Biggest serial murderer in Los Angeles history is black killer of white women

This photo released by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Thursday, April 30, 2009, shows suspected serial killer John Floyd Thomas Jr., 72, after he was arrested on March 31, 2009. Thomas is suspected of being a prolific serial killer who raped and killed as many as 30 women in waves of attacks that terrorized Southern California decades ago, police said. (AP Photo/Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department)

We know from the above photo in the AP article that John Floyd Thomas is black. We know from the article, below, that his more than 30 murder victims, as well as his many other victims whom he failed to kill, were older white women. But, without the photo, we wouldn’t know from the article about his race, nor, obviously, about the fact that this is about a black serial rapist/murderer of white women. That is never said. No black rapist or killer of white women is ever spoken of by the media as a black rapist or killer of white women. Only “extremists” like you and me say that, only “racists” whom no respectable, mainstream people would want to be associated with say that. But we who today are shunned for speaking the truth, we who today are regarded with contempt for refusing to ignore important realities of race, whether they have to do with race and crime, race and culture, race and national identity, or race and abilities, we shall one day be the mainstream, we shall be one day be the people.

Police call man LA’s `largest ever’ serial killer
By THOMAS WATKINS—1 hour ago

LOS ANGELES (AP)—Police believe a 72-year-old insurance claims adjuster arrested earlier this month is the most prolific serial killer in the city’s history, having raped and strangled as many as 30 older women over two decades.

The break in the cold case came in October when John Floyd Thomas Jr., who had twice been convicted of sexual assault, had a DNA sample taken as part of an effort to build an offender database.

Thomas was charged April 2 with murdering 68-year-old Ethel Sokoloff in 1972 and 67-year-old Elizabeth McKeown in 1976, both of whom were sexually assaulted and strangled. DNA matching Thomas’ was found at three other crime scenes in the 1970s and ’80s, police robbery-homicide Capt. Denis Cremins said.

Detectives now consider Thomas a suspect in at least 25 other killings, and the number could grow as detectives probe unsolved cases going back to the 1950s, Cremins said. It could not immediately be determined where the other killings took place.

“If he turns out to be the guy, he probably would be the largest ever (serial killer) in the city of Los Angeles,” Cremins said.

Deputy Chief Charlie Beck said police “believe that Thomas is likely connected to many more sexually motivated murders.”

Thomas was being held on $1 million bond in a county jail and could not be reached for comment. The public defender’s office said he had yet to be assigned an attorney.

If convicted, Thomas faces life in prison without parole because the killings occurred before the 1977 reinstatement of the death penalty. Prosecutors may seek capital punishment if Thomas is charged in later cases.

Thomas was sentenced to six years in 1957 for burglary and attempted rape in Los Angeles. Two parole violations sent him back behind bars until 1966.

The victims in all 30 cases under review were older white women, mostly of lower incomes and often widows living alone, Cremins said. All had been sexually assaulted and most were strangled.

In the first wave of killings in Los Angeles in the mid-1970s, a man police dubbed “The Westside Rapist” entered the homes of dozens of elderly women who lived alone, raped them and choked them until they passed out or died. The 17 people killed were found with pillows or blankets over their faces.

During that time, Thomas was a social worker, hospital employee and salesman. The attacks stopped in 1978—the year Thomas went back to prison for the rape of a Pasadena woman.

After his 1983 release, he moved to Chino in San Bernardino County and took a job as a hospital peer counselor in nearby Pomona. That year, a series of attacks on elderly women began, including five slayings in the nearby Los Angeles County town of Claremont. The attacker also used blankets or pillows over his victims’ faces.

Despite some 20 survivors, detectives didn’t connect the two cases. There were conflicting descriptions from victims, a lack of communication between agencies and an absence of DNA technology.

Investigators said the attacks stopped in 1989, when Thomas began working at the State Compensation Insurance Fund in Glendale. He was arrested at his South Los Angeles apartment on March 31 and resigned shortly afterward.

“As far as why he stopped, we don’t know for sure if he stopped,” Detective Rick Jackson said. “Who knows? It could be age-related, we just don’t know enough about him at this time.”

Earl Ofari Hutchinson, a commentator and host of the Los Angeles Urban Policy Roundtable, said he was shocked by the allegations against his friend, whom he described as “very engaging, very involved, seemed very informed.”

Hutchinson said Thomas is married and has children.

[end of AP article]

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David B. writes:

True crime junkie that I am, I had been following the news accounts of the naming of John Floyd Thomas as Los Angeles’s worst serial killer. That is a considerable distinction as serial killers have been common in Los Angeles for several decades, The Night Stalker and The Hillside Strangler to name two.

In this thread, Mark O. disputed your assertions about black crime by saying, “The typical profile of a serial killer is a white male.” Andy M. then pointed out that blacks do indeed produce more serial killers than their percentage of the population. For a prime example, look up the wikipedia entry for “Coral Eugene Watts.”

When I reached the end of the article, I almost fell out of my chair when I read that the suspect is a friend of Earl Ofari Hutchinson. One of Mr. Hutchinson’s missions in life is downplaying the reality of black-on-white crime. What irony!

David B. continues:

This is the column Hutchinson wrote denying that blacks are seeking out and killing whites.

Andrew W. writes:

It’s widely believed that serial killers only target members of their own race. (See the Wikipedia article on Serial killers, for example, which says that “serial murder is intra-racial.”) I’m curious to know if you or any of your readers could point to a white serial killer who was known to target to non-whites, or even one that had a significant portion of non-white victims.

Off of the top of my head, I can name quite a few black serial killers that targeted whites:

John Floyd Thomas, Jr.

Coral Eugene Watts

Derek Todd Lee (investigators had initially focused their investigation entirely on whites because all of the victims were white. They only expanded their pool of suspects to include non-whites when analysis of DNA left behind by the killer revealed he was black).

The Zebra Killers (actual motivation for their killings was race hate)

Yahweh ben Yaweh (ditto)

John Allen Muhammed also seems to have been motivated by race hatred.

Winston Moseley, the black man who murdered Kitty Genovese, had at least two other victims, though I’m not sure if that’s enough to classify him as a serial killer.

And let’s not even get started on black mass murderers of whites.

By the way, that American Renaissance article I linked to just above is an absolute classic.

Paul K. writes:

Andrew W. asks, “I’m curious to know if you or any of your readers could point to a white serial killer who was known to target to non-whites, or even one that had a significant portion of non-white victims.”

Eleven of Jeffrey Dahmer’s seventeen victims appear to have been non-white.

Dahmer appears to have been sexually motivated, like most serial killers, and his victims male prostitutes, so I don’t think race-hatred is relevant in his case.

There has been a misconception, only recently dispelled, that serial killers tend to be disproportionately white. The number-crunching blogger Griffe du Lion writes that blacks are twice as likely to commit serial killings as whites, a number which is surprising only in that blacks are seven times as likely as whites to commit violent crimes in general.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 30, 2009 11:59 PM | Send