Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more!
L.A. Serial Killer Louis Craine Strangled 4 Women in Cold Blood: "He Gets Very Angry"
In Serial Killer Capital: Los Angeles, investigators detail how Louis Craine was caught for murdering four women in the late '80s.
Los Angeles is affectionately called the City of Angels, but devils dwell there too.
There have been multiple periods of terror in the city’s history, with women being followed by the Night Stalker Richard Ramirez in the '80s or being lured to their deaths by the Hillside Stranglers Kenneth Bianchi and Angelo Buono in the late '70s. Serial Killer Capital: Los Angeles, airing now on Oxygen, goes deeper into this deadly dark side of Tinseltown.
While many know about the Nightstalker and the Hillside Stranglers, there was less publicity surrounding the murders of 16 women in South L.A. during a three-year period beginning in January 1984. Many more murders followed. Investigators eventually found that the city was terrorized by multiple serial killers who were targeting young, vulnerable women, often struggling with drug abuse.
One of those serial killers was Louis Craine. Here’s everything you need to know about him.
Who is Louis Craine?
Born in L.A. in 1957, Craine dropped out of school after the fourth grade. He later found on and off work as an unskilled laborer. At the time of the killings, in the 1980s, he lived with his family and was employed at a construction site in the San Fernando Valley.
“His mother had made a comment about the fact that he gets very angry about certain types of girls, specifically female prostitutes that use crack cocaine,” Det. Vic Pietrantoni, of the Los Angeles Police Department's Robbery-Homicide Division, said in Serial Killer Capital: Los Angeles.
How Louis Craine Was Caught
Craine came onto police radar on May 27, 1987, after the body of Carolyn Barney was found. The 29-year-old Black woman been strangled and raped. A witness reported seeing Craine arguing with Barney in the back of a station wagon just before her remains were found in the South L.A. neighborhood of Watts.
During the interrogation, Craine first appeared to be “a mild-mannered individual,” said Pietrantoni. “He did not appear to be the type of person that would commit such violent crimes.”
But that opinion soon changed when Craine was questioned about Barney. “He initially said that they had an argument, and he left,” the detective said.
“After a little more questioning, he admitted that he in fact, did push his forearm against her neck, and that he had left thinking that she was sleeping,” Pietrantoni added. “At some point in time, he actually admitted that he knew she was, in fact, deceased.”
In a surprising twist, Craine then asked the detective to pray with him. Then, Craine confessed to three more strangulation murders, said Cliff Shepard, a detective assigned to the Los Angeles Police Department's Robbery-Homicide Division.
Who were Louis Craine’s victims?
In addition to Barney, Craine confessed to killing Loretta Perry, Vivian Collins, and Gail Ficklin, according to Serial Killer Capital: Los Angeles. These women were murdered between August 1985 and March 1987.
“His victims were all people that he knew from the neighborhood,” said Pietrantoni. “His crimes all occurred within a stone's throw of his residence.”
“Because his victims were found so close to where he lived, it doesn't appear that he was concerned about whether or not they would be found,” said FBI profiler Dr. Mary Ellen O’Toole.
Craine was convicted of four murders. He died in prison due to complications from AIDS on Nov. 7, 1989.
In addition to Craine, three other men were arrested in the case that became known as the Southside Slayer killings.
Find out more about them in Serial Killer Capital: Los Angeles, airing on Oxygen.
