John Thomas Jr.: Killer and Rapist

The LAPD recently arrested cold case killer John Floyd Thomas Jr., 72. They say his killings may go back as far as 1955 and that he could be one of the worst serial killers in the US History. And yes, he's a brother. Killing and raping old white women way back then.

Here's one of his unfortunate victims:


DNA analysis in 2004 confirmed that Thomas raped and killed Elizabeth McKeown, 67, in 1976.

The "Westside Rapist" became one of the more notorious criminals of the era. Victims ranged in age from the 50s to the 90s. Bella Stumbo, the late Times feature writer, wrote in December 1975 that the "serenity" of the neighborhoods where the victims lived "had been so grotesquely invaded by that elusive maniac the police loosely refer to as the 'Westside rapist,' now accused of sexually assaulting at last 33 old women and murdering perhaps 10 of them." She said residents lived in "small colonies of terror."

The attacks appeared to stop in 1978. That year, a witness took down Thomas' license plate after he raped a woman in Pasadena. He was convicted and sent to state prison.

When he was released in 1983, he moved to Chino. And a killer began stalking older woman -- this time in the Inland Valley area.

Over the next six years, Los Angeles County sheriff's detectives would investigate five slayings of elderly women in Claremont, Sgt. Richard Longshore said.

During that period, Thomas worked in neighboring Pomona as a peer counselor at a hospital.

Detectives now believe the last in this cycle of killings occurred in 1989. They are not sure why the perpetrator stopped. That year, Thomas took a job in the state workers' compensation agency in Glendale. Full story here.

So he'd been chilling all these years, raping and killing at will until old age put a stop to it (I guess). I tell you, we get Obama one day and John Thomas the next. He totally trashes the myth that black men don't serial kill (or didn't start until recently). Seems like Thomas was leading the pack - and came very close to never being caught...on this side.