title: Operation Cyclone

text: The full significance of the U.S. sending aid to the mujahideen prior to the invasion is debated among scholars. Some assert that it directly, and even deliberately, provoked the Soviets to send in troops. Bruce Riedel, however, believes that the U.S. aid was intended primarily to improve U.S. relations with Pakistan, while Coll asserts: "Contemporary memos—particularly those written in the first days after the Soviet invasion—make clear that while Brzezinski was determined to confront the Soviets in Afghanistan through covert action, he was also very worried the Soviets would prevail. ... Given this evidence and the enormous political and security costs that the invasion imposed on the Carter administration, any claim that Brzezinski lured the Soviets into Afghanistan warrants deep skepticism." A 2020 review of declassified U.S. documents by Conor Tobin in the journal "Diplomatic History" found that "a Soviet military intervention was neither sought nor desired by the Carter administration ... The small-scale covert program that developed "in response" to the increasing Soviet influence was part of a contingency plan "if" the Soviets did intervene militarily, as Washington would be in a better position to make it difficult for them to consolidate their position, but not designed to induce an intervention."


title: Operation Cyclone

text: Carter expressed surprise at the December 1979 invasion. According to Riedel, the consensus of the U.S. intelligence community during 1978 and 1979—reiterated as late as 29 September 1979—was that "Moscow would not intervene in force even if it appeared likely that the Khalq government was about to collapse." Indeed, Carter's diary entries from November 1979 until the Soviet invasion in late December contain only two short references to Afghanistan, and are instead preoccupied with the ongoing hostage crisis in Iran. In the West, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was considered a threat to global security and the oil supplies of the Persian Gulf. Moreover, the failure to accurately predict Soviet intentions caused American officials to reappraise the Soviet threat to both Iran and Pakistan, although it is now known that those fears were overblown. For example, U.S. intelligence closely followed Soviet exercises for an invasion of Iran throughout 1980, while an earlier warning from Brzezinski that "if the Soviets came to dominate Afghanistan, they could promote a separate Baluchistan ... [thus] dismembering Pakistan and Iran" took on new urgency.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: In the aftermath of the invasion, Carter was determined to respond vigorously. In a televised speech, he announced sanctions on the Soviet Union, promised renewed aid to Pakistan, and committed the U.S. to the Persian Gulf's defense. Carter also called for a boycott of the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow, which raised a bitter controversy. British prime minister Margaret Thatcher enthusiastically backed Carter's tough stance, although British intelligence believed "the CIA was being too alarmist about the Soviet threat to Pakistan."


title: Operation Cyclone

text: Although Director of Central Intelligence (DCI) Stansfield Turner and the CIA's Directorate of Operations (DO) were contemplating what Gates described as "several enhancement options"—up to and including the direct provision of arms from the U.S. to the mujahideen through the ISI—by October 1979, and an unnamed Brzezinski aide acknowledged in conversation with Selig S. Harrison that the U.S.'s nominally "non-lethal" assistance to the mujahideen included facilitating arms shipments by third-parties, Coll, Harrison, Riedel, and the head of the DO's Near East–South Asia Division at the time—Charles Cogan—all state that no U.S.-supplied arms intended for the mujahideen reached Pakistan until January 1980, after Carter amended his presidential finding to include lethal provisions in late December 1979. This is also corroborated by Tobin: "With the 'evidence of movement' of Soviet military forces detected near Afghanistan's borders, the SCC resolved on December 17 to 'explore with the Pakistanis and British the possibility of improving the financing, arming and communications of rebel forces to make it as expensive as possible for the Soviets to continue their efforts.' This likely meant increased financing of arms purchases rather than direct arms support, but the initiatives were not undertaken until after the invasion began, and no weapons were directly supplied before January 1980."


title: Operation Cyclone

text: The thrust of U.S. policy for the duration of the war was determined by Carter in early 1980: Carter initiated a program to arm the mujahideen through Pakistan's ISI and secured a pledge from Saudi Arabia to match U.S. funding for this purpose. U.S. support for the mujahideen accelerated under Carter's successor, Ronald Reagan, at a final cost to U.S. taxpayers of some $3 billion. The decision to route U.S. aid through Pakistan led to massive fraud, as weapons sent to Karachi were frequently sold on the local market rather than delivered to the Afghan rebels; Karachi soon "became one of the most violent cities in the world." Pakistan also controlled which rebels received assistance: Of the seven mujahideen groups supported by Zia's government, four espoused Islamic fundamentalist beliefs—and these fundamentalists received most of the funding. Despite this, Carter has expressed no regrets over his decision to support what he still considers the "freedom fighters" in Afghanistan.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: Key proponents of the initial program were Texas Congressman Charlie Wilson; Michael G. Vickers, a young CIA paramilitary officer; and Gust Avrakotos, the CIA's regional head, who developed a close relationship with Wilson. Their strategy was to provide a broad mix of weapons, tactics, and logistics, along with training programs, to enhance the rebels' ability to fight a guerilla war against the Soviets. Initially, to avoid detection of U.S. involvement, the program supplied the rebels only with Soviet-made weaponry. This plan was enabled by the tacit support of Israel, which had captured large stockpiles of Soviet-made weaponry during the Yom Kippur War and agreed to sell them to the CIA clandestinely, as well as Egypt, which had recently modernized its army with weapons purchased from Western nations, funneling the older Soviet-made arms to the mujahideen. After 1985, as the Reagan administration announced that it would support anti-Soviet resistance movements globally (in what is now known as the Reagan Doctrine), there was no longer a need to obfuscate the origin of the weaponry; Pentagon senior official, Michael Pillsbury, successfully advocated providing U.S.-made weaponry, including large numbers of Stinger missiles, to the Afghan resistance.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: The distribution of the weaponry relied heavily on the Pakistani President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq, who had a personal relationship with Congressman Wilson. His Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was an intermediary for funds distribution, passing of weapons, military training and financial support to Afghan resistance groups. Along with funding from Saudi Arabia and the People's Republic of China, the ISI developed a complex infrastructure that was directly training 16,000 to 18,000 mujahideen fighters annually by early 1986 (and indirectly facilitating training for thousands of others by Afghans that had previously been recipients of ISI instruction). They encouraged the volunteers from the Arab states to join the Afghan resistance in its struggle against the Soviet troops based in Afghanistan.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: Reports show civilian personnel from the U.S. Department of State and the CIA frequently visited the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area during this time, and the US contributed generously to aiding Afghan refugees. CIA director William Casey secretly visited Pakistan numerous times to meet with the ISI officers managing the mujahideen, and personally observed the guerrillas training on at least one occasion. Coll reports that


title: Operation Cyclone

text: Casey startled his Pakistani hosts by proposing that they take the Afghan war into enemy territory—into the Soviet Union itself. Casey wanted to ship subversive propaganda through Afghanistan to the Soviet Union's predominantly Muslim southern republics. The Pakistanis agreed, and the CIA soon supplied thousands of Korans, as well as books on Soviet atrocities in Uzbekistan and tracts on historical heroes of Uzbek nationalism, according to Pakistani and Western officials.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: Other direct points of contact between the US government and mujahideen include the CIA flying Hekmatyar to the United States, where he was hosted by State Department official Zalmay Khalizad. Hekmatyar was invited to meet with President Reagan but refused, and was replaced at the White House's October 1985 conference with mujahideen by Younis Khalis, who publicly invited Reagan to convert to Islam. CIA Islamabad station chief Howard Hart developed a personal relationship with Abdul Haq, which was continued by Hart's successor, William Piekney, and led to the Afghan meeting both Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. Assistant Secretary of Defense Richard Armitage regularly met with mujahideen, particularly Burhanuddin Rabbani. CIA agents are also known to have given direct cash payments to Jalaluddin Haqqani.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: The U.S.-built Stinger antiaircraft missile, was supplied to the mujahideen in very large numbers beginning in 1986. The weapon struck a decisive blow to the Soviet war effort as it allowed the lightly armed Afghans to effectively defend against Soviet helicopter landings in strategic areas. The Stingers were so renowned and deadly that, in the 1990s, the U.S. conducted a "buy-back" program to keep unused missiles from falling into the hands of anti-American terrorists. This program may have been covertly renewed following the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan in late 2001, out of fear that remaining Stingers could be used against U.S. forces in the country.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: Reagan's program assisted in ending the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, with the Soviets unable to quell the insurgency. On 20 July 1987, the withdrawal of Soviet troops from the country was announced pursuant to the negotiations that led to the Geneva Accords of 1988, with the last Soviets leaving on 15 February 1989. Soviet forces suffered over 14,000 killed and missing, and over 50,000 wounded. The withdrawal helped precipitate the dissolution of the Soviet Union itself.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: The U.S. offered two packages of economic assistance and military sales to support Pakistan's role in the war against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan. The first six-year assistance package (1981–87) amounted to US$3.2 billion, equally divided between economic assistance and military sales. The U.S. also sold 40 F-16 aircraft to Pakistan during 1983–87 at a cost of $1.2 billion outside the assistance package. The second six-year assistance package (1987–93) amounted to $4.2 billion. Out of this, $2.28 billion were allocated for economic assistance in the form of grants or loan that carried the interest rate of 2–3 per cent. The rest of the allocation ($1.74 billion) was in the form of credit for military purchases. In total, the combined U.S., Saudi, and Chinese aid to the mujahideen is valued at between $6–12 billion.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: The mujahideen benefited from expanded foreign military support from the United States, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, United Kingdom and other Muslim nations. Saudi Arabia in particular agreed to match dollar for dollar the money the CIA was sending to the Mujahideen. When Saudi payments were late, Wilson and Avrakotos would fly to Saudi Arabia to persuade the monarchy to fulfill its commitments.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: Levels of support to the various Afghan factions varied. The ISI tended to favor vigorous Islamists like Hekmatyar's Hezb-e Islami Gulbuddin and Haqqani. Some Americans agreed. However, others favored the relative moderates like Ahmed Shah Massoud. These included two Heritage Foundation foreign policy analysts, Michael Johns and James A. Phillips, both of whom championed Massoud as the Afghan resistance leader most worthy of US support under the Reagan Doctrine.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: Britain's MI6 supported one of the hardline Islamic groups commanded by Ahmad Shah Massoud, who they saw as an effective fighter. Despite the CIA's doubts about Massoud, he became a key MI6 ally; MI6 sent an annual mission of two of their officers as well as military instructors to Massoud and his fighters. Of the weapons given covertly - most were old British army Lee Enfields, some of which were purchased from Indian Army stocks, which proved popular amongst the Afghan resistance groups. Limpet mines, explosives, radios, intelligence, and around fifty Blowpipe Missile launchers with 300 Missiles were sent to the Afghan resistance. The Special Air Service meanwhile gave the resistance vital training inside and outside of Afghanistan.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: After the withdrawal of Soviet troops, the U.S. shifted its interest from Afghanistan. American funding of Hekmatyar and his Hezb-i-Islami party was cut off immediately.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: In October 1990, U.S. President George H. W. Bush refused to certify that Pakistan did not possess a nuclear explosive device, triggering the imposition of sanctions against Pakistan under the Pressler Amendment (1985) to the Foreign Assistance Act (1961). This disrupted the second assistance package offered in 1987 and discontinued economic assistance and military sales to Pakistan with the exception of the economic assistance already on its way to Pakistan. Military sales and training programs were abandoned as well and some of the Pakistani military officers under training in the U.S. were asked to return home.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: As late as 1991 Charlie Wilson persuaded the House Intelligence Committee to continue the funding of the Mujahideen, providing them with $200 million for fiscal year 1992. With the matching funds from Saudi Arabia, this amounted to $400 million for that year. Afghan tribes were also delivered weapons which the United States captured from Iraq during the Gulf War.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: The U.S. government has been criticized for allowing Pakistan to channel a disproportionate amount of its funding to the controversial Hekmatyar, whom Pakistani officials believed was "their man". Hekmatyar has been criticized for killing other "mujahideen" and attacking civilian populations, including shelling Kabul with American-supplied weapons, causing 2,000 casualties. Hekmatyar was said to be friendly with Osama bin Laden, founder of al-Qaeda, who was running an operation for assisting "Afghan Arab" volunteers fighting in Afghanistan, called Maktab al-Khadamat. Alarmed by his behavior, Pakistan leader General Zia warned Hekmatyar, "It was Pakistan that made him an Afghan leader and it is Pakistan who can equally destroy him if he continues to misbehave."


