November 7, 2024 • 25 mins
A promising singer/songwriter becomes the final victim of the Domino Beach Killer in the fall of 1995. A witness catches the killer disposing of the body, giving police their best lead yet. An arrest is made, but when the identity of the suspect is revealed, the community’s relief is overshadowed by shock and disbelief.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following podcast contains explicit descriptions of violence, including sexual violence,
that some listeners may find upsetting. Continue at your own risk.
In the nineteen nineties, it seemed like serial killers were
really having a moment. For whatever reason, the public was
fascinated by them. We couldn't get enough think about it.
(00:25):
One of the most successful movies of nineteen ninety one
was Silence of the Lambs. It even went Best Picture
and pretty much everything else at the Oscars that year.
And then over the next few years we got inundated
with serial killer movies Jennifer Aids California and Natural Born Killers.
Then in nineteen ninety five you had two big serial
(00:46):
killer movies in theaters at the same time, Copycat and Seven.
Serial Killers were box office gold. The more sick and twisted,
the better. And then there was Real Life inteen ninety four.
The same year, the Milwaukee cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer was beaten
to death in prison by another inmate. The notorious killer
(01:07):
clown John Wayne Gacy was put to death by lethal injection.
And then you had your active serial killers of the nineties,
like the Green River Killer and the I ninety five Killer.
In addition to our own personal hometown horror, the Domino
Beach Killer living in a serial killer's hunting ground. At
(01:31):
the time of all this serial killer fever was a
bit surreal.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
See.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
It was also a time when the Internet was just
starting to catch on in a big way, and we
were all getting exposed to what goes on in the
darkest corners of the darkest minds of our fellow men
and women, well mostly men. The early adopters of the Internet,
the first people to figure out how to build and
publicize these new things called websites, seemed to love two
(01:57):
things above all else, celebrities and serial killers. By the
fall of nineteen ninety five, as I was learning to
navigate this new and incredible resource, my research led me
to theories about the Domino Beach Killer from all over
the country, all over the globe for that matter.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
A lot of the.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
People behind these theories wanted the killer to have some
kind of Hollywood gimmick, like the way Kevin Spacey was
using the Deadly Sins to make statements about his victims
in seven, or how the guy in Silence of the
Lambs was trying to make himself a suit out of
human skin. The most common fantasy I found was that
the murders were part of some ritual intended to subvert
(02:36):
the apocalypse that was destined to befall our planet at
the dawn of the millennium. But that kind of thing
was everywhere you looked back in the nineties. It's true
the Domino Beach Killer had written about the imminent end
of the world in his second letter to me, but
I never got the feeling he was on some kind
of a holy mission or whatever. As far as I
(02:58):
could tell, he had no adgea and no greater calling.
It was just a monster, a monster that I had
become convinced was the rich, privileged son of the most
powerful man in town. I'm Courtney Barnes, and this is
(03:28):
the Murder Years, Episode six, Only Happy when it rains.
We the jury and the above and title action find
the defendant, Orenthal James Simpson not guilty of the crime
of murder. November nineteen ninety five, one month after O. J.
Simpson was found not guilty by a jury of his
peers for the murders of his ex wife Nicole Brown
(03:51):
and her friend Ron Goldman, was when the Domino Beach
Killer struck one final time. The victim was Trudy Masterson,
the twenty eight year old singer, songwriter and rising star
in the music world who was doing a week's worth
of performances at Triple B's, the most popular bar and
music venue in town. November wasn't normally a time of
(04:12):
year that attracted notable performers to Domino Beach, but Trudy
was just on the cusp of breaking out in a
big way. She had recorded an album that was due
to come out in March of ninety six, and had
been invited to take part in a big New Year's
Eve show at the Wiltern in Los Angeles that featured
a bunch of major nineties rock bands and folk singers.
(04:33):
She was amazingly talented. I saw her play myself three
nights before she died. But hold on, let's back up
a second last episode. I told you how I began
to suspect Connor Langford was the Domino Beach killer months earlier,
in late April nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
To be honest with you, Connor Langford was one of
the first people I looked at way back in fall
of ninety two.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
That's Damon Stokes, retired Sheriff of Delsall County.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Some things about his original story just seemed a little
too coincidental to me. First of all, I found it strange,
with his history with a victim, that he and his
friend were the first ones to find Virick Hendrick's body.
He claimed he saw what he thought was some trash
over by the rocks, and that's why he came over
to investigate.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
But far as I could tell.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
You couldn't see her body until you got right up
on the rocks. And he said he spotted her from,
you know, maybe two hundred yards away. Now, it's true
that the body had been knocked around by the waves
a little before I got there, so it's possible he
saw something I didn't. But then when he told me
(05:43):
I knew her, and later when I found out that
he'd had sexual relations.
Speaker 5 (05:47):
With her, I mean, I don't know. It just didn't
sit right.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
But he did seem genuinely saddened by her death, and
maybe that's how he was able to convince me of
his innocence.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I'm sure you never had any reason to question him.
In the nineteen ninety three death of Billy Boy Reeves.
But what about the ASU students in ninety four? Was
he ever questioned?
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Well, sure, he'd been seen at those girl's house that week.
He even admitted to being there the night that they
were murdered. But you know, about two or three other
dozen people were there, you know, And Connor answered all
my questions.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
To my satisfactions.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
I didn't suspect him of those murders any more than
I suspected Stan Majors, who ended up taking the charges
for them posthumously.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
As you say, you know, and Angela Bowers. You may
remember Angela Bowers from episode four, the only person to
ever escape from the Domino Beach Killer with her life.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
I brought in just about every white male between the
ages of twenty one and thirty five I could get
my hands on to put in a lineup who would
say the words. Angela remembered him saying.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Scream and you die right here, and now yeah.
