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Police: Man confessed to killing five women

He, second suspect were wearing tracking anklets

The Columbian
Published: November 25, 2014, 12:00am

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Steven Dean Gordon spent hours methodically telling a police detective how he and an accomplice randomly chose five women to rape, strangle and throw into trash bins.

He grew agitated when the detective failed to ask about the women in the order in which they were killed, according to a grand jury transcript unsealed Monday.

During the 13½ hours of interrogation, Gordon told Anaheim police Detective Julissa Trapp that there was one victim that she didn’t know about. He also referred to a picture in a local newspaper article about a string of missing women, Trapp told the grand jury.

“He would actually stop me and tell me he wanted to talk about them in order,” Trapp said. “I mean, he had actually rearranged the photographs I had shown him and put them in order.”

The grand jury returned four murder and rape indictments against Gordon, 45, and co-defendant Frank Cano, 28. The fifth victim described by Gordon has never been identified.

The crimes, carried out in Orange County during a five-month period ending in March, attracted widespread attention when it was revealed that the suspects, both convicted sex offenders who were homeless, were wearing electronic tracking anklets.

Gordon told police he picked up the women in his car while Cano hid in the back seat and overpowered them when they got in. The women were raped behind an Anaheim paint and body shop where Gordon and Cano camped.

Cano strangled the women and Gordon punched them in the stomach “to get the air out faster,” Trapp told the grand jury.

Gordon and Cano have pleaded not guilty.

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