously.
The full scope of his depravity was not revealed until the actual trial. And, interestingly, he had claimed at some point
that he didn't really remember all of the violence. And that was, however, disproven during a point of his trial.
VICTORIA REDSTALL: A man gets on the stand-- I believe it was a father of one of the victims--
and said how this killing happened. And he shouts, no, it didn't. Didn't happen like that.
And that's just sunk him right there. It sunk him because clearly he knew what happened because he
was there, he was conscious, and he didn't black out on any of the killings. FRED DINENAGE: Even more attempted justifications
were raised in the courtroom. GLENN PUIT: His defense attorneys would later claim that there was a real sense of abandonment
there. That his mother had left her two sons alone in the world. I'm sure that not having his mother present
was a risk factor for Ford to not be able to feel connection. And maybe it was a lacking an opportunity
to learn about socialization and empathy. But there are many people who have absent mothers and fathers
and, of course, don't go on to commit aggressive crimes or kill people. FRED DINENAGE: During the trial, a witness was
called to testify against Ford. GLENN PUIT: A sex worker who was assaulted by Wayne Adam Ford
actually survived an encounter with him. And her story was that he seemed like a normal guy
to start but once he got her in his truck, he changed and he turned into a different person
and beat her, strangled her, and raped her. And before he was about to kill her,
he pulled out of his pocket a photo of his ex-wife and son and showed this woman the photo and told her, this is why.
This is why I do this. And she was able to escape and get away, and he did not kill her.
But that tells you a little bit about how he did it and what was his motivation.
VICTORIA REDSTALL: She found an escape area. At the back of his truck there was a small door,
and then she escaped when he slowed the truck down or came to a truck stop. FRED DINENAGE: After a three month trial,
the jury started their deliberations. And on the 27 of June, 2006, they returned their verdict.
GEOFFREY WANSELL: The jury concludes that he was in control of himself, he knew what he was doing, and he
was capable of distinguishing between right and wrong. The jury of seven women and five men found him guilty.
And they convicted him of all four first degree murders. FRED DINENAGE: 44-year-old Wayne Adam Ford
was sentenced to death and taken to San Quentin Prison to serve out the rest of his days behind bars.
GLENN PUIT: It was an important case to cover, to let people know that there are very
dangerous people out there. And Wayne Adam Ford is the perfect example. FRED DINENAGE: Investigative journalist and true crime
author Victoria Redstall interviewed Ford while he was locked up. She described how Ford revealed gory details
about what he'd done with the various body parts. VICTORIA REDSTALL: He cut off the breasts,
as he did with most of them, and then he melted the breasts in the oven. Then he drained the oil and put it in a coffee can.
And he tried to bite into the breast to see what it would taste like, and it was too tough.
You can't say he's a cannibal but he just tried it because it was there, he wanted to see what it would
be like to eat the bodies and he just didn't want to swallow them. Wayne had put that head in his fridge,
and it got frostbite on the nose. So he did some bad things to that head, I know that.
FRED DINENAGE: In June 2023, 25 years after the torso of a woman was found, advances in DNA sequencing finally
helped to identify who Jane Doe was. BOBBY CHACON: They determined that the torso
belonged to 25-year-old Kerry Ann Cummings. Kerry Ann Cummings left her home in Eugene, Oregon
and began couch surfing, living a fairly transient lifestyle for several years. GLENN PUIT: The family never knew what happened.
And so it took a quarter century to get answers. And they were actually very appreciative
of knowing versus not knowing. And even though it's a horrible fate, at least they have some sense of knowledge
of what happened and why. FRED DINENAGE: Those involved in the case believe there could be more victims of Wayne Adam Ford
than are already known about. GLENN PUIT: When you look at the MO and the behavior pattern,
you have someone who is a compulsive killer. Someone who is out of control and who
is driven by the blending of sex and violence. So those type of people are rare and they're
also very dangerous. And more often than not, they cannot stop. VICTORIA REDSTALL: I think he's killed a lot more.
There are some serial killers that want to add to their crimes and they want to show off about it,
Wayne was the opposite. But Wayne was definitely very, very ashamed of it. So the only ones he admitted to were the ones where
his DNA are on the bodies. FRED DINENAGE: Former FBI agent Bobby Chacon revealed there's now a truck stop serial killer database
that the FBI maintains. BOBBY CHACON: Because oftentimes we have found a lot of serial killers
roaming these truck stops because they are multi-state in nature. These drivers go from state to state to state.
The women that frequent these truck stops as prostitutes are often very transient.
Nobody even knows their real name. So the FBI began the truck stop serial killer database
to start matching up women that go missing along these very, very common long haul
trucking routes. FRED DINENAGE: Wayne Adam Ford will remain behind bars until he dies, and will never
prey on another victim again. This is somebody who's dangerous and needs to be kept behind bars because they
can't control their behaviors. JANE MONCKTON-SMI: You look at Ford's motivations
and the people that he really hurt and the way that he hurt them and the fact that it gave him pleasure, and he would have carried
on and on and on if there hadn't been that intervention by his brother. VICTORIA REDSTALL: I believe if he
was to be released, within six months he would kill again because it's a driving force in him.
It's not to be stopped. It's impossible to stop. Well, I think he would kill again if he was on the outside.
FRED DINENAGE: Wayne Adam Ford drove up and down California when he was working as a truck driver,
preying on vulnerable women along the way. Once in his truck, he would rape and torture them
before killing them and dismembering or discarding their bodies like trash. He admitted he would have carried on killing
if he hadn't turned himself in. For the sheer brutality of his crimes, Wayne Adam Ford will be remembered
as one of the world's most evil killers. [music playing]

Wayne Adam Ford is an American serial killer who strangled and dismembered three of his four victims. The first body was found in October 1997 and had been so thoroughly dismembered that her identity remains unknown to this day.

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Brief Summary

Wayne Adam Ford, a former Marine, confessed to murdering and dismembering four women in California, revealing disturbing details of his crimes.

Key points

Wayne Adam Ford's Shocking Confession. In November 1998, Wayne Adam Ford walked into a sheriff's office and confessed to killing four women, shocking authorities with a severed breast as proof.
The Gruesome Discovery. A kayaker discovers a dismembered torso in the Ryan Slough, marking the beginning of a chilling investigation.
The Escalation of Violence. As Ford's crimes progressed, the brutality and carelessness of his murders increased, indicating a dangerous decline in his mental state.
Wayne Adam Ford's Confession. Ford's detailed confession reveals his horrific crimes against vulnerable women.
Trial Complications. Ford's trial faced challenges due to the locations of the victims' bodies.
Legal Issues Arise. Confessions made by Ford created a legal malaise regarding their admissibility in court.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This was thought to be very difficult for Ford.

Discussing Ford's emotional struggles after his parents' divorce.

4:12WatchJul 18, 2024

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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