Speaker 5 (07:00):
Those other ones.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Unfortunately, she was not the greatest witness in the world.
I mean, she identified eight people before she admitted, I say,
realized she just couldn't remember what the guy sounded like.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Was Connor Langford one of the men in those lineups?
Speaker 4 (07:16):
No, I tried to bring him in, but his father
got him out of it.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
In defense of the retired sheriff, Angela did tell me
when I was interviewing her the morning after her attack,
that she didn't think she'd be able to identify the
man who tried to abduct her. She never got a
good look at him, and all she could remember about
his voice was that he was disguising it. But what
if Connor Langford had been forced to go into the
sheriff station stand in a lineup with a bunch of
(07:46):
other guys his age, and read that line in a
gravelly voice like everyone else Sheriff's Stokes brought in. Would
that little light bulb have gone off for her? Would
Angela have been able to identify him? Would one Fsice
and Trudy Masterson still be alive? We'll never know. It's
(08:06):
easy to blame Sheriff Stokes for missing what he missed,
especially with the benefit of hindsight, But I'm equally to blame.
My own investigation into Connor Langford wasn't exactly turning up
any new evidence. In fact, all I had was my
gut telling me it was him, and after a few
months I was starting to doubt myself. I didn't dare
(08:29):
share my thoughts with anyone, not Sheriff Stokes and certainly
not my editor or anyone else at the Soochul Journal.
If it had gotten back to Counselman Langford that I
was investigating his son for multiple homicides, it would have
been very difficult for me to continue living and working
in Domino Beach. So much to my regret, I kept
(08:49):
my mouth shut, and my cowardice may have cost Trudy
masters in her life.
Speaker 6 (09:05):
I saw her last show, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Speak of the Devil. That's Connor Langford himself, the man who,
in November nineteen ninety five, at the time of Trudy
Masterson's death, I believe to be the Domino Beach killer.
Speaker 6 (09:18):
I was working as.
Speaker 7 (09:19):
A bar back in Triple B's, you know, washing glasses,
changing out the kegs.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Big change for you. Back in April of that year.
You were performing at Triple B's with your band.
Speaker 6 (09:28):
That wasn't my band. My band died months before that.
Speaker 7 (09:31):
Those guys just thought I'd help pull in some extra
bodies to hear them play. But I guess I turned
out to be more trouble than I was worth. They
kicked me out of the band in early July. Can
you believe that what a pain I must have been
if they were willing to lose their singer and guitarists
at the peak of the summer tourist season.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Although tourism was down that year, well, the.
Speaker 7 (09:53):
Peak is still the peak, even if it's not as
high as it used to be.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
What made you want to get a job as a
bar back?
Speaker 6 (09:59):
I was fucking broke.
Speaker 7 (10:01):
I was still crashing at my parents' poolhouse, but my
dad had frozen me out. I could get my mom
to slide me a little cash every now and then,
but that all went towards weed and.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
H strange to witness. Honor Langford had been everyone's favorite
surfer dude in Domino Beach for years, but in late
nineteen ninety five he was already washed up, and he
wasn't even thirty years old.
Speaker 7 (10:25):
I'd sold almost everything I owned for drug money by
that point, even my guitar. The only thing I held
on to was my surfboard, and I don't even know why.
I never surfed anymore. I never did anything. They gave
me that job at Triple Bee's out of pity, you know,
I had never had a job in my life before
(10:46):
that fucking pathetic man Christ would a goddamn mess I was,
I guess I don't blame you for believing I was
some piece of shit serial killer like Ted Bundy or whoever,
although those guys usually have a pretty serious sense of
self importance, right, and I think it should have been
obvious to anyone that I lacked any kind of ambition.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
So can we get back to Trudy's final show?
Speaker 6 (11:12):
Yeah? Yeah, sorry.
Speaker 7 (11:18):
He was quiet that night, even quieter than usual. I mean,
the bar was practically empty. They didn't really need me there,
but then again, they never needed me. Trudy was up
on stage with her acoustic guitar. You know, she was
way better than I could have ever hoped to be.
She was a real musician. I was just playing at it.
Speaker 6 (11:42):
She just had a.
Speaker 7 (11:43):
Presence, you know, just her and her guitar, and somehow
it felt more full and complete than.
Speaker 6 (11:49):
Like a five man band. She had a soulful voice,
kind of husky, full of emotion.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Sounds like you were jealous of her.
Speaker 6 (11:57):
God damn right, I was jealous of her.
Speaker 7 (12:00):
But I can't even imagine who would want to take
someone like her away from the world. She was gonna
be a star. So at the end of the night
she started playing a few popular songs, but not like
the ones I.
Speaker 6 (12:14):
Played in that cover band I was in.
Speaker 7 (12:15):
We were trying to sound just like whoever you know,
Nirvana up Pearl Jammed the Chili's.
Speaker 6 (12:20):
We were trying to replicate their sound. Not Trudy.
Speaker 7 (12:24):
She took a song and she made it her own
and it was usually better than the original. Fucking amazing
how she could do that. The final song she did
that night, well ever, I guess, was this slow down
acoustic version of Only Happy When It Rains by Garbage.
Speaker 6 (12:41):
Remember that one?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I remember it?
Speaker 7 (12:43):
Good song I'm too bad? You never heard it played
by Trudy Masterson. It was fucking haunting.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
So here's what happened after Trudy wrapped up her final show.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
According to Jeffrey Franklin, the owner of the Triple B's,
Prudy Masterson finished her set just after eleven pm on Thursday,
November sixteenth, nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
Jeff tried hitting on her every night, even though she
made it crystal clear she was playing for a different team, you.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Know, So you're saying she was gay, How did you know?
