Gordon Stewart Northcott Turned a Hen Coop right into a Home of Horrors

Earlier than the Zodiac Killer and the Grim Sleeper terrorized California, there was the Hen Coop Assassin, who preyed upon little boys and youths in Twenties Los Angeles, leaving a path of ache and gore in his wake.

Gordon Stewart Northcott, 23, was hanged in San Quentin Jail in 1930 after being convicted the yr earlier than of kidnapping, sexually abusing and killing two boys and a young person. Although he was solely convicted of the three murders, Northcott is believed to have had as many as 20 victims.

Again then, residents of the burgeoning Los Angeles space had no thought a cruel killer was lurking of their midst till Feb. 2, 1928, when the headless, bare physique of a teenage boy was present in a ditch on a dusty street close to the sleepy suburb of La Puente. 

The sufferer, Jose Gonzales, an 18-year-old whose mutilated stays have been discovered coated with a hen feed sack, had been fatally shot a number of occasions. He had been beheaded “in all probability no more than twenty-four hours previous to the invention of the physique,” in keeping with appellate courtroom data from June 26, 1930.

His was the primary of a string of disappearances of younger boys and youths that started to plague the world.

One month later, in March 1928, Walter Collins, 9, of the Lincoln Heights part of Los Angeles, went lacking after his mom gave him a dime to see a film and he by no means returned residence, in keeping with a 2008 article within the Los Angeles Instances. (Collins’ story turned the topic of frenzied media protection, and was the main focus of Clint Eastwood’s 2008 movie, Changeling, starring Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich.)

Whereas authorities searched tirelessly for Collins, in Could 1928, two extra little boys vanished on their approach residence from a Mannequin Yacht Membership assembly in Pomona: Nelson and Lewis Winslow, 10 and 12.

Unbeknownst to authorities on the time, Northcott, who had moved from Canada to Los Angeles a number of years earlier than, had kidnapped the brothers. He took them to his household’s hen farm in Mira Loma, in Riverside County, the place he held them captive in a hen coop. After raping the brothers over a interval of ten days, he killed considered one of them with an ax. 

Northcott pressured his nephew, Sanford Clark, 11, to kill the opposite brother with an ax and assist him bury the our bodies on the property “to insure his silence.”

The crimes may need gone unsolved have been it not for Clark’s sister, who was shocked at what her brother advised her throughout a go to that September: that Northcott had been sexually abusing him and had killed 4 boys on the farm.

Wish to sustain with the most recent crime protection? Join PEOPLE‘s free True Crime publication for breaking crime information, ongoing trial protection and particulars of intriguing unsolved instances.

She notified their mom in Canada, who referred to as the authorities.

Northcott fled to Canada, however was arrested quickly after.

In December 1928, Northcott was charged with murdering Gonzales, the Winslow brothers and Collins. He was convicted of killing all however Collins.

In a shock transfer, his mom, Sarah Louise, who mentioned she would “do something” for her son, confessed to murdering Collins, in keeping with the Instances. She was sentenced to life in jail.

Simply earlier than Northcott was executed, he cried and begged to not be taken to the gallows and was blindfolded at his request so he would not see what was taking place, the Healdsburg Tribune reported in 1930.