Off The Record
The Scorecard Killer: A California Case That Still Haunts Investigators
Long before California investigators connected dozens of unexplained disappearances, before detectives discovered a chilling coded list in the back of a Toyota Celica, and before the press coined the name “The Scorecard Killer,” there was simply a quiet boy growing up in a small house in Long Beach.
Born on March 19, 1945, Randy Steven Kraft was the only son of Harold and Opal Kraft, a working-class couple who had moved west from Wyoming after the war. Like thousands of families chasing prosperity under the California sun, the Krafts settled into a modest neighborhood, surrounded by new tract homes with carefully trimmed lawns and optimism built into their foundations.
From the outside, the family appeared to be living a version of the American Dream. But behind the pale-blue siding, there was a reserve—an emotional distance—that neighbors would later recall with unease. The house always seemed quiet. The boy always seemed too careful, too orderly.
Kraft, even as a child, had a fondness for precision. Teachers remembered him as polite, bright, and oddly meticulous. He kept his room immaculate, lining toys up in perfect rows. He excelled at math, enjoyed puzzles, and rarely stepped out of line. His mother adored him; his father expected obedience.
Nothing about him suggested the violence that would eventually follow him.
If anything, he looked like the least threatening boy in the neighborhood.
From Politics to Personal Upheaval
When Kraft entered high school in the conservative 1950s suburb of Westminster, he blended in seamlessly. He joined student government, debated politics, and earned a reputation as the kind of clean-cut, disciplined young man parents trusted instantly.
After graduating in 1963, Kraft went on to Claremont Men’s College, majoring in economics. He threw himself into campus life, campaigning for Barry Goldwater, supporting the Vietnam War, and aligning himself with traditional conservative ideals. Friends remembered him as articulate and ambitious, someone who seemed destined for a respectable career.
But by his junior year, something shifted dramatically.
He let go of his earlier political rigidity. He grew a beard. He attended anti-war gatherings. And quietly, he began confronting a part of his identity he had long suppressed. By 1969, Kraft came out as gay—though the term was rarely spoken openly then.
The revelation cost him his position in the Air Force Reserve. Official paperwork said “medical reasons,” but everyone involved understood what it really meant. The United States military, in that era, was not a place where openly gay service members could remain.
The discharge was a turning point. The structure he had clung to for years began to crumble. The discipline, the sense of direction, the control—it all faded.
And in the vacuum left behind, something far darker started to take shape.
A Drift Into California’s Nightlife
After leaving the service, Kraft remained in Southern California, drifting between jobs—bartending, waiting tables, working as a computer operator. He was intelligent and articulate, with a calm, almost gentle demeanor that put people at ease.
But behind closed doors, a different life unfolded.
Southern California in the early 1970s had a vibrant, underground nightlife—bars, clubs, hidden spaces where young men gathered after dark. Kraft became a fixture in some of these circles. He worked at a gay bar in Sunset Beach called The Stables, where he chatted comfortably with patrons. But even there, friends noticed subtle changes: long absences, heated bursts of temper, unpredictable mood swings, increasing drug use.
He started taking amphetamines. Drinking more heavily. Spending nights alone, sometimes disappearing for days. Those who knew him described an internal war—something unraveling behind his polite façade.
Then, in 1970, came the first sign of danger.
The First Known Victim Survivor
On a March afternoon, a terrified 13-year-old boy named Joseph Fancher stumbled barefoot into a Long Beach bar. He was shaking, incoherent, and clearly under the influence of sedatives. He told authorities a man had offered him a place to stay—then drugged and assaulted him.
Police quickly traced the case to Kraft. Inside his apartment, they found Fancher’s shoes and a cabinet filled with prescription pills.
But because officers had entered without a warrant, the evidence was ruled inadmissible.
Kraft walked free.
And Southern California would pay the price for that mistake for more than a decade.
Freeways Turn Deadly
From 1971 through the early 1980s, young men began disappearing all across Southern California—Marine recruits, hitchhikers, college students, young men just trying to get home after a late-night outing. Bodies were discovered near freeways, in ravines, in orange groves, dumped along lonely stretches of open California highway.
The patterns were unmistakable:
Victims were drugged. Restrained. Tortured with clinical, chilling precision. And killed quietly, with controlled efficiency.
By 1975, investigators from Orange, Los Angeles, and San Bernardino Counties began connecting dots. But the killer was elusive. He chose victims from different jurisdictions, exploited gaps in communication, and moved constantly.