Speaker 6 (13:17):
It wasn't like it was a secret.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
I mean, I talked to her a few times, and
it's not like she ever told me. But she could
have given a shit about me or any other guy
in the bar. But if there was a cute girl there,
Judy was eyeing her and smiling at her through her
whole set. But Jeff must have missed that, because whenever
she got to the bar, or right before she left,
he'd find some reason to go over and talk to
her and try to flirt.
Speaker 6 (13:41):
You know.
Speaker 7 (13:42):
That night he was asking her if she mightded playing
more covers, you know, because tomorrow's Friday and there'll be
more customers and people like music they already know. And
like I said, that garbage cover she did with some
fucking next level shit. So while I was cleaning up
behind the bar, I watched her and Jeff talk for
a while, and she's smiling and nod along, but it's
so obvious she just wants to get out of there
(14:02):
and go back to her motel. She couldn't pack her
guitar away fast enough. She was out the door by
eleven twenty eleven thirty latest.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Mister Franklin said that within minutes of Trudy masters and
leaving the bar, he told Connor Langford to clock out.
Speaker 7 (14:17):
Yeah, I'd broken a couple of glasses and he got mad,
told me to go home and sleep it off.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
You were high.
Speaker 7 (14:23):
I don't even remember. I was always either high or
chones in back then. I just don't remember which I
was that night.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Franklin said he didn't think Connor was on anything that night.
He said he seemed Connor high many times, but that
night he was stone cold, sober. He left the bar
no more than fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
After Trudy, So maybe he broke the glasses on purpose,
like he was trying to get sent home.
Speaker 5 (14:48):
Oh that's what I believe you.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
It was four blocks to the motel where Trudy was staying,
and she walked to it every night after she played
at Triple B's, but she didn't make it there that night.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
It was the same time of year as the attack
on Angela Bauers in nineteen ninety four, and I know
Miss Masterson had been told it wasn't the best idea
to walk along late at night.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
But that was the thing about Domino Beach.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
It was clean, the streets were well lit, you hear
the sound of the waves in the distance.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
It felt perfectly safe.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Did anyone see Trudy after she left Triple Be's.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Nope, no one saw, you know, no, no one. I
talked too, Sar. We don't know if she tried to
go straight to the motel, or if she tried to
go for a walk on the beach or the boardwalk
or what. But we just don't know what time she
was abducted or from exactly where.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
What we do know is when her body was found
at roughly three point thirty am on the morning of
November seventeenth. Trudy was found in a small park that
ran along the beach on the north end of the city.
It's really not much of a park. It's a strip
of grass, a few benches and palm trees, and it's
right next to the main road that separates the beach
from the downtown area a little further south. She had
(16:05):
been raped, beaten, and strangled to death, just like Vera
Kendrick in nineteen ninety two. Whether the killer intended to
spray paint some song lyrics near the body, like he
had done with Vera and Billy Boy Reeves, or whether
he wanted to leave some music playing, like he had
with Mary Crouch, Sandra Gerard, and Hally Blake. Will never
know because this murder had something none of the others had.
(16:28):
A witness.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Henrietta Jones had lived in Domino Beach for at least
ten years. She's always been homeless, at least as long
as I've known her, and she was in Domino Beach
before me.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Did you know Henrietta?
Speaker 5 (16:41):
Well, yeah, pretty well, God rest her soul.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
I wouldn't say we always got along, but you know
she never gave me any trouble either.
Speaker 5 (16:50):
Did you know her? I mean, you know before this.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I know, not really. I kind of remember giving her
change a couple of times.
Speaker 5 (16:57):
But you should have gotten to know her.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
She might have been homeless, but she was sharp as
attack and she had eyes everywhere apparently, so you know
she might have been useful to you as a source.
Speaker 5 (17:08):
I mean, you know, this wasn't the first time she'd
been useful to me.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
I was still really young back then.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
I was probably scared of her, but you're right, as
a journalist I should have been more open minded about
the help she could offer.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
Well, like you said, you were young, you know you
were trying to do it all yourself.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
I'm not disagreeing with you anyway.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Yeah, anyway, Well it got cool in November, so Henrietta
would set up a camp in the park, you know,
where the wind wasn't so bad. And Henriette was real
good at playing the game. She knew we'd have to
run her off if she was too visible, so she
always tucked herself away behind some bushes or trees or
whatever was around. And as long as she was making
(17:48):
an effort to stay out of sight, you know, out
of side of the tourists, we mostly let her be.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Somewhat ironically, Henry Edta Jones had been something of a
mother figure to the Killer's first victim, Vera Hendrick.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
She had given Vera the lay of the.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Land, todd her where the best panhandling spots were and
the best times to be there, you know that sort
of thing. She was a friend to the Killer's first victim,
and she would help make sure Trudy Masterson was the last.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
According to Henrietta's statement, she heard a car pull up
and stop at the curb right by the park, and
someone in her situation knows that when you hear something
that late at night, it's best to check and make
sure that it's not a threat.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
So that's what she did.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
And she had set herself up near a little island
of palm trees and would have been hard to see
from the road, you know. So she looks out with
this little makeshift tent and she sees a light colored
band sitting on the curb by the park. She sees
a man, although she says she can't identify her. He's
(19:03):
wearing a hoodie something like that. But she sees him
open up the back doors of the van and pull
out a naked body, a naked body of Trudy Masterson.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
She knew it was a body right away, Oh, she
said she did.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
I mean, she didn't know the woman's name, but she
said she knew it was a dead person. He got
Trudy out of the van, grabbed her ankles, and dragged
her into the grass. Well, I guess it got a
little too close to Henrietta for comfort, because that's when
she hit.