title: Operation Cyclone

text: The CIA and State Department have been criticized for publishing textbooks intended to indoctrinate children with racism and hatred towards foreigners and towards non-muslim Afghans.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: The CIA and State Department have also been criticized for their direct relationship with Hekmatyar, beyond ISI contact, in spite of his being one of the leading heroin smugglers in the region.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: In the late 1980s, Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto, concerned about the growing strength of the Islamist movement, told President George H. W. Bush, "You are creating a Frankenstein."


title: Operation Cyclone

text: Others have asserted funding the mujahideen may have played a role in causing the September 11 attacks. A number of political commentators have described Al-Qaeda attacks as "blowback" or an unintended consequence of American aid to the mujahideen.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: The lion's share of funding given to mujahideen commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was also criticized, with one U.S. expert of the mujahideen telling the "Washington Post":


title: Operation Cyclone

text: Some have alleged that bin Laden and al Qaeda were beneficiaries of CIA assistance. This is challenged by experts such as Coll—who notes that declassified CIA records and interviews with CIA officers do not support such claims—and Peter Bergen, who argues: "It's worth mentioning here that there is simply no evidence for the common myth that bin Laden and his Afghan Arabs were supported by the CIA financially. Nor is there any evidence that CIA officials at any level met with bin Laden or anyone in his circle." Bergen insists that U.S. funding went to the "Afghan" mujahideen, not the Arab volunteers who arrived to assist them.


title: Operation Cyclone

text: However, Sir Martin Ewans noted that the Afghan Arabs "benefited indirectly from the CIA's funding, through the ISI and resistance organizations," and that "it has been reckoned that as many as 35,000 'Arab-Afghans' may have received military training in Pakistan at an estimated cost of $800 million in the years up to and including 1988." Some of the CIA's greatest Afghan beneficiaries were Arabist commanders such as Haqqani and Hekmatyar who were key allies of bin Laden over many years. Haqqani—one of bin Laden's closest associates in the 1980s—received direct cash payments from CIA agents, without the mediation of the ISI. This independent source of funding gave Haqqani disproportionate influence over the mujahideen. Haqqani and his network played an important role in the formation and growth of al Qaeda, with Haqqani allowing bin Laden to train mujahideen volunteers in Haqqani territory and build extensive infrastructure there. Milton Bearden, the CIA's Islamabad station chief from mid-1986 until mid-1989, took an admiring view of bin Laden at the time.


The London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA) is a drama school located in Hammersmith, London. It is the oldest specialist drama school in the British Isles and a founding member of the Federation of Drama Schools.


title: London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art

text: LAMDA's Principal is Professor Mark O'Thomas, who succeeded Director Sarah Frankcom in 2022. Benedict Cumberbatch succeeded Timothy West as President of LAMDA's Board of Trustees in 2018.


text: The Academy's graduates work regularly at the Royal National Theatre, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Shakespeare's Globe, and the theatres of London's West End and Hollywood, as well as on the BBC, HBO, and Broadway. It is registered as a company under the name LAMDA Ltd and as a charity under its trading name London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. There is an associate organisation in America under the name of American Friends of LAMDA (AFLAMDA). A very high proportion of LAMDA's stage management and technical theatre graduates find work in their chosen field within weeks of graduation. As of July 2022, LAMDA alumni have received 5 Academy Awards (out of 13 Oscar nominations), 9 SAG Awards, 13 Tonys, 15 Emmys, 19 Golden Globes, 21 BAFTAs, and 39 Olivier Awards.


text: LAMDA is also in partnership with the Fulbright Program. Each year one U.S. applicant is awarded a Fulbright Scholarship by the UK Fulbright Commission to study for a Master's degree in classical acting at the school.


text: LAMDA Examinations in the fields of speech, drama, communication, and performance are taken by external students and are recognised by Ofqual, the regulator in England, and its counterparts in Wales and Northern Ireland. LAMDA-accredited examinations at Level 3 or above are recognised within the UCAS Tariff system.


text: The London Academy of Music was founded by Henry Wylde in 1861; this makes the Academy the oldest of its kind in Britain, after - for example - the Royal Academy of Music (1822) and the Crystal Palace School of Art, Science, and Literature (1854). Originally located at St. James's Hall, it was divided into two compartments, one for women and one for men. The Academy began on 15 November 1861, at which time the cost per annum was 15guineas, or £15.75. The Academy accepted students for all ages "with a decided talent, or showing an aptitude for learning". Full scholarships were available. The first philharmonic concert was held on 29 April 1863, following a public rehearsal on 25 April. It was a performance of Mendelssohn's Symphony No. 3.


text: Providing training for, and examinations in, various musical disciplines was originally the dominant purpose of the institution. However, providing instruction in spoken English quickly became a core area of the Academy's work.


text: In the 1880s, LAMDA began offering speech examinations to the public. Since then, these examinations have been refined and developed into a comprehensive system of performance evaluation. LAMDA Examinations has emerged as the largest Speech and Drama Board in the United Kingdom.


text: In 1904, the school was amalgamated with two other London music institutions that had sprung up since the academy was founded, namely the London Music School (founded 1865) and the Forest Gate School of Music (founded 1885) renamed in 1906 the Metropolitan Academy of Music. (The Metropolitan Academy of Music severed its links with the London Academy of Music in 1907.) In due course the Hampstead Academy was also amalgamated. The name was changed to the current name in 1935, under the direction of Wilfrid Foulis. In 1939, it was moved from London due to the war; when it reopened in 1945, it no longer provided musical training.


text: LAMDA was previously an associate member of the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama, having joined in 2004, and received funding through the Conservatoire from the Office for Students. It left the Conservatoire on 31 July 2019 to become an independent institution, and now receives funding directly from the Office for Students and Research England.


text: In August 2021 it was announced that Sarah Frankcom would step down as Director, and that LAMDA was conducting a search for a successor. In August 2022, LAMDA announced that Professor Mark O'Thomas had been unanimously appointed by the Board of Trustees as principal and chief executive, with Dr. Philippa Standberg-Long appointed as head of actor training.


text: In 2003, LAMDA decided to move its teaching school and theatre to its current location in Hammersmith in West London. It acquired the old premises of the Royal Ballet School on Talgarth Road.


text: The move to the Talgarth Road enabled LAMDA to develop a campus with new training facilities designed by Niall McLaughlin Architects. The site was previously home to the Royal Ballet School, which moved to new, purpose-built facilities adjacent to the Royal Opera House.


text: The LAMDA complex has three theatres and various rehearsal spaces and meeting rooms. The three theatres are the Sainsbury Theatre, the Carne Studio Theatre and the Linbury Studio.


title: Kevin Porter Jr.

text: Bryan Kevin Porter Jr. (born May 4, 2000), also known by his initials KPJ, is an American professional basketball player for the Houston Rockets of the National Basketball Association (NBA). He played high school basketball for Rainier Beach High School and led the Vikings to the state playoffs in each of his four years. He played college basketball for the USC Trojans.


title: Kevin Porter Jr.

text: Porter was born in Seattle, Washington, to Ayanna and Bryan Kevin Porter Sr. His father played football, basketball, and baseball at Rainier Beach High School in Seattle in the 1990s. In July 2004, when Porter was four years old, his father was shot five times and killed while trying to help someone being attacked. As a result, he was raised by his mother, who became his role model.


title: Kevin Porter Jr.

text: Porter convinced his mother to enroll him at Rainier Beach High School instead of O'Dea High School in Seattle, because his father had played sports there and he wanted to preserve the tradition. In his senior campaign, he averaged 27 points, 14 rebounds, and five assists, as Rainier Beach finished with a 22–7 record. On March 3, 2018, Porter recorded 22 points and 11 rebounds in a Class 3A state championship game loss to Garfield High School. At the end of the season, he was named Washington Mr. Basketball by the state coaches association.


title: Kevin Porter Jr.

text: Porter was considered a five-star recruit by recruiting services 247Sports and Rivals and a four-star recruit by ESPN. He was the top-ranked player from Washington in the 2018 class and received offers from several NCAA Division I programs, including UCLA, Oregon, and Washington, before committing to USC. Porter became the first USC player since DeMar DeRozan in 2008 to be rated a five-star recruit by Rivals.


