Judge unseals documents in suspected serial killer case

SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. - A Superior Court judge Monday unsealed a portion of the grand jury indictment against suspected serial killer Wayne Adam Ford, the truck driver who confessed to killing four women.

The three pages released reveal Ford was indicted for four counts of murder on the testimony of detectives, criminalists, coroners and other law enforcement officials mostly from investigative agencies in Northern California.

Judge Michael A. Smith unsealed the indictment after several media organizations repeatedly requested access to the documents. The organizations, which include The San Bernardino County Sun and The Press-Enterprise of Riverside County, are filing additional paperwork urging the court to release the grand jury transcripts, a county coroner's report and statements Ford allegedly made to investigators.

In November 1998, Ford walked into a Humboldt County sheriff's station and confessed to killing four women, prosecutors said. As proof of his story, Ford allegedly pulled from his pocket a human breast in a plastic bag.

It was apparently the breast of Patricia Tamez, 29, a Hesperia resident whose nude body was found floating in an aqueduct near Hesperia on Oct. 23, 1998.

Lanett White, 25, of Fontana is believed to be Ford's other San Bernardino County victim. White's nude body was found on Sept. 25, 1998, drifting in an irrigation canal near Lodi.

Ford also has been charged in the killings of two other women.

The body of Las Vegas resident Tina Gibbs, 26, was found June 2, 1998, in Kern County. The torso of an unidentified woman was found in a Northern California slough near Ford's former home on Oct. 26, 1997.

Smith previously ruled under a new law permitting consolidation of multiple-jurisdiction murders that Ford could be tried at a single trial if prosecutors prove the killings are linked.

Ford was charged with the special circumstance of multiple slayings and would be eligible for the death penalty if convicted.

Ford reportedly told investigators from other counties that he often picked up prostitutes and other women at truck stops. He said it was not uncommon for women to stop breathing while they were having sex with him.