Speaker 5 (19:32):
Her air horn.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Her air horn or air horn.
Speaker 6 (19:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
I mean, like I said, she'd been homeless for a
while and she knew how to take care of herself.
She had this nasty, rusty old knife of worse came
to worse, but I never knew where to use it.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
That airhorn, though I'd heard.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
It myself multiple times if someone tried to rob her,
or she saw someone she didn't like, that thing was
so loud it would split the night wide open. And
that's what happened.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
What did the killer do?
Speaker 4 (20:03):
She said, He froze, you know, for about a second,
looked back, saw her, and did she see him his face, No,
But she did hit the airhorn again, and he ran
for his van and peeled off without even bothering to
close the back doors. When she was sure he was gone,
Henrietta went to Trudy's body, confirmed or dead, and then
went to the nearest payphone called nine one one.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Henrietta Jones may not have gotten a good look at
the killer, but at this point she was only the
second person to lay eyes on him at all and
lived to tell the tale, the first being Angela Bowers
almost exactly one year earlier. When Angela was attacked, she
was forced into the back seat of her own car,
but Henrietta saw the killer driving his own vehicle. A
(20:48):
light colored van could be white, could be pale blue,
or yellow, even beige she wasn't sure, but it was
the best clue police had gotten yet.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Prudy Masterson's offtopsy showed traces.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Of rohypnal, the date rate drug Rufie's exactly.
Speaker 6 (21:03):
You know.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
It had been gaining popularity in the US since the
early nineties, but most people weren't too aware of it,
I mean, not aware to be on the lookout. Anyway,
we suspect someone approached her while she was walking back
to the motel, since all the bars were closed at
eleven during the off season. Maybe this person convinced her
to go have a drink on the beach, watch.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
The waves, you know.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
So it might have been someone she knew.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
Might have been, but remember she was a musician and
she didn't exactly live a risk free lifestyle. Could have
been that whoever approached or just charmed her.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
However it happened. He somehow slipped her a roofie.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Right, and it doesn't take long to start feeling the effects.
And she was raped, yeah, and strangled, and she was
too out of it to fight back. So again, no
defense wounds, no skin, hair or blood under the fingernails,
nothing like that. And when he was done, tried to
get rid of the body. We were working off the
theory that the rape and murder occurred inside the van.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
Henrietta saw Pirah.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Kendrick, Juan Costas, and the other three ASU students were
all found where they were killed. Only the bodies of
Billy Boy Reeves and now Trudy Masterson were transported and
disposed of somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
So you really wanted to find that van.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
We wanted to, and we did.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
The van was found the next day, roughly eighty miles
north of Los Angeles on the Pacific Coast Highway. It
had been driven off the road into a deep ditch,
only partially hidden by branches and leaves. Some of Trudy
Masterson's hair and blood was found in the back.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
That was the day that changed everything, November eighteenth, nineteen
ninety five.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Why did everything change that day.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Because the day we got our first real suspect in
the case. The van we found was registered to Connor Langford.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
It had finally happened. I started suspecting Connor Langford five
months earlier. I never voiced my suspicions to anyone. I
know what you're thinking. It's really easy for me to
say I knew it was Connor all Along now thirty
years later, But you're wrong.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
It's not easy. I didn't want to.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Risk my job by voicing my suspicions about Connor and
then having his father the counselmansue me and the paper
into oblivion. And sure that might have happened if I'd
have been vocal. You know what else might have happened.
Trudy Masterson might still be alive. Yeah, I understand how
(23:32):
it looked again, Connor Langford.
Speaker 7 (23:36):
I know why everyone believes I'm guilty. I know why
almost everyone I cared about turn their backs on me.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
And I'm not saying.
Speaker 7 (23:45):
I didn't deserve the universe to throw some shit in
my way. I was a fuck up, sure, but I'm
no killer. I'm saying it now and I said it
back then. I'm an innocent man.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
The Murder Years is a production of AYR Media and
iHeartMedia Executive producer Elisa Rosen for AYR Media. Written by
Tim Huddleston, directed by Elisa Rosen, Editing and sound designed
by Tristan Bankston, Consulting producer Jean Chandil, coordinator Olive Goldberg.
(24:34):
Audio engineering and mastering by Justin longerbein studio engineer Josh Hook.
Original music by Nathan Bankston. Original concept developed in partnership
with Anne, Margaret Johns, and Greg Spring. Executive producer for iHeartMedia,
Maya Howard. Performances for this episode by Erica Leniac as
(25:00):
Courtney Barnes, Tom Virtue as Sheriff Damon Stokes, Alex Salem
as Connor Langford
The following podcast contains explicit descriptions of violence, including sexual violence,
that some listeners may find upsetting. Continue at your own risk.
In the nineteen nineties, it seemed like serial killers were
really having a moment. For whatever reason, the public was
fascinated by them. We couldn't get enough think about it.
(00:25):
One of the most successful movies of nineteen ninety one
was Silence of the Lambs. It even went Best Picture
and pretty much everything else at the Oscars that year.
And then over the next few years we got inundated
with serial killer movies Jennifer Aids California and Natural Born Killers.
Then in nineteen ninety five you had two big serial
(00:46):
killer movies in theaters at the same time, Copycat and Seven.
Serial Killers were box office gold. The more sick and twisted,
the better. And then there was Real Life inteen ninety four.