title: Kevin Porter Jr.

text: Porter debuted for USC on November 6, 2018, scoring 15 points off the bench on 6-of-7 shooting in an 83–62 win over Robert Morris. On November 20, against Missouri State, he suffered a quadriceps contusion. He returned on December 1 versus Nevada but left after four minutes because he was hindered by the injury. He missed nine games with a quad contusion, and returned again on January 10, 2019, scoring five points in 25 minutes. Three days later, however, he was suspended indefinitely by USC for "personal conduct issues". Regardless, Porter stated that he would finish the season with the team and then played in the last three games of the season. He averaged 9.8 points, four rebounds, and 1.4 assists in 22 minutes a game, playing in 21 of USC's 33 games.


title: Kevin Porter Jr.

text: At the conclusion of his freshman season, Porter announced his intention to forgo his remaining collegiate eligibility and declare for the 2019 NBA draft.


title: Kevin Porter Jr.

text: In the 2019 NBA draft, Porter was selected 30th overall by the Milwaukee Bucks but was later traded to the Cleveland Cavaliers via the Detroit Pistons. On July 3, 2019, the Cleveland Cavaliers announced that they had signed Porter. On October 23, Porter made his debut in the NBA, playing in a 85–94 loss to the Orlando Magic and finishing with one rebound, two assists, and a steal. On November 4, Porter was suspended for one game without pay for improperly making contact with a game official. His first NBA start for the Cavaliers would come on November 19 against the New York Knicks in a 123–105 loss where he recorded a then career-high 18 points in 31 minutes.


title: Kevin Porter Jr.

text: Porter started the 2020–21 season inactive due to his off-season weapons charge, which was later dropped. On January 18, 2021, the Cavaliers announced that Porter would either be traded or released following an outburst regarding a locker change following the Cavaliers' acquisition of Taurean Prince from the Brooklyn Nets. He was ultimately traded to the Rockets three days later having not played a single game with the Cavaliers in the 2020–21 season.


title: Kevin Porter Jr.

text: On January 21, 2021, Porter was traded to the Houston Rockets for a future top-55 protected second round pick. He was later assigned to the Rockets' G League affiliate, the Rio Grande Valley Vipers, debuting for the Vipers in their season opener on February 10, 2021. On February 25, he recorded the first triple-double of the G League season, scoring 27 points, collecting 11 rebounds and dishing out 14 assists. On April 29, he scored 50 points and recorded 11 assists in a win against the Milwaukee Bucks, becoming the youngest player in NBA history to have 50+ points and 10+ assists in a game.


title: Kevin Porter Jr.

text: On January 1, 2022, during a 111–124 loss to the Denver Nuggets, Porter and teammate Christian Wood got into a verbal altercation with Rockets assistant coach John Lucas at halftime. Porter then threw an object into the locker room and left the Toyota Center, the arena where the Rockets were playing, before the game ended. On January 3, Rockets head coach Stephen Silas stated that he had suspended both Porter and Wood for one game each for their behavior. On March 31, 2022, he recorded his first triple double with 30 points, 12 rebounds and 12 assists in a 121-118 loss against Sacramento.


title: Kevin Porter Jr.

text: On October 17, 2022, Porter agreed on a four-year, $82.5 million contract extension with the Rockets.


title: Kevin Porter Jr.

text: Standing at 6 feet and 4 inches (1.93 meters) with a 6 ft. and 9 in. wingspan (2.05 m), Porter plays both the point guard and shooting guard positions. On offense, he possesses a strong isolation game that is complemented by a high level of athleticism that allows him to be an effective scorer on the perimeter; at and above the rim; and in transition. His elite handling skills allow him to create space and defer to either a step-back jumper, a pull-up shot out of a crossover, or a behind-the-back dribble pull-back. Scouts have pointed out his defense and rebounding abilities as another strength, forcing turnovers and running the ball down the court.


title: Kevin Porter Jr.

text: At the time of the draft, he was compared to DeShawn Stevenson, Nick Young, JR Smith, James Harden, C.J. Miles, and Kelly Oubre, Jr. Since the start of the 2018–19 season, Porter was projected as a first-round prospect for the 2019 NBA draft. He looks up to James Harden, a fellow left-handed guard, citing him as one of the biggest influences on his game.


title: Kevin Porter Jr.

text: Analysts identified his shot selection, assist-to-turnover ratio, and foul-shooting as a point of improvement in his game in addition to other miscellaneous off-the-court concerns.


title: Kevin Porter Jr.

text: On November 15, 2020, Porter Jr. was charged by Mahoning County police following a single car accident for improper handling of a firearm in a vehicle. In a statement the Cleveland Cavaliers stated, "We are aware of the situation involving Kevin Porter Jr. and are in the process of gathering information. We have spoken with Kevin and will continue to address this privately with him as the related process evolves."


title: Kevin Porter Jr.

text: A grand jury in Mahoning County declined to indict Porter on the felony gun charge. Misdemeanor charges of driving without a license were also dropped.


title: Kevin Porter Jr.

text: In January 2022, Washington Wizards announcer Glenn Consor apologized to Porter Jr., after Consor commented that Porter Jr., "like his dad, pulled the trigger right at the right time." Consor said this after Porter Jr. made a key shot in a Wizards-Rockets game, under the mistaken belief that Porter Jr. was the son of Kevin Porter, a former Washington point guard who retired in 1983. The father of Kevin Porter Jr., Bryan Kevin Porter Sr., pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter, served a prison sentence, and later died in a shooting when Porter Jr. was four years old. Porter Jr. is not related to Kevin Porter.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Keith Jarrett (born May 8, 1945) is an American jazz and classical music pianist and composer. Jarrett started his career with Art Blakey and later moved on to play with Charles Lloyd and Miles Davis. Since the early 1970s, he has also been a group leader and solo performer in jazz, jazz fusion, and classical music. His improvisations draw from the traditions of jazz and other genres, including Western classical music, gospel, blues, and ethnic folk music.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: His album, "The Köln Concert", released in 1975, became the best-selling piano recording in history. In 2008, he was inducted into the Down Beat Jazz Hall of Fame in the magazine's 73rd Annual Readers' Poll.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: In 2003, Jarrett received the Polar Music Prize and was the first recipient to be recognized with prizes for both contemporary and classical music. In 2004, he received the Léonie Sonning Music Prize.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: In February 2018, Jarrett suffered a stroke and has been unable to perform since. A second stroke, in May 2018, left him partially paralyzed and unable to play with his left hand.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Jarrett was born on May 8, 1945, in Allentown, Pennsylvania to a mother of Slovenian descent. Jarrett's grandmother was born in Segovci, near Apače in Slovenia. Jarrett's father was of mostly German descent. He grew up in suburban Allentown with significant early exposure to music.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Jarrett possesses absolute pitch and displayed prodigious musical talents as a young child. He began piano lessons before his third birthday. At age five, he appeared on a television talent program hosted by swing bandleader Paul Whiteman. He performed in his first formal piano recital at the age of seven, playing works by composers such as Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Saint-Saëns, and ending with two of his own compositions. Encouraged by his mother, he took classical piano lessons with a series of teachers, including Eleanor Sokoloff of the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Jarrett attended Emmaus High School in Emmaus, Pennsylvania, where he learned jazz and became proficient in it. He developed a strong interest in contemporary jazz, and was inspired by a Dave Brubeck performance he attended in New Hope. He was invited to study classical composition in Paris with Nadia Boulanger, but he was already leaning toward jazz and turned it down.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: After his graduation from Emmaus High School in 1963, Jarrett moved to Boston to attend Berklee College of Music and play cocktail piano in local Boston clubs.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: In 1964, Jarrett moved to New York City, where he played at the Village Vanguard in Greenwich Village. Art Blakey hired Jarrett to play with The Jazz Messengers. Jarrett's appearance on the Messengers' live album "Buttercorn Lady" marked his commercial recording debut. However, there was friction between Blakey and Jarrett, and Jarrett left after four months of touring. During a show he was noticed by Jack DeJohnette, who recommended Jarrett to his band leader Charles Lloyd. The Charles Lloyd Quartet had formed not long before and were exploring open, improvised forms while building supple grooves, and they were moving into terrain that was also being explored, although from another stylistic background, by some of the psychedelic rock bands of the West Coast. Their 1966 album "Forest Flower" was one of the most successful jazz recordings of the mid-1960s. They were invited to play The Fillmore in San Francisco, and won over the local hippie audience. The quartet toured across the U.S. and Europe, including appearances in Leningrad and Moscow. Their concert at London's Royal Albert Hall was attended by The Beatles. The band was profiled in "Time" and "Harper's Magazine", which made Jarrett a popular musician in rock and jazz. The tour also laid the foundation for a lasting musical bond with DeJohnette.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Jarrett began to record his own tracks as a leader of small groups at first in a trio with Charlie Haden and Paul Motian. "Life Between the Exit Signs" (1967), his first album as a band leader, was released by Vortex followed by "Restoration Ruin" (1968), which Thom Jurek of AllMusic wrote was "a curiosity in his catalog". Not only does Jarrett barely touch the piano, but he plays all the other instruments on what is essentially a folk-rock album. Unusually, he also sings. "Somewhere Before", another trio album with Haden and Motian, was released in 1968 on Atlantic Records.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: The Charles Lloyd Quartet with Jarrett, Ron McClure, and DeJohnette came to an end in 1968 after their recording of "Soundtrack" because of money disputes and artistic differences. Jarrett was asked to join the Miles Davis group after the trumpeter heard him in a New York City club. During his tenure with Davis, Jarrett played both electronic organ and Rhodes piano, alternating with Chick Corea. The two appear side by side on some 1970 recordings, including the Isle of Wight Festival performance of August 1970 in the film "" and on "Bitches Brew Live". After Corea left in 1970, Jarrett often played electric piano and organ simultaneously. Despite his growing dislike of amplified music and electric instruments within jazz, Jarrett continued with the group out of respect for Davis and because of his desire to work with DeJohnette. Jarrett has often cited Davis as a vital musical and personal influence on his own thinking about music and improvisation.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Jarrett performs on several Davis albums, including "Miles Davis at Fillmore", recorded June 17–20, 1970 at Fillmore East in New York City, and "The Cellar Door Sessions 1970", recorded December 16–19, 1970 at The Cellar Door club in Washington, D.C.. His keyboard playing features prominently on "Live-Evil" and he plays electric organ on "Get Up with It". Some other tracks from this period were released much later.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: DeJohnette left Davis' band in the middle of 1971, and Jarrett followed in December. Jarrett later reflected: "When Jack left I knew I was going to have to leave ... Nobody knew what Jack knew and could do what he could do simultaneously. That was the end of the flexibility of the band".


