LA WESTSIDE RAPIST SERIAL KILLER CAUGHT: JOHN FLOYD THOMAS
Los Angeles, CA– LAPD is scheduling a press conference later this afternoon to announce they believe John Floyd Thomas, Jr, 72, a workers compensation insurance adjuster, may have raped and murdered as many as 30 victims since 1966.
Thomas’s Mother died when he was 12. He was raised by his Aunt and his godmother. He received a dishonorable discharge from the USAF in 1956 and was convicted of robbery and attempted rape in 1957. Upon his release in 1966 the terror of the West Side Rapist began.
LAPD Det. Richard Bengston said in addition to 2 cold case killings Thomas was charged with April 2nd, DNA evidence connects him to the rape and murder of 5 other cases, and is the prime suspect in as many as 25 more. Of his alleged attacks, there were 20 survivors.
Thomas’s alleged attacks occurred in the Westside and Claremont sections of Los Angeles upon white elderly women and occurred a decade apart.
Thomas was convicted of rape in 1978 in Pasadena when a woman took down his license plate. When he was released in 1983 he moved to Chino, and a killer began stalking older women in the Inland area.
Over the time span following 1983 Thomas worked as a social worker and Hospital peer group advisor. In 1989, the year the rapes and killings seemed to stop, Thomas began his career in the state workers compensations office in Glendale, where he was an adjuster until he was arrested on March 31st.
It is not clear how this man, twice convicted of rape, one with “drugging” of a victim eluded suspicion for 43 years. Thomas has also used the alias Willie Eugene Wilson.
LAPD plans to reveal details about the case in an afternoon press conference later today.
Check back to blinkoncrime.com for updates
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Took long enough to catch. WHY?
Wow, Blink, this is ringing bells for me. In the summer of 1972 there was a terrifying series of rape/murders in Toledo OH (my childhood hometown) which, as far as I know, was never solved. Most of the women were killed. I was staying at my parents house and working as a lifeguard in Toledo that summer. I am going by memory, but there may have been about 10 rapes. They all occurred that summer, then stopped.
The police felt that the perp has a very specific MO:
-He threw pillow cases or sheets over the victims faces.
-Targeted lower middle class women who lived alone.
-They were raped in their homes. It was a very hot summer and he entered through screens.
-We were advised to keep doors & windows locked, but, man it was hot and the lower middle class in Toledo in 1972 did not tend to have AC.
-Most of the victims were older women (some elderly) and most were killed.
-He strangled them and raped them brutally with objects. Lots of v bleeding.
-Police theorized that he had a driver/get-away-helper.
-A survivor described him as a black man. Not much else as per description due to the pillow case. She survived because someone else entered the home/interrupted the strangulation? He fled out the BR window. She survived the severe bleeding and crush damage to her neck.
I see in the linked story that one of the victims was killed in LA in 1972 and that John Thomas was raised in and lived in CA. But, in all the years since that hot tense summer in Toledo, nothing else I’ve ever heard of has raised any red flags as per those rapes and murders – that is until now.
Thomas was caught because he was a registered sex offender. Beginning in 2005, all registered sex offenders had to give DNA samples. They never had one of Thomas when he was arrested or incarcerated in the 80′s, but they had saved the evidence of the crimes.
Because of a result of obtaining DNA from all registered sex offenders whether they were in jail, on parole, or free of the correctional system, this case was solved.
man…i am sooo pissed.
-convicted of robbery and attempt rape 1957
-convicted of rape 1978….then gets a job as a social worker? peer group adviser? job with the STATE? i know people waiting tables with biology degrees and NO criminal record. well, at least there’s one job opening in CA now.
THANK GOD FOR DNA! It’s too bad this testing couldn’t have ben found sooner and saved some of those women….but just like AIR SAMPLE’S testing…SCIENCE moves on and will eventually make it impossible for the scum of the earth to commit crimes against an innocent.
Because this thug was BLACK,this will NOT get reported anywhere near the mainstream TV “news” shows. Because,as we know,according to Political Correctness, Blacks are never Serial anything( Just type in Black Serial Killers/Rapists on any search engine ), only Whites.
Phineas, I agree I am shocked this is not a bigger deal. This dude raped and murdered undetected over 40 years, somebody better be paying attention.
B
Wow I use to date the suspects son for 2 years and we lived with him and I never knew any of this .Im shocked.
He alledgley raped…nothing has yet to be proven. This is what is wrong with ppl…whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty.
Are you kidding? There is DNA matches galore. What is wrong with people is that we get pissed off when people like you defend a 30 year career rapist of elderly white women. What if it was your Mom? WTH?
B