The same year, the Milwaukee cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer was beaten
to death in prison by another inmate. The notorious killer
(01:07):
clown John Wayne Gacy was put to death by lethal injection.
And then you had your active serial killers of the nineties,
like the Green River Killer and the I ninety five Killer.
In addition to our own personal hometown horror, the Domino
Beach Killer living in a serial killer's hunting ground. At
(01:31):
the time of all this serial killer fever was a
bit surreal.
Speaker 2 (01:36):
See.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
It was also a time when the Internet was just
starting to catch on in a big way, and we
were all getting exposed to what goes on in the
darkest corners of the darkest minds of our fellow men
and women, well mostly men. The early adopters of the Internet,
the first people to figure out how to build and
publicize these new things called websites, seemed to love two
(01:57):
things above all else, celebrities and serial killers. By the
fall of nineteen ninety five, as I was learning to
navigate this new and incredible resource, my research led me
to theories about the Domino Beach Killer from all over
the country, all over the globe for that matter.
Speaker 3 (02:15):
A lot of the.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
People behind these theories wanted the killer to have some
kind of Hollywood gimmick, like the way Kevin Spacey was
using the Deadly Sins to make statements about his victims
in seven, or how the guy in Silence of the
Lambs was trying to make himself a suit out of
human skin. The most common fantasy I found was that
the murders were part of some ritual intended to subvert
(02:36):
the apocalypse that was destined to befall our planet at
the dawn of the millennium. But that kind of thing
was everywhere you looked back in the nineties. It's true
the Domino Beach Killer had written about the imminent end
of the world in his second letter to me, but
I never got the feeling he was on some kind
of a holy mission or whatever. As far as I
(02:58):
could tell, he had no adgea and no greater calling.
It was just a monster, a monster that I had
become convinced was the rich, privileged son of the most
powerful man in town. I'm Courtney Barnes, and this is
(03:28):
the Murder Years, Episode six, Only Happy when it rains.
We the jury and the above and title action find
the defendant, Orenthal James Simpson not guilty of the crime
of murder. November nineteen ninety five, one month after O. J.
Simpson was found not guilty by a jury of his
peers for the murders of his ex wife Nicole Brown
(03:51):
and her friend Ron Goldman, was when the Domino Beach
Killer struck one final time. The victim was Trudy Masterson,
the twenty eight year old singer, songwriter and rising star
in the music world who was doing a week's worth
of performances at Triple B's, the most popular bar and
music venue in town. November wasn't normally a time of
(04:12):
year that attracted notable performers to Domino Beach, but Trudy
was just on the cusp of breaking out in a
big way. She had recorded an album that was due
to come out in March of ninety six, and had
been invited to take part in a big New Year's
Eve show at the Wiltern in Los Angeles that featured
a bunch of major nineties rock bands and folk singers.
(04:33):
She was amazingly talented. I saw her play myself three
nights before she died. But hold on, let's back up
a second last episode. I told you how I began
to suspect Connor Langford was the Domino Beach killer months earlier,
in late April nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 4 (04:53):
To be honest with you, Connor Langford was one of
the first people I looked at way back in fall
of ninety two.
Speaker 1 (04:59):
That's Damon Stokes, retired Sheriff of Delsall County.
Speaker 4 (05:03):
Some things about his original story just seemed a little
too coincidental to me. First of all, I found it strange,
with his history with a victim, that he and his
friend were the first ones to find Virick Hendrick's body.
He claimed he saw what he thought was some trash
over by the rocks, and that's why he came over
to investigate.
Speaker 5 (05:20):
But far as I could tell.
Speaker 4 (05:22):
You couldn't see her body until you got right up
on the rocks. And he said he spotted her from,
you know, maybe two hundred yards away. Now, it's true
that the body had been knocked around by the waves
a little before I got there, so it's possible he
saw something I didn't. But then when he told me
(05:43):
I knew her, and later when I found out that
he'd had sexual relations.
Speaker 5 (05:47):
With her, I mean, I don't know. It just didn't
sit right.
Speaker 4 (05:52):
But he did seem genuinely saddened by her death, and
maybe that's how he was able to convince me of
his innocence.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
I don't know.
Speaker 1 (06:00):
I'm sure you never had any reason to question him.
In the nineteen ninety three death of Billy Boy Reeves.
But what about the ASU students in ninety four? Was
he ever questioned?
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Well, sure, he'd been seen at those girl's house that week.
He even admitted to being there the night that they
were murdered. But you know, about two or three other
dozen people were there, you know, And Connor answered all
my questions.
Speaker 5 (06:24):
To my satisfactions.
Speaker 4 (06:26):
I didn't suspect him of those murders any more than
I suspected Stan Majors, who ended up taking the charges
for them posthumously.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
As you say, you know, and Angela Bowers. You may
remember Angela Bowers from episode four, the only person to
ever escape from the Domino Beach Killer with her life.
Speaker 4 (06:45):
I brought in just about every white male between the
ages of twenty one and thirty five I could get
my hands on to put in a lineup who would
say the words. Angela remembered him saying.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Scream and you die right here, and now yeah.
Speaker 5 (07:00):
Those other ones.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Unfortunately, she was not the greatest witness in the world.
I mean, she identified eight people before she admitted, I say,
realized she just couldn't remember what the guy sounded like.
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Was Connor Langford one of the men in those lineups?
Speaker 4 (07:16):
No, I tried to bring him in, but his father
got him out of it.