title: Keith Jarrett

text: In 1971, Jarrett, Haden, and Motian participated in a four-day session for Atlantic Records during which they recorded the trio album "The Mourning of a Star" and two albums, "El Juicio (The Judgement)" and "Birth", on which the trio was augmented by saxophonist Dewey Redman. Redman became an official member of the group, which later became known as the "American quartet". They would go on to record over a dozen albums over five years. The group was often supplemented by an extra percussionist, such as Danny Johnson, Guilherme Franco, or Airto Moreira, and occasionally by guitarist Sam Brown.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Later in 1971, the quartet, with Brown and Moreira, recorded "Expectations" for Columbia Records, with string and brass arrangements by Jarrett. However, Columbia suddenly dropped Jarrett in favor of Herbie Hancock, and Jarrett's manager negotiated a contract with Impulse! Records, for whom the group would record eight albums.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: The quartet members played various instruments. Jarrett played soprano saxophone, recorder, banjo, percussion, and piano. Redman played musette, a Chinese double-reed instrument, and percussion, and Motian and Haden played a variety of percussion. Haden also produced a variety of unusual plucked and percussive sounds with his acoustic bass, running it through a wah-wah pedal for one track ("Mortgage on My Soul" on the album "Birth"). "Byablue" and "Bop-Be", albums recorded for Impulse!, feature the compositions of Haden, Motian and Redman, as opposed to Jarrett's own, which dominated the previous albums. Jarrett's compositions and the musical identities of the group members gave this ensemble a distinctive sound. The quartet's music is an amalgam of free jazz, straight-ahead post-bop, gospel music, and exotic, Middle-Eastern-sounding improvisations.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: During this time, Jarrett received a letter from producer Manfred Eicher asking if he would like to record for the relatively new ECM label. Jarrett was impressed by the fact that Eicher was primarily concerned with musical quality, as opposed to financial gain. Jarrett's American quartet released two albums, "The Survivors' Suite" and "Eyes of the Heart", on ECM, and the label also issued "Ruta and Daitya", consisting of duo tracks featuring Jarrett and DeJohnette recorded in early 1971 and tracks with Miles Davis after Jarrett gave tapes of the session to Eicher.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: In 1972, Eicher proposed that Jarrett work with Norwegian saxophonist Jan Garbarek, whom Jarrett had met while in Europe with Charles Lloyd during the late 1960s. Their initial collaborations laid the groundwork for what would become known as the "European quartet", which also featured Palle Danielsson on bass and Jon Christensen on drums. The group recorded five albums for ECM, each played in a style similar to that of the American quartet but with many of the avant-garde and Americana elements replaced by the European folk and classical music influences that characterized the work of ECM artists at the time.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Jarrett recorded a few solo pieces live under the guidance of Miles Davis at the Cellar Door in Washington, D.C., in December 1970. These were done on electric pianos (Rhodes and Contempo). Most parts of these recorded sets were released in 2007 on "The Cellar Door Sessions", featuring four improvisations by Jarrett.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Jarrett's first album for ECM, "Facing You" was released in 1971. He has continued to record solo studio piano albums intermittently throughout his career, including "Staircase" (1976), "Invocations/The Moth and the Flame" (1981), and "The Melody at Night, with You" (1999). "Book of Ways" (1986) is a studio recording of clavichord solos.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: In 1973, Jarrett began playing totally improvised solo concerts, and it is the popularity of these concert recordings that made him one of the best-selling jazz artists in history. Albums released from these concerts were "" (1973), which "Time" magazine named "Jazz Album of the Year", "The Köln Concert" (1975), which became the best-selling piano recording in history, "All About Jazz", and "Sun Bear Concerts" (1976), a 10-LP (and later 6-CD) box set. Another of Jarrett's solo concerts, "Dark Intervals", was released in 1987.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: After a hiatus, Jarrett returned to extended solo improvised concert format with "Paris Concert" (1990), "Vienna Concert" (1991), and "La Scala" (1995). These later concerts tend to be more influenced by classical music than the earlier ones, reflecting his interest in composers such as Bach and Shostakovich. In the liner notes to "Vienna Concert", Jarrett named the performance his greatest achievement and the fulfillment of everything he was aiming to accomplish. "I have courted the fire for a very long time, and many sparks have flown in the past, but the music on this recording speaks, finally, the language of the flame itself", he wrote.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Jarrett has commented that his best performances have been when he has had only the slightest notion of what he was going to play at the next moment. He also said that most people don't know "what he does." which relates to what Miles Davis said to him expressing bewilderment as to how Jarrett could "play from nothing."


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Jarrett's 100th solo performance in Japan was captured on video at Suntory Hall, Tokyo, in April 1987, and released the same year as "Solo Tribute". This is a set of almost all standard songs. Another video recording, "Last Solo", was released in 1987 from a solo concert at Kan-i Hoken hall in Tokyo in January 1984.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: In the late 1990s, Jarrett was diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome and was unable to leave his home for long periods of time. During this period, he recorded "The Melody at Night, with You", a solo piano effort consisting of jazz standards. The album had originally been a Christmas gift to his second wife, Rose Anne.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: By 2000, Jarrett had returned to touring, both solo and with the Standards Trio. Two 2002 solo concerts in Japan, Jarrett's first solo piano concerts following his illness, were released on the 2005 CD "Radiance" (a complete concert in Osaka and excerpts from one in Tokyo) and the 2006 DVD "Tokyo Solo" (the entire Tokyo performance). In contrast with previous concerts (which were generally a pair of continuous improvisations 30–40 minutes long), the 2002 concerts consist of a linked series of shorter improvisations (some as short as a minute and a half).


title: Keith Jarrett

text: In September 2005, at Carnegie Hall, Jarrett performed his first solo concert in North America in more than ten years, released a year later as a double-CD set, "The Carnegie Hall Concert". In late 2008, he performed solo in the Salle Pleyel in Paris and at London's Royal Festival Hall, marking the first time Jarrett played solo in London in 17 years. Recordings of these concerts were released in October 2009 on the album "". The 2005 documentary "The Art of Improvisation", broadcast on BBC Two on November 12, 2021 concluded with his trio performing a recognizable version of "Basin Street Blues".


title: Keith Jarrett

text: In 1983, at the suggestion of ECM head Manfred Eicher, Jarrett asked bassist Gary Peacock and drummer Jack DeJohnette, with whom he had worked on Peacock's 1977 album "Tales of Another", to record an album of jazz standards, simply titled "Standards, Volume 1". Two more albums, "Standards, Volume 2" and "Changes", both recorded at the same session, followed soon after. The success of these albums and the group's ensuing tour, which came as traditional acoustic post-bop was enjoying an upswing in the early 1980s, led to this new standards trio becoming one of the premier working groups in jazz, and certainly one of the most enduring, continuing to record and tour for more than 25 years. The Trio went on to record numerous live and studio albums consisting primarily of jazz repertory material.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: The Jarrett-Peacock-DeJohnette trio also produced recordings that consist largely of challenging original material, including 1987's "Changeless". Several of the standards albums contain an original track or two, some attributed to Jarrett, but most are improvisations on jazz standards. The live recordings "Inside Out" and "Always Let Me Go" (released in 2001 and 2002 respectively) marked a renewed interest by the trio in wholly improvised free jazz. By this point in their history, the musical communication among these three men had become nothing short of telepathic, and their group improvisations frequently take on a complexity that sounds almost composed. The standards trio undertook frequent world tours of recital halls (the only venues Jarrett, a notorious stickler for acoustics, will play) and was one of the few truly successful jazz groups to play both straight-ahead (as opposed to smooth) and free jazz.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: A related recording, "At the Deer Head Inn" (1992), is a live album of standards recorded with Paul Motian replacing DeJohnette, at the venue in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, 40 miles from Jarrett's hometown, where he had his first job as a jazz pianist. It was the first time Jarrett and Motian had played together since the demise of the American quartet sixteen years earlier.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: The Standard Trio disbanded in 2014 after more than 30 years. The final concert of Keith Jarrett's trio was on November 30, 2014 at the New Jersey Performing Arts Center, Newark, New Jersey. The last encore was Thelonious Monk's composition "Straight, No Chaser". Peacock died in September 2020.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Since the early 1970s, Jarrett's success as a jazz musician has enabled him to maintain a parallel career as a classical composer and pianist, recording almost exclusively for ECM Records. "In the Light", an album made in 1973, consists of short pieces for solo piano, strings, and various chamber ensembles, including a string quartet and a brass quintet, and a piece for cellos and trombones. This collection demonstrates a young composer's affinity for a variety of classical styles.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: "Luminessence" (1974) and "Arbour Zena" (1975) both combine composed pieces for strings with improvising jazz musicians, including Jan Garbarek and Charlie Haden. The strings here have a moody, contemplative feel that is characteristic of the "ECM sound" of the 1970s, and is also particularly well suited to Garbarek's keening saxophone improvisations. From an academic standpoint, these compositions are dismissed by many classical music aficionados as lightweight, but Jarrett appeared to be working more towards a synthesis between composed and improvised music at this time, rather than the production of formal classical works. From this point on, however, his classical work would adhere to more conventional disciplines.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: "Ritual" (1977) is a composed solo piano piece recorded by Dennis Russell Davies that is somewhat reminiscent of Jarrett's own solo piano recordings.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: "The Celestial Hawk" (1980) is a piece for orchestra, percussion, and piano that Jarrett performed and recorded with the Syracuse Symphony under Christopher Keene. This piece is the largest and longest of Jarrett's efforts as a classical composer.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: "Bridge of Light" (1993) is the last recording of classical compositions to appear under Jarrett's name. The album contains three pieces written for a soloist with orchestra, and one for violin and piano. The pieces date from 1984 and 1990.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: In 1988, New World Records released the CD "Lou Harrison: Piano Concerto and Suite for Violin, Piano and Small Orchestra", featuring Jarrett on piano, with Naoto Otomo conducting the piano concerto with the New Japan Philharmonic. Robert Hughes conducted the Suite for Violin, Piano, and Small Orchestra. In 1992 came the release of Jarrett's performance of Peggy Glanville-Hicks's "Etruscan Concerto", with Dennis Russell Davies conducting the Brooklyn Philharmonic. This was released on Music Masters Classics, with pieces by Lou Harrison and Terry Riley. In 1995 Music Masters Jazz released a CD on which one track featured Jarrett performing the solo piano part in "Lousadzak", a 17-minute piano concerto by American composer Alan Hovhaness. The conductor again was Davies. Most of Jarrett's classical recordings are of older repertoire, but he may have been introduced to this modern work by his one-time manager George Avakian, who was a friend of the composer. Jarrett has also recorded classical works for ECM by composers such as Bach, Handel, Shostakovich, and Arvo Pärt.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: In 2004, Jarrett was awarded the Léonie Sonning Music Prize. Usually associated with classical musicians and composers, Miles Davis is the only other jazz performer to have won it.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Jarrett has also played harpsichord, clavichord, organ, soprano saxophone, and drums. He often played saxophone and various forms of percussion in the American quartet, though his recordings since the breakup of that group have rarely featured these instruments. On the majority of his recordings in the last 20 years, he has played acoustic piano only. He has spoken with some regret of his decision to give up playing the saxophone, in particular.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: On April 15, 1978, Jarrett was the musical guest on "Saturday Night Live". The 2001 German film "Bella Martha" (English title: "Mostly Martha"), whose music consultant was an ECM Records founder and head Manfred Eicher, features Jarrett's "Country", from the European quartet album "My Song" and "U Dance" from the album "Tribute".


