Terry Childs (serial killer)

Terry Childs was born on September 22, 1955, in Santa Clara County, California, into a family with six other children. He grew up in Aptos, where his father, Gary, worked as a bail bondsman. During his teenage years, Childs began to use a variety of drugs and alcoholic beverages, and by early 1970, had his first arrest for robbery. In subsequent years, he dropped out of school and would frequently spend time in jail for a variety of crimes, but was often given light sentences. He shared this trait with several of his brothers, who themselves were also petty criminals, and one would later be killed in prison after another inmate hit him with a barbell on the head during a fight. By 1985, Childs was known to the locals as a jobless drug addict who showed possible signs of mental illness. == Murder of Lois Sigala ==

On August 22, 1985, the 29-year-old Childs and his girlfriend at the time were arrested for possession of a 10-inch artillery mortar simulator. while a friend of Childs, John, claimed that he had sold a Luger to Childs sometime prior to the killing. John then directed the authorities to an area where Childs had fired several rounds into some trees. At the site, several shell casings were located, which, following a ballistic examination, were conclusively linked to the Luger used by Childs. In early April 1986, under the terms of the plea deal, some of the charges against Childs' girlfriend were dropped, and she was given a sentence of 5 years in the women's correction system. On January 15, 1987, Terry Childs' trial began. The Santa Cruz County Attorney's Office insisted that the defendant was a sadist who had committed the murder with extreme cruelty, taking pleasure in torturing his victim. At one of the court sessions, a forensic expert brought by the prosecution stated that nine out of the fifteen bullets had hit the victim, most of them in the areas of the arms, thighs and abdomen. According to his statement, the victim was conscious and tried to crawl away, before Childs fired one final fatal shot that hit her in the head. The prosecution's main witness was Childs' girlfriend at the time of the murder, who reaffirmed her initial testimony and retold the events to the court. John, who was an accomplice in the robbery that led to Sigala's murder, refused to testify in court against Childs, but his father, J. Sr., claimed that he had seen his son sell the pistol to Childs. Childs himself insisted on his innocence, claiming that he was mentally ill. To reinforce his claims, his lawyer brought in Dr. David Gorelick, a neurologist who worked at a veterans hospital in Los Angeles, who stated that the defendant's long-term drug abuse resulted in him developing paranoid schizophrenia. A number of Childs' acquaintances also stated that shortly before his arrest, he had acted in an aggressively paranoid or outright hostile manner. Childs' lawyer, Tony Salitich, also proposed that the girlfriend's testimony should be considered unreliable, as she herself was a drug abuser. On February 4, 1987, Terry Childs was found guilty of the murder via jury verdict, after which the court sentenced him to life imprisonment with the right to parole after serving at least 41 years of his sentence. Reportedly, in a fit of anger, Childs had asked a friend of his to smuggle in an Uzi so he could shoot up the courtroom. == Subsequent confessions ==

Following his conviction, Childs was transferred to the Corcoran State Prison to serve his sentence. In 1996, he attempted to kill another prisoner, after which it was decided that he should be transferred to the Pelican Bay State Prison, a supermax prison for violent felons, where he was held in an isolated prison cell. According to his confessions, Childs had committed four murders in Santa Cruz County, two in Santa Clara County, two in Tracy, two in Seattle, Washington, and one in Sparks, Nevada. In the fall of 1996, he admitted that the murder committed in Sparks was that of 32-year-old Rulan McGill, who had been kidnapped, raped and stabbed to death while en route to a shopping trip in Reno on July 10, 1979. Childs provided details known only to the investigators and pointed to the corpse location with high accuracy after presented with a map, and with this information, the Washoe County Prosecutor's Office charged him with McGill's murder. He was extradited to the Sparks County Jail, where he would later be convicted and given another life term following a short trial, then returned to the Salinas Valley State Prison. Jozovich went missing from the parking lot of Mervyn's Department Store, where she worked as a cashier, and her fate remained unclear until 1995, when her lower jaw-bone and several ribs were discovered by a hiker in the Santa Cruz Mountains. He claimed that after he had convinced Mack to enter his car, he took her to Seascape Beach, where he tied her up and beat her to death. In early 2017, Childs pled guilty to the murders of Joan Mack and Christopher Hall, after which he was given two more life terms without the possibility of parole. Terry Childs died on February 11, 2023, while incarcerated at Salinas Valley State Prison. == See also ==