JUSTICE DELAYED / DNA EVIDENCE FREES ONE MAN, POINTS TO ANOTHER IN 1979 CASE : Bringing Back Memories of 17-Year-Old Crimes

Recently engaged, 17-year-old Sandra Fry was flirting with adulthood and independence when she moved into an Anaheim apartment with a close girlfriend and started mapping out her wedding plans.

Three days later, on Dec. 1, 1978, Fry’s bludgeoned body was found in her bedroom.

On Friday, prosecutors announced that suspected serial killer Gerald Parker, 41, formerly of Santa Ana, reputed to be the “Bludgeon Killer” who terrorized Orange County in the late 1970s, would be charged with the murder and rape of Fry and the killing of five others.

But for the Fry family, the arrest does little to heal their pain.

“All these years we’ve been haunted by little demons,” said Thomas Fry, still reeling from the news that authorities believe they caught his little sister’s killer after so many years. “We’re struggling.”

Like the rest of the victims, Fry was a young woman, alone. Police say that’s all Parker cared about as he searched for victims during his 1978-79 spree. For nearly 20 years, the killings remained a mystery, along with several other brutal attacks that authorities now suspect Parker might have committed.

A former El Toro Marine, Parker remains in custody on an unrelated crime and will be brought to Orange County to stand trial for the killings.

With news of each attack, Orange County residents grew ever more fearful, especially in Costa Mesa, Tustin and Anaheim, where most of the murders occurred. The sale of locks and guns skyrocketed in those areas and others. Many residents said they planned to move because they no longer felt safe in their homes.

In most of the attacks for which Parker is charged, the victims were raped or there was evidence of an attempted sexual assault. In several cases the apartments were burglarized. The attacks took place in areas that Parker could easily access when he took his van for trips off the El Toro Marine Corps Air Station, officials said.

The assailant would creep through bathroom windows or open doors, waiting until his targets were alone.

Police and prosecutors say Parker killed Fry first. Next came Kimberly Gaye Rawlins, 21, a shipping clerk who was beaten to death April 1, 1979, in Costa Mesa. A widow, Marolyn Kay Carleton, was killed five months later on September 14, 1979. Her 9-year-old son made the grisly discovery in their Costa Mesa apartment.

Two weeks later, Sept. 30, 1979, authorities believe Parker entered the Tustin apartment of Kevin and Dianna Green shortly after Kevin Green left home to get dinner at a fast-food restaurant.

When Green returned, he found his pregnant wife--the birth two weeks overdue--beaten over the head.

Dianna Green, 20, lost her fetus later that day. The homemaker was in a coma for a month. She suffered brain damage and significant memory loss but during her recovery insisted that her husband had caused her injuries. Her testimony in Orange County Superior Court easily swayed the jury.

On Friday, Dianna Green, who now uses her given name D’Aiello, said she didn’t know what to think about allegations that her ex-husband is innocent, and that her testimony helped keep him in prison for so many years.

“I’m just trying to get through all this,” she said quietly in a brief interview.

Several days after Green’s attack, on Oct. 7, 1979, Debora Kennedy was murdered during a burglary and attempted rape. A 24-year-old model, Kennedy’s body was found by her two roommates--her sister Yvette and another female friend--who had gone away for the weekend.

The killing of Debra Lynn Senior, 17, appears to have occurred next. She was a recent high school graduate who had gone to a party with her roommate on Oct. 20, 1979, and returned home alone to their Costa Mesa apartment.

Senior had taken the precaution of locking her doors, but the killer entered her apartment through a bathroom window. She was bludgeoned.

There were at least two other women raped and murdered during that time span. Authorities are reviewing old, unsolved cases to see if Parker might be a suspect.

Police also suspect Parker in several nonfatal attacks, including one on Jan Pettengill, who was permanently disfigured and speaks with an implanted voice box after a July 1979 attack in her Costa Mesa apartment. But there is no hope her assailant will be brought to justice: the statute of limitations for an assault charge ran out long ago.

Families of the victims and investigators involved in the cases sought to come to terms with Parker’s arrest.

Anaheim Police Sgt. Steve Rodig, the first officer to arrive at the scene of Fry’s murder, said that over the years investigators routinely reopened the unsolved murder case in the hopes of finding the killer of the young teenager.

“This was a case in which we had no consequential leads,” Rodig said. “It’s really strange how now it’s almost come full circle.”

On Friday, Thomas Fry, a former Orange County resident who now lives in Las Vegas, could only think about the missed opportunity to see his sister one last time. The brother and his mother had planned to visit Sandra at her new apartment on the day of the murder--but Sandra didn’t want them to see the place until it was fixed just right.

Fry said the family must now struggle to put their nightmare behind them--and hope that Parker’s capture will help.

“Now we can put all those wandering thoughts aside, find some tentative closure and hope that this individual will pay the ultimate punishment.”

Also contributing to this report was Times staff writer Greg Hernandez.