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Following the release of the album "Gaucho" in 1980 by the U.S. rock band Steely Dan, Jarrett sued the band for copyright infringement. "Gaucho's" title track, credited to Donald Fagen and Walter Becker, bore a resemblance to Jarrett's "Long As You Know You're Living Yours" from Jarrett's 1974 album "Belonging". In an interview with "Musician" magazine, Becker and Fagen were asked about the similarity between the two pieces of music, and Becker told "Musician" that he loved the Jarrett composition, while Fagen said they had been influenced by it. After their comments were published, Jarrett sued, and Becker and Fagen were legally obliged to add his name to the credits and provide Jarrett with publishing royalties.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: One of Jarrett's trademarks is his frequent, loud vocalizations. Jarrett is also physically active while playing jazz and improvised solo performances, but the vocalizations are generally absent whenever he plays classical repertoire. Jarrett has noted his vocalizations are based on involvement, not content, and are more of an interaction than a reaction.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Jarrett is highly intolerant of audience noise, especially during solo improvised performances. He feels extraneous noise affects his inspiration and distracts from the purity of the sound. Cough drops are routinely supplied to Jarrett's audiences in cold weather, and he has been known to stop playing and lead the crowd in a group cough. He has also complained onstage about audience members taking photographs, and has performed in the dark to prevent this.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Jarrett is opposed to electronic instruments and equipment, which he has described as "toys". His liner notes for the 1973 album "Solo Concerts: Bremen/Lausanne" states: "I am, and have been, carrying on an anti-electric-music crusade of which this is an exhibit for the prosecution. Electricity goes through all of us and is not to be relegated to wires." He has largely eschewed electric or electronic instruments since his time with Miles Davis. However, in October 1972, he played electric piano and piano on Freddie Hubbard's "Sky Dive."


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Jarrett was referenced in Season 5, Episode 6 of HBO's "The Sopranos" in 2004, titled "Sentimental Education"; in the episode, Tony Blundetto mentions "piping in a little Keith Jarrett" among his plans for the massage studio he is building.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Jarrett lives in an 18th-century farmhouse in Oxford Township, New Jersey in rural Warren County, where he uses an adjacent barn as a recording and practice studio.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Jarrett was a follower of the teachings of George Gurdjieff (1866–1949) for many years, and in 1980 recorded an album of Gurdjieff's compositions, called "Sacred Hymns", for ECM. He is now a Christian Scientist.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: In 1964, Jarrett married Margot Erney, his girlfriend from Emmaus High School with whom Jarrett reconnected in Boston. The couple had two sons, Gabriel and Noah, and divorced in 1979. He and his second wife Rose Anne (née Colavito) divorced in 2010 after a 30-year marriage. Jarrett has four younger brothers, two of whom are involved in music. Chris Jarrett is also a pianist and Scott Jarrett is a producer and songwriter. Of the two sons from his first marriage, Noah Jarrett, is a bassist and composer and Gabriel is a drummer based in Vermont.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Jarrett's race has been a source of commentary by media and activists throughout his career, as he has reported being recurrently mistaken as a Black person. In a 2000 interview with Terry Gross, Jarrett relates an incident at the Heidelberg Jazz Festival in the Rhine-Neckar region of Germany when he was protested by Black musicians for something akin to cultural appropriation. He also tells of a separate moment in his career when black jazz musician Ornette Coleman approached him backstage, and "said something like 'Man, you've got to be black. You just have to be black.'" Jarrett replied "I know. I know. I'm working on it."


title: Keith Jarrett

text: In a September 11, 2000 interview with Terry Gross, Jarrett revealed that chronic fatigue syndrome required him to radically overhaul his piano to have less breakaway keypress resistance in order for him to keep playing.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Interviewed by NPR's Rachel Martin for his 70th birthday in 2015, Jarrett explained the notable involuntary vocalizations made during his performances. "It's potential limitlessness that I'm feeling at that moment. If you think about it, it's often in a space between phrases, [when I'm thinking,] "How did I get to this point where I feel so full?" And if you felt full of some sort of emotion you would have to make a sound. So that's actually what it is — with the trio, without the trio, solo. Luckily for me, I don't do it with classical music," he said.


title: Keith Jarrett

text: Jarrett suffered two major strokes in February and May 2018. After the second, he was paralyzed and spent nearly two years in a rehabilitation facility. Although he has regained a limited ability to walk with a cane and can play piano with his right hand, he remains partly paralyzed on his left side and is not expected to perform again. "I don't know what my future is supposed to be. I don't feel right now like I'm a pianist", Jarrett told "The New York Times" in October 2020.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Randy Steven Kraft (born March 19, 1945) is an American serial killer and rapist known as the Scorecard Killer, the Southern California Strangler, and the Freeway Killer, who committed the rape, torture, and murder of a minimum of sixteen young men between 1972 and 1983, the majority of whom he killed in California. Kraft is also believed to have committed the rape and murder of up to fifty-one other young men and boys. He was convicted in May 1989 and is currently incarcerated on death row at San Quentin State Prison in Marin County, California.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Kraft became known as the "Scorecard Killer" because upon his arrest, investigators discovered a coded list with 61 entries on a scorecard containing cryptic references to his victims; he is also sometimes referred to as the "Freeway Killer" because many of his victims' bodies were discovered beside or near freeways. Kraft shares the latter epithet with two separate and unrelated serial killers, William Bonin and Patrick Kearney.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Randy Steven Kraft was born in Long Beach, California, on March 19, 1945, the fourth child and only son of Opal Lee (née Beal) and Harold Herbert Kraft. Kraft's parents had moved to California from Wyoming at the outbreak of World War II; his father was a production worker and his mother was a sewing machine operator.


title: Randy Kraft

text: The Kraft family lived modestly, and Kraft's mother took several jobs to supplement her husband's salary. Nonetheless, Opal Kraft always found time for her children; in contrast, Kraft's father seldom attended any social gatherings with them and was later described as being "distanced" from his family. As a child, Randy was doted on by his three older sisters and mother, although he was known to be accident-prone.


title: Randy Kraft

text: In 1948, the Kraft family moved from Long Beach to Midway City in neighboring Orange County. Their home was a small, wood-frame Women's Army Corps dormitory on Beach Boulevard that Kraft's father renovated into a three-bedroom house. The family became active in the Westminster First Presbyterian Church, with Kraft's mother rising to the chairman of the deacons committee.


title: Randy Kraft

text: In Midway City, Kraft attended Midway City Elementary school, where his mother was a member of the PTA. As a student, his intelligence was noted by classmates and teachers. By 1957, Kraft was judged intelligent enough to attend accelerated classes at 17th Street Junior High School.


title: Randy Kraft

text: By adolescence, Kraft had taken a keen interest in politics, becoming a staunch Republican and aspiring to become a U.S. senator. Shortly after his enrollment at Westminster High School, he and two close friends founded the Westminster World Affairs Club. At Westminster High, Kraft was again regarded as a pleasant, bright student who regularly achieved A grades. He was also known to occasionally date girls, although some classmates and teachers later stated that they suspected Kraft was homosexual.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Kraft later stated he had known from his high school days that he was homosexual, although he initially kept his sexual orientation a secret. On June 13, 1963, he graduated tenth in his class of 390 students. That fall, he enrolled at Claremont Men's College in Claremont, California, where he pursued a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Shortly after his enrollment at Claremont, Kraft enrolled in the Reserve Officers Training Corps and regularly attended demonstrations in support of the Vietnam War and—in 1964—campaign rallies for Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater. He later declared these actions were merely a simulation of his parents' political views and not his own, describing his second year at Claremont as being when he abandoned the "last gasp" of his conservative ideology. The same year, Kraft entered his first known homosexual relationship.


title: Randy Kraft

text: In 1964, Kraft began working as a bartender at a local Garden Grove cocktail lounge that catered to gay clientele; he was also known to regularly travel to Laguna Beach and Huntington Beach to have casual sex with hustlers. In an apparent tentative effort to reveal his sexual orientation to his parents, Kraft took a succession of male "friends" to meet his family during his years at Claremont. Initially, Kraft's parents and sisters were oblivious to his homosexuality.


title: Randy Kraft

text: In 1966, Kraft was arrested and charged with lewd conduct after propositioning an undercover police officer in Huntington Beach; as he had no previous criminal record, no charges were filed. The following year, he developed a radical shift in his political beliefs, becoming an ardent supporter of liberal views and eventually registered as a Democrat in 1967. Kraft quickly became a Democratic Party organizer, campaigning tirelessly for the election of Robert F. Kennedy and receiving a personal letter from the senator thanking him for his efforts.