Speaker 1 (07:23):
In defense of the retired sheriff, Angela did tell me
when I was interviewing her the morning after her attack,
that she didn't think she'd be able to identify the
man who tried to abduct her. She never got a
good look at him, and all she could remember about
his voice was that he was disguising it. But what
if Connor Langford had been forced to go into the
sheriff station stand in a lineup with a bunch of
(07:46):
other guys his age, and read that line in a
gravelly voice like everyone else Sheriff's Stokes brought in. Would
that little light bulb have gone off for her? Would
Angela have been able to identify him? Would one Fsice
and Trudy Masterson still be alive? We'll never know. It's
(08:06):
easy to blame Sheriff Stokes for missing what he missed,
especially with the benefit of hindsight, But I'm equally to blame.
My own investigation into Connor Langford wasn't exactly turning up
any new evidence. In fact, all I had was my
gut telling me it was him, and after a few
months I was starting to doubt myself. I didn't dare
(08:29):
share my thoughts with anyone, not Sheriff Stokes and certainly
not my editor or anyone else at the Soochul Journal.
If it had gotten back to Counselman Langford that I
was investigating his son for multiple homicides, it would have
been very difficult for me to continue living and working
in Domino Beach. So much to my regret, I kept
(08:49):
my mouth shut, and my cowardice may have cost Trudy
masters in her life.
Speaker 6 (09:05):
I saw her last show, you know.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Speak of the Devil. That's Connor Langford himself, the man who,
in November nineteen ninety five, at the time of Trudy
Masterson's death, I believe to be the Domino Beach killer.
Speaker 6 (09:18):
I was working as.
Speaker 7 (09:19):
A bar back in Triple B's, you know, washing glasses,
changing out the kegs.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
Big change for you. Back in April of that year.
You were performing at Triple B's with your band.
Speaker 6 (09:28):
That wasn't my band. My band died months before that.
Speaker 7 (09:31):
Those guys just thought I'd help pull in some extra
bodies to hear them play. But I guess I turned
out to be more trouble than I was worth. They
kicked me out of the band in early July. Can
you believe that what a pain I must have been
if they were willing to lose their singer and guitarists
at the peak of the summer tourist season.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
Although tourism was down that year, well, the.
Speaker 7 (09:53):
Peak is still the peak, even if it's not as
high as it used to be.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
What made you want to get a job as a
bar back?
Speaker 6 (09:59):
I was fucking broke.
Speaker 7 (10:01):
I was still crashing at my parents' poolhouse, but my
dad had frozen me out. I could get my mom
to slide me a little cash every now and then,
but that all went towards weed and.
Speaker 1 (10:11):
H strange to witness. Honor Langford had been everyone's favorite
surfer dude in Domino Beach for years, but in late
nineteen ninety five he was already washed up, and he
wasn't even thirty years old.
Speaker 7 (10:25):
I'd sold almost everything I owned for drug money by
that point, even my guitar. The only thing I held
on to was my surfboard, and I don't even know why.
I never surfed anymore. I never did anything. They gave
me that job at Triple Bee's out of pity, you know,
I had never had a job in my life before
(10:46):
that fucking pathetic man Christ would a goddamn mess I was,
I guess I don't blame you for believing I was
some piece of shit serial killer like Ted Bundy or whoever,
although those guys usually have a pretty serious sense of
self importance, right, and I think it should have been
obvious to anyone that I lacked any kind of ambition.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
So can we get back to Trudy's final show?
Speaker 6 (11:12):
Yeah? Yeah, sorry.
Speaker 7 (11:18):
He was quiet that night, even quieter than usual. I mean,
the bar was practically empty. They didn't really need me there,
but then again, they never needed me. Trudy was up
on stage with her acoustic guitar. You know, she was
way better than I could have ever hoped to be.
She was a real musician. I was just playing at it.
Speaker 6 (11:42):
She just had a.
Speaker 7 (11:43):
Presence, you know, just her and her guitar, and somehow
it felt more full and complete than.
Speaker 6 (11:49):
Like a five man band. She had a soulful voice,
kind of husky, full of emotion.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
Sounds like you were jealous of her.
Speaker 6 (11:57):
God damn right, I was jealous of her.
Speaker 7 (12:00):
But I can't even imagine who would want to take
someone like her away from the world. She was gonna
be a star. So at the end of the night
she started playing a few popular songs, but not like
the ones I.
Speaker 6 (12:14):
Played in that cover band I was in.
Speaker 7 (12:15):
We were trying to sound just like whoever you know,
Nirvana up Pearl Jammed the Chili's.
Speaker 6 (12:20):
We were trying to replicate their sound. Not Trudy.
Speaker 7 (12:24):
She took a song and she made it her own
and it was usually better than the original. Fucking amazing
how she could do that. The final song she did
that night, well ever, I guess, was this slow down
acoustic version of Only Happy When It Rains by Garbage.
Speaker 6 (12:41):
Remember that one?
Speaker 2 (12:42):
I remember it?
Speaker 7 (12:43):
Good song I'm too bad? You never heard it played
by Trudy Masterson. It was fucking haunting.
Speaker 1 (12:51):
So here's what happened after Trudy wrapped up her final show.
Speaker 4 (12:56):
According to Jeffrey Franklin, the owner of the Triple B's,
Prudy Masterson finished her set just after eleven pm on Thursday,
November sixteenth, nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 6 (13:07):
Jeff tried hitting on her every night, even though she
made it crystal clear she was playing for a different team, you.
Speaker 2 (13:14):
Know, So you're saying she was gay, How did you know?
Speaker 6 (13:17):
It wasn't like it was a secret.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
I mean, I talked to her a few times, and
it's not like she ever told me. But she could
have given a shit about me or any other guy
in the bar. But if there was a cute girl there,
Judy was eyeing her and smiling at her through her
whole set. But Jeff must have missed that, because whenever
she got to the bar, or right before she left,
he'd find some reason to go over and talk to
her and try to flirt.
