Criminal penalty Death State(s) California Victims 7 Date apprehended 1993 | Span of killings 1986–1993 Name Michael Hughes Country United States | |
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Michael Hughes (born c. 1956) is an American serial killer convicted and sentenced to life without parole for the murders of four women and girls in California, and later, in another trial, sentenced to death for the murders of three other women.
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Victims
Authorities suspect there may have been other victims. As of 2008, detectives were investigating Hughes' possible involvement in other killings around the U.S. While Hughes was in the navy he spent time in Michigan, San Diego, Long Beach and Frostburg, Maryland.
- Yvonne Coleman, 15. January 22, 1986.
- Verna Patricia Williams, 36. May 26, 1986.
- Deborah Jackson, 30, aka Harriet McKinley. December 1, 1987.
- Theresa Ballard, 26. September 23, 1992.
- Brenda Bradley, 38, October 5, 1992. A niece of former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley.
- Terri Myles, 33. November 8, 1993.
- Jamille Harrington, aka Jamie Harrington. November 14, 1993.
First trial
In December 1993, Hughes, a security guard, was arrested in Culver City. In 1998, he was convicted and given a life sentence without parole for the strangling murders of Teresa Ballard, Brenda Bradley, Terri Myles and Jamie Harrington.
Ballard, 26, was found in Los Angeles' Jesse Owens County Park on September 23, 1992. The other victims were found dumped in alleys in a Culver City commercial area: 38-year-old Bradley; Myles, 33, found on November 8, 1993; and Harrington, 29, found on November 14, 1993.
Second trial
On July 3, 2008, Hughes was charged with sexually assaulting and strangling two women and two teenage girls in the Los Angeles area between 1986 and 1993, after homicide detectives linked him to DNA samples from the victims using new forensic technologies. The case of Deanna Wilson, 30, who was found in a garage on August 30, 1990, was later dropped, but was used by prosecutors to establish Hughes' pattern.
Hughes killed 15-year-old Yvonne Coleman on January 22, 1986. Her body was found in a park in Inglewood, California. The other two were killed in Los Angeles. Verna Williams, 36, was discovered in a stairwell on May 26, 1986. She was considered at the time to be a victim of the prolific, then-unidentified serial killer known as the Southside Slayer (later dubbed the Grim Sleeper, and later still identified as Lonnie David Franklin Jr.). Deborah Jackson, 32, was found on June 25, 1993.
Hughes was convicted in November 2011 and sentenced to death in June 2012 for the murders of Coleman, Williams, and McKinley. Hughes motion to reduce his sentence to life without parole, based on upsetting events from his early life, namely that he was beaten as a child and had watched his mother give his sister an abortion, was denied.
Hughes is awaiting execution on death row at San Quentin State Prison.