Meanwhile, Kraft lived an almost ordinary life. He worked as a computer programmer, maintained a polished appearance and smiled easily and held conversations without a trace of tension.
No one suspected that the man who looked like a mild-mannered neighbor was roaming the freeway system with calculated violence.
The Night Everything Broke Open
Shortly after 1:00 a.m. on May 14, 1983, two California Highway Patrol officers pulled over a Toyota Celica weaving across the 405 Freeway near Mission Viejo. The driver appeared intoxicated. A half-empty beer bottle sat beside him.
One officer shined a flashlight toward the passenger seat—and froze.
A young Marine, 25-year-old Terry Lee Gambrel, lay slumped against the window, a belt knotted tightly around his neck.
The driver’s identification read:
Randy Steven Kraft.
What unfolded next changed California’s criminal history.
A search of the car revealed prescription sedatives, alcohol, a briefcase full of personal items—and a notebook.
A notebook that would terrify investigators.
The Scorecard
Inside the notebook was a list of more than 60 handwritten entries—short, cryptic phrases such as:
“Stable.”
“Marine Drum.”
“Parking Lot.”
“Airplane Hill.”
At first, detectives weren’t sure what the words meant. But as they cross-referenced the entries with old case files, the truth became horrifyingly clear.
Each line corresponded to a victim.
Some were linked to known murder scenes. Others matched missing persons. Many referred to bodies found near highways with no suspects or leads.
And some victims have never been identified.
Investigators believe as many as 51 killings may be linked to Kraft—making him one of the most prolific serial killers in American history.
Evidence That Told Its Own Story
A search of Kraft’s home revealed even more: photographs of unconscious young men, personal belongings from multiple victims, and items that traced back to cases spanning more than a decade and multiple states. His car, once impounded, was described by officers as “a rolling crime scene.”
Friends and co-workers were stunned. A former classmate told the Los Angeles Times she once had a crush on him in school:
“He was just a normal kid. Everybody liked Randy.”
That was precisely what made him such an effective predator—his ability to blend in, to appear average, to interfere with no one’s radar.
One of California’s Most Complex Trials
Kraft’s trial began in 1988 and lasted more than a year. It became one of the longest and most expensive trials in Orange County history. Evidence included toxicology reports, bindings, clothing, the notebook, and dozens of photographs.
In 1989, Kraft was convicted of 16 murders, along with multiple counts of sodomy and torture.
He addressed the court only once:
“I have not murdered anyone. I believe any reasonable review will show that.”
The jury disagreed.
Kraft was sentenced to death.
He showed no visible emotion—no shock, no fear, no anger. Just a small nod and a calm request for water.
Life on Death Row
The California Supreme Court upheld Kraft’s sentence in 2000. As of 2025, he remains on death row at the California Institution for Men in San Bernardino County.
He has never confessed. Never explained the notebook. Never admitted involvement in any of the deaths.
Investigators still revisit cases connected to his scorecard, hoping to identify more victims.
Dan Salcedo, a retired homicide detective, met Kraft in 2012 during a prison interview. He later said:
“When you look at him, he looks like everyone else. He doesn’t look like danger. And maybe that’s the most terrifying part.”
Salcedo recalled feeling “nothing—no aura, no energy, just an ordinary old man with extraordinary crimes behind him.”
Some of the entries on Kraft’s list remain unsolved mysteries, haunting cold-case units to this day.
Why This Case Still Haunts California
More than 40 years after Kraft’s arrest, the case continues to captivate criminologists and investigators not because of the brutality—though it was extreme—but because of the organization, calculation, and chilling double life Kraft maintained.
This was not a killer driven by sudden rage or chaos. This was someone who measured, planned, recorded. Someone who kept a coded log of human lives. Someone who blended into society with unsettling ease.
His crimes exposed vulnerabilities in law enforcement coordination across counties and states—issues that California has since worked to correct.
And somewhere in the shadows of the freeway system, families still wait for closure.
Sources used:
- Wikipedia contributors. Randy Steven Kraft. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randy_Kraft
- Orange County Sheriff’s Department. Forensic History: Evidence That Helped Build the Case Against Randy Kraft. https://www.ocsheriff.gov
- Police1.com. The Serial Killer Who Escaped Notoriety: Inside the Crimes of the Scorecard Killer. https://www.police1.com
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