Speaker 6 (13:41):
You know.
Speaker 7 (13:42):
That night he was asking her if she mightded playing
more covers, you know, because tomorrow's Friday and there'll be
more customers and people like music they already know. And
like I said, that garbage cover she did with some
fucking next level shit. So while I was cleaning up
behind the bar, I watched her and Jeff talk for
a while, and she's smiling and nod along, but it's
so obvious she just wants to get out of there
(14:02):
and go back to her motel. She couldn't pack her
guitar away fast enough. She was out the door by
eleven twenty eleven thirty latest.
Speaker 4 (14:10):
Mister Franklin said that within minutes of Trudy masters and
leaving the bar, he told Connor Langford to clock out.
Speaker 7 (14:17):
Yeah, I'd broken a couple of glasses and he got mad,
told me to go home and sleep it off.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
You were high.
Speaker 7 (14:23):
I don't even remember. I was always either high or
chones in back then. I just don't remember which I
was that night.
Speaker 4 (14:31):
Franklin said he didn't think Connor was on anything that night.
He said he seemed Connor high many times, but that
night he was stone cold, sober. He left the bar
no more than fifteen minutes.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
After Trudy, So maybe he broke the glasses on purpose,
like he was trying to get sent home.
Speaker 5 (14:48):
Oh that's what I believe you.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
It was four blocks to the motel where Trudy was staying,
and she walked to it every night after she played
at Triple B's, but she didn't make it there that night.
Speaker 4 (15:02):
It was the same time of year as the attack
on Angela Bauers in nineteen ninety four, and I know
Miss Masterson had been told it wasn't the best idea
to walk along late at night.
Speaker 5 (15:12):
But that was the thing about Domino Beach.
Speaker 4 (15:15):
It was clean, the streets were well lit, you hear
the sound of the waves in the distance.
Speaker 5 (15:21):
It felt perfectly safe.
Speaker 3 (15:22):
Did anyone see Trudy after she left Triple Be's.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
Nope, no one saw, you know, no, no one. I
talked too, Sar. We don't know if she tried to
go straight to the motel, or if she tried to
go for a walk on the beach or the boardwalk
or what. But we just don't know what time she
was abducted or from exactly where.
Speaker 1 (15:43):
What we do know is when her body was found
at roughly three point thirty am on the morning of
November seventeenth. Trudy was found in a small park that
ran along the beach on the north end of the city.
It's really not much of a park. It's a strip
of grass, a few benches and palm trees, and it's
right next to the main road that separates the beach
from the downtown area a little further south. She had
(16:05):
been raped, beaten, and strangled to death, just like Vera
Kendrick in nineteen ninety two. Whether the killer intended to
spray paint some song lyrics near the body, like he
had done with Vera and Billy Boy Reeves, or whether
he wanted to leave some music playing, like he had
with Mary Crouch, Sandra Gerard, and Hally Blake. Will never
know because this murder had something none of the others had.
(16:28):
A witness.
Speaker 4 (16:31):
Henrietta Jones had lived in Domino Beach for at least
ten years. She's always been homeless, at least as long
as I've known her, and she was in Domino Beach
before me.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Did you know Henrietta?
Speaker 5 (16:41):
Well, yeah, pretty well, God rest her soul.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
I wouldn't say we always got along, but you know
she never gave me any trouble either.
Speaker 5 (16:50):
Did you know her? I mean, you know before this.
Speaker 1 (16:53):
I know, not really. I kind of remember giving her
change a couple of times.
Speaker 5 (16:57):
But you should have gotten to know her.
Speaker 4 (17:00):
She might have been homeless, but she was sharp as
attack and she had eyes everywhere apparently, so you know
she might have been useful to you as a source.
Speaker 5 (17:08):
I mean, you know, this wasn't the first time she'd
been useful to me.
Speaker 3 (17:12):
I was still really young back then.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
I was probably scared of her, but you're right, as
a journalist I should have been more open minded about
the help she could offer.
Speaker 4 (17:21):
Well, like you said, you were young, you know you
were trying to do it all yourself.
Speaker 3 (17:24):
I'm not disagreeing with you anyway.
Speaker 4 (17:27):
Yeah, anyway, Well it got cool in November, so Henrietta
would set up a camp in the park, you know,
where the wind wasn't so bad. And Henriette was real
good at playing the game. She knew we'd have to
run her off if she was too visible, so she
always tucked herself away behind some bushes or trees or
whatever was around. And as long as she was making
(17:48):
an effort to stay out of sight, you know, out
of side of the tourists, we mostly let her be.
Speaker 1 (17:58):
Somewhat ironically, Henry Edta Jones had been something of a
mother figure to the Killer's first victim, Vera Hendrick.
Speaker 3 (18:04):
She had given Vera the lay of the.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
Land, todd her where the best panhandling spots were and
the best times to be there, you know that sort
of thing. She was a friend to the Killer's first victim,
and she would help make sure Trudy Masterson was the last.
Speaker 4 (18:28):
According to Henrietta's statement, she heard a car pull up
and stop at the curb right by the park, and
someone in her situation knows that when you hear something
that late at night, it's best to check and make
sure that it's not a threat.
Speaker 5 (18:41):
So that's what she did.
Speaker 4 (18:43):
And she had set herself up near a little island
of palm trees and would have been hard to see
from the road, you know. So she looks out with
this little makeshift tent and she sees a light colored
band sitting on the curb by the park. She sees
a man, although she says she can't identify her. He's
(19:03):
wearing a hoodie something like that. But she sees him
open up the back doors of the van and pull
out a naked body, a naked body of Trudy Masterson.
