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Saturday, November 07, 1998
Trucker linked to slain LV prostitute
A Las Vegas prostitute is identified as one of four women a former valley cabby has admitted killing.
By Glenn Puit
Review-Journal
A California truck driver who authorities say implicated himself in a grotesque serial killing spree is suspected of picking up a Las Vegas prostitute, killing her during sex then dumping her body in the California Aqueduct.
Las Vegas officials also confirmed Friday that Wayne Adam Ford, 36, of Arcata is a former North Las Vegas cabdriver who lived in eastern Las Vegas for at least a year. Ford's ex-wife and 2-year-old son live in the Las Vegas Valley.
The tall, bearded man who has been described by many as unremarkable in both appearance and ambition used to live in an apartment on Palm Street, near Charleston Boulevard and Pecos Road. Las Vegas police said he last lived in the valley in late 1996, but couldn't provide further details.
Authorities reported Thursday that Ford, who as a trucker hauled lumber and other commerce throughout California, walked into the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department on Tuesday and told deputies he had killed four women in California. To prove it, Ford pulled from his pocket a plastic bag that contained a woman's severed breast, then confessed to killing the women believed to be drifters, prostitutes or hitchhikers, they said.
Las Vegas police Homicide Lt. Wayne Petersen said one of the victims Ford claims to have killed is 26-year-old Tina Gibbs, a Tacoma, Wash., native who was working as a street prostitute in Las Vegas in the months before her disappearance. Ford told detectives Gibbs was soliciting in Las Vegas when he picked her up on an unknown date, possibly in April or May.
On June 2, a fisherman found Gibbs' nude body floating in the aqueduct west of the small farming community of Buttonwillow, off state Highway 58 in Kern County. The body had been in the water for two to five days.
Kern County, Calif., sheriff's Sgt. Glenn Johnson said Ford told investigators he picked Gibbs up on Tropicana Avenue in Las Vegas, then paid her for sex.
"They had consensual sex for money, and during a bout of rough sex she died," Johnson said Friday. "The rough sex consisted of bondage and ligatures.
"After she died he kept her in the truck for a couple of days, and while driving from the Las Vegas area through Kern County he decided to dispose of the body," Johnson said.
Investigators believe Ford dumped the body into the aqueduct from a bridge. Ford wasn't sure of the exact dates or locations. A specific motive also is not known.
"We don't know if she died while being restrained or if she died during what he described as rough sex," Johnson said. "By the time we talked to him he had already been interviewed by a couple of different agencies and he was pretty much matter-of-fact about the whole thing. He wasn't remorseful, he was just talking like you and I are, very matter-of-fact."
Johnson said investigators haven't ruled out the possibility that Gibbs' death was an accident, although such a scenario would seem unlikely given the number of women Ford claims to have killed. Ligature marks were found on Gibbs' neck.
"He didn't really have a specific reason for why she died," Johnson continued. "It may be a passive way for him to say `I killed her,' or it's also possible she died because of the restraints.
"His patterns indicate he was a disorganized predator who didn't really plan out what he was going to do. He also didn't offer a reason as to why he kept the body."
Ford was arraigned Friday on a first-degree murder charge in the case of a still-unidentified torso. His court-appointed attorney entered an innocent plea for him. The next hearing was scheduled for Thursday. He is being held on $1 million bail.
Though he initially offered details on four slayings around California, investigators from across the West have been contacting Humboldt County law enforcement to see if Ford could shed any light on their unsolved deaths. Officials say Ford could be tied to two more slayings, but details have not been provided.
Friends and co-workers said Ford was unhappy since his wife, whose name was not immediately known, left him two years ago. The couple divorced in April. Ford has visitation rights to his son for one week every three months and alternating Christmases.
Ford told authorities he was turning himself in because of a guilty conscience, but he was actually talked into surrendering by his brother, San Bernardino Sheriff's Department spokeswoman Linda Whittaker said.
The arrest led officials to identifying the body of Patricia Anne Tamez, a 29-year-old Victorville, Calif., woman discovered two weeks ago in the aqueduct, near Interstate 15 outside Hesperia. San Bernardino County officials said the body was missing a breast.
Tamez may have been working as a prostitute at truck stops, officials said. A friend, Deborah Reck, said Tamez was an upper middle class college student who dropped out because she liked to party too much and was "really into crystal meth."
Investigators said Ford told them he killed and dismembered a woman whose torso was found in Ryan Slough near Eureka, Calif., in October 1997. Six or seven additional body parts of that unidentified victim were found based on information Ford provided, Humboldt County Sheriff Dennis Lewis said.
Ford also told San Joaquin County investigators that he picked up a woman in Ontario, in Southern California, and dumped her body off Interstate 5 near Lodi, 30 miles south of Sacramento. San Joaquin County sheriff's spokesman Mike Padilla identified the victim as 25-year-old Lanett White of Fontana, whose body was found Sept. 25.
Officials said Ford obtained a work card from Las Vegas police in 1996 and was at one time employed by North Las Vegas Cab Co. Company employees contacted by the Review-Journal either declined comment or said they did not remember Ford.
There were no records of arrests for Ford in Las Vegas or North Las Vegas, and detectives said they don't know exactly when Ford lived here.
Las Vegas investigators are reviewing old homicide and missing persons cases for possible Ford connections. So far, that search has proved fruitless.
"We don't have anything to indicate Ford would be a suspect in any of our unsolved cases," Petersen said.
When Las Vegas authorities first heard of Ford's arrest, his ties to Las Vegas and the nature of the crimes he claimed to have committed, detectives wondered if he could be tied to the 1995 Las Vegas case of a female torso found on a Silver State Disposal conveyor belt used in separating recyclables, Petersen said.
"Dismemberment homicides are extremely rare, but it doesn't appear the time frame (in the Silver State case) fits," Petersen said.
Las Vegas and Kern County authorities said little is known about Gibbs. She was arrested at least seven times in Las Vegas, mostly for prostitution. She was arrested on charges of interfering with a police officer, traffic violations, trespassing and violating court orders. Las Vegas Vice Lt. Terry Davis said Gibbs was known to work mostly in downtown Las Vegas.
Johnson said authorities in Kern County contacted Gibbs' family in Washington and were told she had been living a high-risk lifestyle for several years.
"Her family and acquaintances said she was a prostitute and had been prostituting in the Vegas area for a while," Johnson said. "Other than that, we don't know an awful lot about her."
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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WAYNE ADAM FORD
TINA GIBBS
LANETT WHITE
PATRICIA ANNE TAMEZ
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