Investigators have linked yet another murder to a notorious California serial killer nearly 45 years after a man’s body was found along an Oregon highway.
The body of 30-year-old Larry Eugene Parks was identified by Oregon State Police earlier this year, according to the Orange County Sheriff's Department.
Randy Kraft, the infamous "Scorecard Killer," is the lone suspect authorities are investigating for the 1980 murder, according to Oregon State Police spokesperson Kyle Kennedy.
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"OSP does not have another suspect outside of Kraft," Kennedy said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "We are awaiting testing results of evidence to confirm."
On July 18, 1980, police received a report of a body along I-5 south of Portland, sparking a homicide investigation as authorities unsuccessfully attempted to identify the individual.
The case ultimately ran cold, until authorities identified Parks nearly 45 years later. Before his death, Parks was a Vietnam veteran and had fallen out of communication with his family in 1979 – one year before his body was discovered. He was last seen in Pensacola, Florida, according to police.
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Peter Valentin, chair of the Forensic Science Department at the University of New Haven and a former Connecticut State Police detective, cited the need for investigators to confirm a victim’s death is the work of a serial killer when looking into these types of cases.
"Once you believe the death that you have is the work of a serial killer, your investigative efforts stop," Valentin said. "So if you wrongly attribute that death to the serial killer and that's not it at all, there's a killer out there going undetected, unprosecuted because you're not doing any more work, because you think that their killer has been brought to justice."
For years, the search for Kraft’s additional victims has remained ongoing.
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Last year, an investigator with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department contacted the Oregon State Police Cold Case Unit in an attempt to identify the previously-unknown remains.
Using forensic investigative genetic genealogy, authorities were able to develop a genetic profile from a blood sample taken from the remains, police said. Parks’ identity was ultimately confirmed after possible family members provided DNA profiles to be used in comparison – solving a decades-long mystery of what happened to Parks.
"Forensic genetic genealogy has been a boon to law enforcement and such a help because it allows us to make identifications in previously unidentified human remains cases," Valentin told Fox News Digital. "So essentially, what it's doing is identifying potential family members in the country. By then going to those potential family members and getting a full nuclear DNA profile, then you can make a comparison between your unknown remains and the potential family members, and make a decision as to whether or not this person is their family member."
On May 14, 1983, Kraft was pulled over after California Highway Patrol Officers observed him driving erratically on the 5 Freeway in Mission Viejo, located roughly 50 miles south of Los Angeles, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
Following a failed sobriety test, Kraft was handcuffed by police, who then noticed a motionless man in the front seat of the vehicle.
"How’s my friend?" Kraft asked the officers, who assumed the man was sleeping.
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Upon trying to wake the man, identified as 25-year-old Terry Lee Gambrel, who had hitched a ride with Kraft while on his way to a party, authorities discovered he was actually deceased, leading to the ultimate arrest and prosecution of Kraft.
Investigators believe Kraft is responsible for the killings of over 60 men between 1971 and 1983 throughout California, Michigan and Oregon, earning the name "Scorecard Killer" because of his catalog of victims’ names recorded on a white sheet of paper.
In 2023, another previously unidentified victim of Kraft’s was named by also utilizing genetic genealogy, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.
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"In other types of cold cases, what you're doing is relying on the memories of people that you interviewed before," Valentin said. "Now, if you're talking about a case from the early 1970’s, that simply isn't viable – your witnesses aren't even alive in many situations and so you're simply stuck with the investigative record that you already have, and so your ability to get something new from that is much more limited."
"So this really is a new pathway to getting information that doesn't rely on the people associated with the original investigation, whether they be the investigators or the witnesses."
The remains of a young man were discovered by two people off-roading in Laguna Hills on Sept. 14, 1974, with investigators initially ruling the man’s death to be accidental due to alcohol and diazepam intoxication.
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Throughout the years, similarities between the unidentified man’s death and Kraft’s other victims led authorities to believe Kraft may have been involved.
Valentin pointed to the need to use forensic technology to tie multiple victims to the same perpetrator during the investigative process.
"When you think that cases are linked together, what you can then do is essentially pull the evidence," Valentin said. "It gives you a higher likelihood of finding something forensically relevant – when you now can pull from five or six different cases, as opposed to the one case that you have that belongs to this one offender."
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The man was ultimately identified as 17-year-old Michael Ray Schlicht of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, utilizing a DNA sample from his mother.
Despite maintaining his innocence, Kraft was convicted in 1989 of torturing and killing 16 men throughout California in a case that horrified the nation. During the trial, prosecutors revealed Kraft, a former computer programmer, was a fetishist and would often keep trophies of his dismembered victims in his freezer. according to The Associated Press.
Kraft, now 80, was sentenced to death and remains incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison.
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"It's wonderful that we're looking at cases that, in the past, we would have said that that case was unsolved and it would never be solved, because the killer here is now 80 years old and in many situations that killer might have died already," Valentin said.
"So when your killer is dead and your victim clearly is no longer living, and there's nobody to prosecute and then there's nothing to investigate. The idea that this case really was reinvigorated because somebody offered to do genetic genealogy and see if they could identify who the victim was, and that's what started this over – that's what brought new life into this investigation."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Original article source: Notorious ‘Scorecard Killer’ linked to decades-old murder nearly 45 years later
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