title: Randy Kraft

text: By his senior year, Kraft had become a lackadaisical student: drinking, taking drugs, and regularly attending all-night gambling and poker sessions with other students. The lack of commitment to his studies in his final year resulted in Kraft's failing to graduate from Claremont in June 1967 and being forced to repeat his econometrics class, which postponed his graduation by eight months. In February 1968, Kraft graduated from Claremont Men's College with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Four months after graduating from college, Kraft joined the United States Air Force. He was sent to basic training in Texas before being stationed at Edwards Air Force Base in southern California, where he supervised the painting of test planes. During his service in the Air Force, Kraft rose to the rank of Airman First Class and supervisor-manager.


title: Randy Kraft

text: The same year that Kraft became an Airman First Class, he disclosed to his family that he was homosexual. In a letter he wrote to a friend, Kraft described his father as having flown "into a rage," whereas he described his mother as being more understanding, if somewhat disapproving. Kraft's family ultimately accepted his sexuality, and he remained in close contact with his parents and siblings, although his siblings noted he began to "distance himself" from his family after he had disclosed his sexuality to them.


title: Randy Kraft

text: On July 26, 1969, Kraft received a general discharge from the Air Force after announcing his sexual orientation to his superiors. The discharge was officially listed as being on "medical" grounds. In response, Kraft sought legal advice from an attorney to challenge the grounds regarding his discharge. The Air Force, however, refused to change the status of his discharge. Following his discharge, Kraft moved back into his parents' home and obtained work as a bartender.


title: Randy Kraft

text: In March 1970, Kraft encountered a 13-year-old Westminster youth named Joseph Alvin Fancher at Huntington Beach. Fancher explained to Kraft that he had run away from home that day. Kraft invited the youth to his apartment, promising that Fancher could live with him and offering him sex with a woman he claimed to know. Fancher agreed and accompanied Kraft to his Belmont Shore apartment, where he was drugged, beaten, and repeatedly sexually assaulted. Hours later, Fancher escaped from the apartment after Kraft left to go to work. A member of the public, alarmed by Fancher's drugged and disheveled condition, called an ambulance. Fancher's stomach needed to be pumped due to his ingested drugs.


title: Randy Kraft

text: At the hospital, Fancher informed police that Kraft had given him drugs and beaten him. He did not disclose to either his parents or the police that he had been sexually assaulted due to shame and fearing no one would believe him. A search of Kraft's apartment was conducted with the cooperation of his roommate. However, as Fancher had confessed to police he had taken the pills offered to him voluntarily and the officers had searched without a warrant, no charges were filed.


title: Randy Kraft

text: In 1971, Kraft found new employment as a forklift driver in Huntington Beach. After his military discharge two years earlier, he enrolled at Long Beach State University, majoring in education to further his career prospects. There, Kraft became acquainted with Jeff Graves, a fellow teaching student from Minnesota four years younger than Kraft, with whom he began a relationship.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Between 1971 and 1983, Kraft is believed to have killed 67 victims. All of his suspected victims were males between the ages of 13 and 35, the majority of whom were in their late teens to mid-twenties. Kraft was charged with—and convicted of—sixteen of these homicides, all of which had occurred between 1972 and 1983. Many of his victims were members of the United States Marines Corps, and most of their bodies were found to have high levels of both alcohol and tranquilizers, indicating they had been unconscious when they were abused and killed.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Kraft's victims were typically lured into his vehicle with an offer of a lift or alcohol. Once in Kraft's vehicle, the victims would be plied with alcohol and/or other drugs. They were then bound, tortured, and sexually abused before they were killed, usually by either strangulation, asphyxiation, or bludgeoning. However, some victims had also ingested lethal doses of pharmaceuticals. At least one victim was stabbed to death. The victims would then be discarded, usually—though not exclusively—alongside or close to various freeways in southern California. Photographic evidence found at Kraft's home indicates several of his victims were driven to his house before their murder.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Many of the victims were burned with a car cigarette lighter, usually around the genitals, chest, and face, and several were found with extensive blunt force trauma to the face and head. In several instances, foreign objects were found inserted into the victims' rectums, while other victims had suffered emasculation, or mutilation and dismemberment.


title: Randy Kraft

text: The majority of Kraft's murders were committed in California, although some victims had been killed in Oregon, with two further known victims murdered in Michigan in December 1982.


title: Randy Kraft

text: On October 5, 1971, police found the nude body of a 30-year-old Long Beach resident named Wayne Joseph Dukette discarded close to the Ortega Highway. Dukette, a bartender at a gay bar named "The Stable" in nearby Sunset Beach, had last been seen alive on September 20. Putrefaction had destroyed any signs of foul play on the body. The cause of death was listed as acute alcohol poisoning due to a high blood alcohol level. The first entry in Kraft's journal (referred to as his "scorecard") reads "Stable," leading investigators to believe Dukette was Kraft's first murder victim.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Fifteen months after the murder of Dukette, Kraft killed a 20-year-old Marine named Edward Daniel Moore. Moore was last seen leaving the barracks at Camp Pendleton on December 24, 1972. His body was found beside the 405 Freeway in Seal Beach during the early hours of December 26. Abrasions on Moore's body indicated he had been pushed from a moving vehicle. An autopsy revealed he had been bound at the wrists and ankles, then beaten with a blunt instrument about the face before being garrotted. His body also exhibited numerous bite marks, and a sock had been forced into his rectum.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Six weeks after the murder of Moore, on February 6, 1973, the body of an unidentified male, estimated to be between 17 and 25 years old, was found alongside the Terminal Island Freeway in Wilmington. This victim had been strangled with a ligature and also had a sock inserted in his rectum. Two months later, on April 14, the body of 17-year-old Kevin Clark Bailey was found beside a road in Huntington Beach. Bailey had been emasculated and sodomized prior to his murder. By July 28, a further two victims had been murdered: an unidentified youth whose dismembered body was found in Wilmington on April 22, and a 20-year-old named Ronnie Gene Wiebe, whose strangled body was discarded beside an on-ramp of the 405 Freeway on July 30, two days after he had disappeared. Welt marks on Wiebe's wrists and ankles suggested he had been bound and suspended from a device before his murder.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Kraft is known to have killed at least once more in 1973. The victim was a 23-year-old bisexual art student named Vincent Cruz Mestas, whose body was found in the San Bernardino Mountains on December 29. As with several previous victims, one of the victim's socks had been forced into his rectum. Mestas's hands had been severed from his body and were never found.


title: Randy Kraft

text: By November 1974, five more victims had been found beside or close to major roadways in southern California, three of whom had been conclusively linked to the same killer. Two of these victims—20-year-old Malcolm Eugene Little and 19-year-old James Dale Reeves—had each been found beside a freeway with foreign objects inserted into their bodies, whereas the body of the third victim, 18-year-old Marine Roger Edward Dickerson, bore evidence of bite marks much like several earlier victims.


title: Randy Kraft

text: On January 3, 1975, Kraft abducted and murdered a 17-year-old high school student named John Leras. The youth was last seen boarding a bus in Long Beach; his strangled body was found the following day, discarded at Sunset Beach with a foreign object protruding from his anus. Drag marks along the beach close to where his body was found suggested that two individuals had carried Leras's body into the water. Two weeks after this murder, on January 17, the body of a 21-year-old named Craig Jonaitis was found discarded in the parking lot of the Golden Sails Hotel near the Pacific Coast Highway and Loynes Drive in Long Beach. Jonaitis had been strangled to death with a length of string, possibly a shoelace.


title: Randy Kraft

text: By January 1975, a total of fourteen victims—whose bodies had been found discarded across four separate counties over the previous three years—had been linked to the same killer. All the victims had been Caucasian males with similar physical characteristics. On January 24, homicide investigators from several jurisdictions in southern California convened in Orange County to discuss their progress in the hunt for the unknown killer. An FBI profile of the killer was read to investigators, describing the individual as a methodical, organized lust killer of above-average intelligence who exhibited an indifference to the "interests and welfare of society."


title: Randy Kraft

text: Some investigators believed the murders to be the work of more than one individual, one or more of whom had a military background, as two victims had paper tissue residue in their nostrils, a procedure known to be used in the military to prevent bodies from purging after death. The insertion of socks inside the victims' rectums was also theorized to have been intended to prevent purging as the body was driven to the disposal location. At this stage, investigators had no solid suspects.


title: Randy Kraft

text: On the evening of March 29, 1975, Kraft lured two youths, Keith Crotwell and Kent May, from a Long Beach parking lot into his Ford Mustang. The youths were given beer and Valium as Kraft drove in a random, aimless manner around Belmont Shore and Seal Beach. May later recalled feeling catatonic as a result of the Valium and alcohol he had ingested before he passed out.


title: Randy Kraft

text: In the parking lot where Crotwell and May had last been seen, two friends of the youths observed a distinctive black-and-white Mustang pull in and stop before the driver leaned across, opened the passenger door, and pushed the unconscious (but otherwise unharmed) May out onto the pavement. The driver then sped away from the scene. As he did so, the friends noted Crotwell slumped against the unknown driver's shoulder.


