Detectives ID Fifth Victim In Orange County Killing Spree
ANAHEIM (CBSLA.com) – Authorities have identified a 19-year-old Compton woman believed to be the fifth victim of an Orange County serial killing spree.
Anaheim police reported Thursday that Sable Pickett is believed to have been abducted by Steven Gordon and Franc Cano on Feb. 14, 2014, in the Beach Boulevard area and murdered that same evening.
Pickett's body has not been recovered, however. Detectives did not identify Pickett as a victim of the killing spree until last week. Police did not disclose how they linked Pickett to Gordon and Cano.
"We found out Sable was a victim of the serial killers that were in Anaheim," Sable's grandmother Michelle Malveaux told CBS2 Thursday.
In December, the 47-year-old Gordon was convicted in the murders of 21-year-old Jarrae Nykkole Estepp, 20-year-old Kianna Jackson, 34-year-old Josephine Vargas and 28-year-old Martha Anaya. In February, he was sentenced to death.
Only Estepp's body has been found. That discovery led to multiple clues tying Gordon and Cano to the other killings, prosecutors said in Gordon's trial.
Jackson went missing Oct. 6, 2013. Vargas was reported missing Oct. 24, 2013. Anaya went missing Nov. 12, 2013. Police allege Gordon and Cano kidnapped their victims and killed all of them at the same location.
Cano, meanwhile, remains lodged in the Orange County Jail awaiting his own trial in the murders. His next court hearing is scheduled for May.
Gordon and Cano are convicted sex offenders. Probation and parole officials came under fire in the case because the two defendants, who actually cut off their GPS monitoring devices and left the state at one point, were supposed to be monitored, but authorities did not seem to notice they were associating with each other, which is typically a violation.