Speaker 3 (19:14):
She knew it was a body right away, Oh, she
said she did.
Speaker 4 (19:18):
I mean, she didn't know the woman's name, but she
said she knew it was a dead person. He got
Trudy out of the van, grabbed her ankles, and dragged
her into the grass. Well, I guess it got a
little too close to Henrietta for comfort, because that's when
she hit.
Speaker 5 (19:32):
Her air horn.
Speaker 3 (19:33):
Her air horn or air horn.
Speaker 6 (19:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (19:35):
I mean, like I said, she'd been homeless for a
while and she knew how to take care of herself.
She had this nasty, rusty old knife of worse came
to worse, but I never knew where to use it.
Speaker 5 (19:46):
That airhorn, though I'd heard.
Speaker 4 (19:48):
It myself multiple times if someone tried to rob her,
or she saw someone she didn't like, that thing was
so loud it would split the night wide open. And
that's what happened.
Speaker 3 (20:02):
What did the killer do?
Speaker 4 (20:03):
She said, He froze, you know, for about a second,
looked back, saw her, and did she see him his face, No,
But she did hit the airhorn again, and he ran
for his van and peeled off without even bothering to
close the back doors. When she was sure he was gone,
Henrietta went to Trudy's body, confirmed or dead, and then
went to the nearest payphone called nine one one.
Speaker 1 (20:27):
Henrietta Jones may not have gotten a good look at
the killer, but at this point she was only the
second person to lay eyes on him at all and
lived to tell the tale, the first being Angela Bowers
almost exactly one year earlier. When Angela was attacked, she
was forced into the back seat of her own car,
but Henrietta saw the killer driving his own vehicle. A
(20:48):
light colored van could be white, could be pale blue,
or yellow, even beige she wasn't sure, but it was
the best clue police had gotten yet.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Prudy Masterson's offtopsy showed traces.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Of rohypnal, the date rate drug Rufie's exactly.
Speaker 6 (21:03):
You know.
Speaker 4 (21:04):
It had been gaining popularity in the US since the
early nineties, but most people weren't too aware of it,
I mean, not aware to be on the lookout. Anyway,
we suspect someone approached her while she was walking back
to the motel, since all the bars were closed at
eleven during the off season. Maybe this person convinced her
to go have a drink on the beach, watch.
Speaker 5 (21:22):
The waves, you know.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
So it might have been someone she knew.
Speaker 4 (21:25):
Might have been, but remember she was a musician and
she didn't exactly live a risk free lifestyle. Could have
been that whoever approached or just charmed her.
Speaker 3 (21:35):
However it happened. He somehow slipped her a roofie.
Speaker 4 (21:37):
Right, and it doesn't take long to start feeling the effects.
And she was raped, yeah, and strangled, and she was
too out of it to fight back. So again, no
defense wounds, no skin, hair or blood under the fingernails,
nothing like that. And when he was done, tried to
get rid of the body. We were working off the
theory that the rape and murder occurred inside the van.
Speaker 5 (22:00):
Henrietta saw Pirah.
Speaker 4 (22:02):
Kendrick, Juan Costas, and the other three ASU students were
all found where they were killed. Only the bodies of
Billy Boy Reeves and now Trudy Masterson were transported and
disposed of somewhere else.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
So you really wanted to find that van.
Speaker 5 (22:18):
We wanted to, and we did.
Speaker 1 (22:23):
The van was found the next day, roughly eighty miles
north of Los Angeles on the Pacific Coast Highway. It
had been driven off the road into a deep ditch,
only partially hidden by branches and leaves. Some of Trudy
Masterson's hair and blood was found in the back.
Speaker 4 (22:40):
That was the day that changed everything, November eighteenth, nineteen
ninety five.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
Why did everything change that day.
Speaker 4 (22:47):
Because the day we got our first real suspect in
the case. The van we found was registered to Connor Langford.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
It had finally happened. I started suspecting Connor Langford five
months earlier. I never voiced my suspicions to anyone. I
know what you're thinking. It's really easy for me to
say I knew it was Connor all Along now thirty
years later, But you're wrong.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
It's not easy. I didn't want to.
Speaker 1 (23:12):
Risk my job by voicing my suspicions about Connor and
then having his father the counselmansue me and the paper
into oblivion. And sure that might have happened if I'd
have been vocal. You know what else might have happened.
Trudy Masterson might still be alive. Yeah, I understand how
(23:32):
it looked again, Connor Langford.
Speaker 7 (23:36):
I know why everyone believes I'm guilty. I know why
almost everyone I cared about turn their backs on me.
Speaker 6 (23:44):
And I'm not saying.
Speaker 7 (23:45):
I didn't deserve the universe to throw some shit in
my way. I was a fuck up, sure, but I'm
no killer. I'm saying it now and I said it
back then. I'm an innocent man.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
The Murder Years is a production of AYR Media and
iHeartMedia Executive producer Elisa Rosen for AYR Media. Written by
Tim Huddleston, directed by Elisa Rosen, Editing and sound designed
by Tristan Bankston, Consulting producer Jean Chandil, coordinator Olive Goldberg.
(24:34):
Audio engineering and mastering by Justin longerbein studio engineer Josh Hook.
Original music by Nathan Bankston. Original concept developed in partnership
with Anne, Margaret Johns, and Greg Spring. Executive producer for iHeartMedia,
Maya Howard. Performances for this episode by Erica Leniac as
(25:00):
Courtney Barnes, Tom Virtue as Sheriff Damon Stokes, Alex Salem
as Connor Langford
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