title: Randy Kraft

text: On May 8, Crotwell's skull was found on a jetty close to the Long Beach Marina; the remainder of his body was found six months later. After hearing the news, the two friends of Crotwell and May—who suspected that the murderer was a patron of a Belmont Shore gay bar—searched their neighborhood for the distinctive Mustang. They found the car less than a mile (1.6 km) from their home, wrote down the license plate number, and gave the information to the police. The vehicle was registered to Randy Kraft.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Long Beach police questioned Kraft about Crotwell's abduction and murder on May 19, 1975. Initially, he denied having ever met either Crotwell or May, and the police, skeptical of Kraft's denial, summoned him to the police station for further questioning. Kraft admitted that on or about March 29, he had encountered two youths in the Long Beach parking lot in question and persuaded them to drink alcohol and consume Valium with him as he drove. He claimed to have returned May to the parking lot and then to have driven with Crotwell to a side road close to the El Toro offramp, where his car subsequently became embedded upon an embankment. He claimed to have walked alone to a gas station to call a tow truck while Crotwell remained with the car. Upon returning to his vehicle, Kraft claimed, Crotwell had disappeared.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Although Kraft's roommate confirmed that Kraft had phoned him on the date of Crotwell's disappearance, claiming that his vehicle was stuck on an embankment, detectives remained unconvinced by Kraft's version of events. The following week, two detectives attempted to file homicide charges against Kraft. However, the Los Angeles District Attorney's Office declined, citing the coroner's conclusion from his autopsy of the remains thus far found (consisting only of Crotwell's skull) that the youth had died of accidental drowning.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Perhaps because he had been questioned as a suspect in Crotwell's murder and because of additional turmoil in his personal life in the summer of 1975, Kraft is not known to have killed again until December 31, when he abducted 22-year-old Mark Hall in San Juan Capistrano. In this instance, later described by prosecutors as "the worst" of all of Kraft's known murders, Hall was driven to a remote canyon, where he was bound to a tree. The autopsy report listed the cause of death as asphyxiation caused by leaves and earth found lodged deep in Hall's trachea. The autopsy also revealed that Hall had been sodomized and emasculated, with his severed genitals inserted into his rectum. Additionally, his chest, scrotum, nose, and cheeks had been burned with an automobile cigarette lighter, which was also used to destroy his eyes. The autopsy report also listed numerous incisions on Hall's legs which had been inflicted with a broken bottle. Forensic experts were able to determine that Hall had been alive throughout much of the ordeal.


title: Randy Kraft

text: By 1976, Kraft had ended his relationship with Graves. Shortly thereafter, he began a relationship with a 19-year-old apprentice baker named Jeff Seelig, and the couple moved to Laguna Hills. Although neither man was inclined towards monogamy, the couple considered their relationship permanent. Seelig later told investigators that he and Kraft regularly picked up and propositioned hitchhikers who, if willing, would accompany them to their apartment for a threesome. However, Seelig was adamant that Kraft had never been violent towards him and had never seen him display violent tendencies.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Kraft's relationship with Seelig is believed to be a contributory factor in the sudden lull in murders he is known to have committed. He is not known to have killed again until December 10, 1976. The body of the victim, 19-year-old Paul Joseph Fuchs, has never been found. Nonetheless, Fuchs' name is clearly listed upon Kraft's scorecard.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Following the December 1976 murder of Fuchs, Kraft is not known to have killed again for sixteen months. On January 3, 1978, homicide investigators again convened to discuss progress concerning the manhunt for the still-unidentified killer. By this time, investigators knew there was more than one murderer at large: the previous July, police had arrested Patrick Kearney, who subsequently confessed to the murders of 28 boys and young men, many of whom he had dissected and discarded in trash bags beside freeways in southern California. Although Kraft had dismembered some of his victims, he never killed his victims by shooting them in the temple as Kearney had. Additionally, Kearney had never tortured any of his victims: his "modus operandi" differed significantly from Kraft's, and investigators were certain that an unrelated killer was still at large.


title: Randy Kraft

text: On April 16, 1978, Kraft abducted an 18-year-old Marine named Scott Michael Hughes. Hughes was plied with Valium before Kraft slit open his scrotum and removed one of his testicles, then strangled him to death with a ligature before discarding his fully clothed body—missing only his shoelaces—beside a freeway on-ramp in Anaheim. Two months later, on June 11, the body of 23-year-old Roland Gerald Young was found near a San Diego freeway. Young had been emasculated before being stabbed to death. Abrasions to his body indicated that he had been pushed from a vehicle traveling at high speed. Eight days later, the body of a 20-year-old Marine named Richard Allen Keith was found discarded beside a road on Moulton Parkway. He had last been seen alive by his girlfriend in the city of Carson. Welts on Keith's wrists indicated that he had been bound before he was strangled with a ligature. Froth in his throat indicated that he was also drowning as a result of flurazepam and alcohol he had consumed at the time he was strangled. Keith is believed to be referred to on Kraft's scorecard as "Marine Carson."


title: Randy Kraft

text: Three weeks after the murder of Keith, on July 6, Kraft killed a 23-year-old hitchhiker named Keith Arthur Klingbeil. Klingbeil had ingested large doses of acetaminophen and alcohol before he was strangled with his shoelace and his body discarded beside the Interstate 5 freeway. Although Klingbeil was still alive when discovered, he would die shortly after his admission to Mission Community Hospital. A subsequent autopsy revealed that, before Klingbeil's strangulation, his left nipple had been seared with an automobile cigarette lighter.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Two months later, on September 29, the body of 20-year-old Richard Anthony Crosby was found discarded 200 yards north of Highway 71 in San Bernardino. Crosby had disappeared the previous day as he hitchhiked home from a theater in Torrance. He had been suffocated, and his left nipple had been mutilated with an automobile cigarette lighter.


title: Randy Kraft

text: The last known victim murdered by Kraft in 1978 was a 21-year-old Long Beach truck driver named Michael Joseph Inderbieten, whose castrated body was found along an on-ramp to the I-605 on November 18, 1978. In addition to having been castrated, Inderbieten had been violated with a foreign object and had suffered burns similar to those inflicted on victim Mark Hall two years previously. The cause of death was listed as suffocation.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Kraft is not known to have killed again until June 16, 1979, when he abducted a 20-year-old Marine named Donnie Harold Crisel, whose body was thrown from a moving vehicle onto the 405 Freeway. The cause of death was listed as acute alcohol poisoning, although rope and burn marks indicated Crisel had been bound and tortured prior to his body being discarded.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Two months later, on August 29, the dismembered remains of a 21-year-old English tourist named Keith Anthony Jackson were found discarded in two trash bags and a cardboard box behind a Union 76 gas station in Long Beach. A sock was found inserted in his rectum. Only Jackson's head, torso and left leg were ever found. Jackson had been deceased for several days prior to the discovery of his body. The entry on Kraft's scorecard simply reading either "England" or "76" is believed to refer to him. Two weeks later, on September 14, the body of 19-year-old Gregory Wallace Jolley was found in Lake Arrowhead. Jolley had been emasculated and his head and legs had been severed after death. His possessions were later found in Kraft's home.


title: Randy Kraft

text: On November 24, 1979, a 15-year-old Santa Ana youth named Jeffrey Sayre is believed to have been abducted and murdered by Kraft. Sayre was last seen at a bus stop in Westminster while returning home from a date with his girlfriend. The entry "Westminster Date" on Kraft's scorecard is believed to refer to Sayre. On February 18, 1980, the decapitated body of a 19-year-old Marine named Mark Alan Marsh was found near the Templin Highway. Marsh was last seen hitchhiking towards Buena Park. His hands had been severed from his body after death.


title: Randy Kraft

text: In the summer of 1980, Kraft traveled to the neighboring state of Oregon on an extended business trip. During this trip, he lived in a town close to Portland. Before returning to California in August, he is believed to have murdered two more victims—both of whom were listed on his scorecard with cryptic references, including the word "Portland."


title: Randy Kraft

text: The first victim, a 17-year-old Denver youth named Michael Sean O'Fallon, was killed on July 17. O'Fallon had been on a solo hitchhiking trip across the U.S. and Canada before his enrollment at college at the time of his murder. He had consumed both alcohol and Valium before he was strangled to death. O'Fallon's nude, hogtied body was discarded ten miles south of Salem. O'Fallon was listed on Kraft's scorecard as "Portland Denver", and his camera—inscribed with his mother's initials—was later found in Kraft's garage. The following day, Kraft is believed to have killed a man estimated to be aged between 35 and 45 years old whose body was found beside a freeway in the city of Woodburn. This victim—listed as "Portland Elk" on Kraft's scorecard—had ingested a toxic level of Valium and Tylenol before he was strangled to death with a ligature.


title: Randy Kraft

text: On September 3, 1980, one month after Kraft's return to California from Oregon, the bound body of a 19-year-old Marine named Robert Loggins was found discarded in a trash bag close to the El Toro Marine air base. Loggins had last been seen alive by two fellow Marines close to the Pacific Coast Highway on August 23. Photographs—and the negatives—subsequently found in Kraft's possession show Loggins in Kraft's living room slumped fully clothed on his sofa, apparently intoxicated, and in various nude, pornographic postures. All these pictures depict Loggins with his eyes closed; it is unknown whether the victim was alive or dead when they were taken.


title: Randy Kraft

text: On April 10, 1981, the body of a 17-year-old youth named Michael Cluck was found beside the Interstate 5 freeway close to Goshen, Oregon. Cluck had been abducted while hitchhiking from Kent, Washington, to Bakersfield, California, the day prior to his body being discovered. Thirty-one blunt-force blows to the head had destroyed the back of his skull, killing the youth. Cluck had also been sodomized and savagely beaten, kicked, and scoured. Cluck is believed to have been recorded on Kraft's scorecard as "Portland Blood" due to the extensive blood and debris found at the murder scene. At the time of the murder, Kraft had once again been sent on assignment to Oregon by his employers. In addition, on the day Cluck's body was discovered, Kraft visited a Lane County hospital to receive treatment for a bruised foot.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Four months after Cluck's murder, on August 20, 1981, the partially clothed body of 17-year-old male prostitute Christopher Allen Williams was found in the San Bernardino Mountains. Williams had ingested both phenobarbital and benzodiazepine, and was found with tissue paper lodged deep in his nostrils, causing him to choke to death on his own mucus.


title: Randy Kraft

text: By early 1982, the relationship between Kraft and Seelig had become marred by frequent fights and episodes of temporary separation. In an effort to resolve their personal differences, the couple began attending weekly counseling sessions in Huntington Beach. These sessions began on June 22, 1982.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Following complaints from residents of Echo Park regarding a foul odor emanating from the direction of the Hollywood Freeway on July 29, 1982, a Cal Trans employee found the decaying body of a 14-year-old Pittsburg, California youth named Raymond Davis discarded alongside the Rampart Boulevard offramp. Rudimentary efforts had been made to conceal Davis's body beneath leaves and soil. He had last been seen alive in Echo Park on June 17, searching for his missing dog. The youth's wrists had been knotted behind his back in much the same manner as had victim Michael O'Fallon two years previously, and he had been strangled to death with his shoelace. The entry on Kraft's scorecard reading "Dog" is believed to refer to Davis. Just forty feet from Davis's body, the same Cal Trans crew also found the body of 16-year-old Robert Avila. Avila had been missing since July 21, and his body was also markedly decomposed. He had been strangled to death with a length of stereo speaker wire.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Kraft is not known to have killed again until November 1, 1982, when he abducted and murdered a 24-year-old Modesto man named Arne Mikeal Laine. Laine was last seen hitchhiking towards Orange County in search of work. His body was not found until January 1984, discarded on a hillside close to the town of Ramona. Four weeks after Laine's murder, the semi-nude body of 26-year-old Brian Whitcher was dumped from a moving vehicle alongside the Interstate 5 freeway, close to the city of Wilsonville, Oregon. Whitcher had ingested high levels of both alcohol and Valium, but he died of asphyxiation.


title: Randy Kraft

text: On December 3, 1982, a 29-year-old carpenter named Anthony Jose Silveira disappeared while hitchhiking towards Medford. His body was found two weeks later, strangled, sodomized, and violated with foreign objects before his murder. At the time of the murders of both Whitcher and Silveira, Kraft was again known to have been in Oregon on a business trip, which concluded the day of Silveira's death. On December 4, Kraft drove from Portland to Seattle to visit friends. During this brief visit, he was observed wearing a military jacket inscribed with the name "Silveira". On December 5, Kraft flew from Seattle to Grand Rapids, Michigan—again on business.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Two days after his arrival in Grand Rapids, Kraft encountered cousins Dennis Alt and Christopher Schoenborn at a seminar in the Amway Grand Plaza Hotel. Kraft was seen talking with the pair in the hotel's reception area shortly before midnight. Their bodies were discovered on December 9 in an open field close to the hotel. Both victims had been plied with alcohol and Valium before their sodomy and murder, and the bodies had been arranged in sexually suggestive positions. Alt, aged 24, had died of asphyxiation, whereas Schoenborn, aged 20, had been strangled to death with his belt. In addition, a ballpoint pen had been inserted into Schoenborn's urethra before his murder. Both victims were recorded upon Kraft's scorecard in a single entry reading "GR2". A set of keys belonging to Schoenborn, plus Silveira's military jacket, were left by Kraft in the hotel.


title: Randy Kraft

text: On December 8, Kraft traveled from Michigan to Portland. Within twenty-four hours of his return to Oregon, he had killed a 19-year-old hitchhiker named Lance Taggs. Taggs had last been seen hitchhiking from the city of Tigard to the home of a relative in Los Angeles on December 8. His body was discovered the following day, discarded alongside a rural road in Clackamas County, close to where the body of Whitcher had been found just two weeks earlier. As with Alt and Schoenborn, Taggs had consumed alcohol and Valium before his murder, although Taggs had died of suffocation caused by a sock thrust into his trachea.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Noting the passage of time between periods of activity when bodies of young males had been found discarded near mass transportation with alcohol and/or pharmaceuticals in their bloodstream in Oregon, investigators theorized that their killer resided in another state and struck in Oregon only when there on business. Following the murders of Silveira, Whitcher, and Taggs, Oregon investigators relayed details of the murders to police in other states, describing the "modus operandi" of the killer they were seeking and requesting feedback from any police force that had unsolved murders of young males on their files with similar characteristics. A response from southern California counties was swift: the pattern of killings was identical to victims linked to the unknown killer in California. The six Oregon murders committed by Kraft were thus linked to the murders he had committed in California.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Kraft did not kill again until January 27, 1983, when he abducted a 21-year-old hitchhiker named Eric Church. The victim was last seen alive hitchhiking from Orange County to Sacramento the day before his murder. His body was found discarded alongside I-605. An autopsy concluded Church had consumed high levels of alcohol and Valium and that he had been sodomized. Rope marks on Church's wrists indicated he had struggled against his restraints before he died of a combination of ligature strangulation and numerous blows to the side of his skull inflicted by a blunt instrument.


title: Randy Kraft

text: On February 12, Kraft killed two Buena Park men: 18-year-old Geoffrey Nelson and 20-year-old Rodger DeVaul. The two young men were last seen outside the house of a friend named Bryce Wilson shortly after midnight when they told Wilson they intended to purchase something to eat. Nelson's nude body was found alongside an offramp close to the Garden Grove Freeway several hours after he and DeVaul were last seen. He had been emasculated, strangled, and thrown from a moving vehicle. DeVaul's body was found the following day, discarded down a mountainside close to Mount Baldy in San Bernardino County. He had been bound, sodomized, and strangled with a cord. As had been the case with Nelson, DeVaul had ingested both alcohol and propranolol before his murder. In addition, the stomachs of both victims contained potato skins and grapes, which had been eaten shortly before their murders.


title: Randy Kraft

text: At 1:10 a.m. on May 14, 1983, two California Highway Patrol officers observed a Toyota Celica driving erratically on Interstate 5 in the Orange County community of Mission Viejo. Observing the vehicle perform an illegal lane change, the officers—suspecting the motorist was driving under the influence—signaled for the vehicle to stop. The driver slowed the vehicle to a halt and exited the car, discarding the contents of a beer bottle onto the pavement as he did so. Officer Michael Sterling met the individual, who identified himself as Randy Kraft, at the front of his patrol car and observed that his jeans were unbuttoned. Sterling had Kraft perform a field sobriety test, which he failed. He then arrested Kraft for driving while intoxicated.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Sterling's partner, Sgt. Michael Howard approached the Celica and observed a young man slumped with his eyes closed in the vehicle's passenger seat, partially covered by a jacket. Several empty Moosehead beer bottles and an open prescription bottle of Lorazepam tablets were strewn around his feet. Howard attempted to wake the man. Receiving no response, Howard attempted to rouse the man by shaking his arm, only to note the individual had a low body temperature. Upon checking for a pulse, Howard noted the man was dead, with a ligature mark visible around his neck. Lifting the jacket from the victim's lap, Howard noted the victim's jeans had been opened to expose his genitalia. In addition, the victim's hands had been bound with a shoelace, and his wrists bore evidence of welt marks. Later identified as Terry Lee Gambrel, a 25-year-old Marine stationed at El Toro air base, the victim had been strangled to death.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Kraft was initially charged with driving under the influence of alcohol and was held in custody as detectives conducted a thorough search of his vehicle. Upon the car's rear seat, investigators found a belt, the width of which matched the bruising around Gambrel's neck. Other incriminating evidence included alcohol, tranquilizers, various prescription drugs, and stimulants. The passenger seat and carpet of the vehicle were heavily bloodstained; however, Gambrel had no open wounds. The upholstery was removed for forensic analysis, which confirmed the blood was human. Beneath the carpet, investigators discovered an envelope containing more than 50 photographs of young men in pornographic poses. Many of the subjects in the pictures appeared to be either asleep or dead. Inside the trunk, investigators found a ring binder containing a hand-written list of 61 coded notations.


title: Randy Kraft

text: A search of Kraft's home revealed further incriminating evidence, including clothes and personal possessions of numerous young men who had been murdered over the previous decade. Fibers taken from a rug matched those found on victim Scott Hughes. In addition, the couch in Kraft's living room was identified as being the one in the photographs found in Kraft's car. A roll of film discovered also contained shots of victims Eric Church and Rodger DeVaul sitting in Kraft's car. A ligature mark is clearly visible on DeVaul's neck in one of these images.


title: Randy Kraft

text: The coded list of 61 neatly printed terms and phrases found in the trunk of Kraft's car is believed to refer to each of Kraft's victims. Many entries appear innocuous, but each is believed to refer to a specific murder victim or double murder. Several entries reference victims' names (for example, the entry reading "EDM" refers to the initials of victim Edward Daniel Moore, whereas "Vince M" refers to victim Vincent Mestas). In other instances, entries indicate torture or mutilation inflicted upon victims' bodies and/or the locations where they were last seen. The entry "Marine Head BP," for example, is believed to refer to victim Mark Marsh; a Marine found decapitated, having been last seen hitchhiking towards Buena Park. Other entries simply refer to body dump locations; the entry "Golden Sails," for example, refers to the fact the body of Craig Jonaitis was found in the parking lot of the Golden Sails Hotel.


title: Randy Kraft

text: The list also contains entries indicating a minimum of four double murders: "GR2" (victims Dennis Alt and Christopher Schoenborn, last seen in Grand Rapids); "2 in 1 Beach" (victims Geoffrey Nelson and Rodger DeVaul); "2 in 1 Hitch" and "2 in 1 MV to PL" (neither entry of which has been linked to any double murder or disappearance).


title: Randy Kraft

text: Investigators contend that two victims of whose murders Kraft was convicted (Church and Gambrel) are not listed on Kraft's scorecard. However, since the list is in code, the possibility exists that Church, in particular, is included on the scorecard as an entry that investigators cannot recognize as referring to him. Gambrel may also be included on the list; although Kraft was arrested while he attempted to dispose of the body, he may not have recorded an entry referring to Gambrel on his scorecard. These possibilities indicate the scorecard lists a minimum of 65 and possibly 67 victims.


title: Randy Kraft

text: On May 16, 1983, Kraft was formally charged with the murder of Gambrel. By September 8, investigators had interviewed over 700 witnesses and had gathered more than 250 physical exhibits which pointed towards Kraft's guilt in a further fifteen homicides committed between December 1972 and February 1983. He was formally charged with these fifteen murders—in addition to two counts of sodomy and one of emasculation—on this date.


title: Randy Kraft

text: Kraft's trial began on September 26, 1988. He was tried in Orange County before Judge Donald A. McCartin.


title: Randy Kraft

text: At the trial, almost 160 witnesses were called to testify on behalf of the prosecution. Over 1,000 exhibits were introduced as evidence. These exhibits included physical evidence such as bloodstains, hair and fiber evidence found at Kraft's Long Beach residence and in his car; fingerprints found upon glass shards recovered from the Hall murder scene; negatives and photographs of victims found hidden inside Kraft's vehicle, which depicted the men either dead, drugged, or asleep; the belt used to strangle Gambrel. The prescription drugs and buck knife found in his vehicle. Other evidence introduced included work and travel records and gasoline receipts, which placed Kraft in particular locations where victims had been abducted and/or discarded, and the numerous personal possessions of various murder victims found in Kraft's possession following his arrest.