For police officers, there is no such thing as a typical day at the office. One day, an officer might spend the day handing out speeding tickets, and the next, they might help get a murderer off the streets.
On June 2, 1985, San Francisco police officers were notified of a theft at a local hardware store. While they were filling out a police report, a conversation with another customer tipped the officers off that they weren’t just dealing with a typical petty theft…
A Theft
On the afternoon of June 2, 1985, police officers were called to a San Francisco hardware store after a man was caught shoplifting. The man fled the scene, but officers on duty were sent to the store to get a description of the thief and file a police report.
A New Suspect
While police were at the hardware store taking down details of the theft, a man who identified himself as Robin Stapley attempted to pay for the vice that had been stolen. However, police officers started getting suspicious when they asked to see the man’s driver’s license…
Red Flags
The ID belonged to Robin Stapley, a man that had been reported to the police as missing just a few weeks earlier. But the man in the store looked nothing like the real Robin Stapley. And when the police checked the registration on the man’s car, they discovered it belonged to Paul Cosner, a man who went missing in November 1984.
An Arrest Is Made
The police started to get the feeling that something bigger was going on than just a petty theft. The police began searching the mystery man’s car, and arrested him on the spot when they discovered a gun that had a silencer in the trunk of the car…
The Mystery Man
Once back at the police station, detectives were determined to figure out the man’s real identity. After taking his fingerprints, they found a match in the system that belonged to Leonard Thomas Lake, which matched the name that the car’s license plate was registered under.
Who Is Leonard Lake?
It was obvious to police that Lake had gone to great lengths to keep his true identity hidden from them. Now that they knew his real name, it was time to figure out who Leonard Lake really was, what he was trying to hide, and if he had any connection to the missing men whose identities he has stolen…
Early Years
Lake was born on October 29, 1945 in San Francisco, California. When he was 6 years old, Lake’s parents separated and he and his siblings were sent to live with their grandmother. Lake was described as a bright child, but he would collect small animals like mice and dissolve them in chemicals.
Deviant Behavior
As a boy, Lake began taking naked photos of his sisters, which his grandmother allegedly encouraged, and threatened them in order to make them perform sexual acts on him. After graduating Balboa High School, however, it seemed Lake had moved on from his deviant past…
Joining The Armed Forces
Immediately after high school, Lake enlisted in the Marine Corps. He served 2 tours in the Vietnam war as a radar-electronics technician. During those years of service, he was diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder and received psychotherapy after a delusional breakdown.
Medical Discharge
Because of his mental state, Lake was medically discharged and sent home in 1971. A few months after moving back to California, Lake moved to a commune in San Francisco and got married in 1975. Not long after, Lake’s first wife found out he was filming and starring in sadomasochistic porn and left him…
A Second Marriage
For the next 8 years, Lake lived in a settlement on a 5,600-acre ranch in northern California. During his time there, Lake met and married Claralyn Balazsm. Together, they started making pornographic movies and his obsession with porn intensified.
A Fellow Marine
In 1984, Lake invited Charles Ng, a friend he had met a few years before through a war gamer magazine advertisement he placed, to live with him and Claralyn. Ng was a fellow Marine and had just served time in Marine Corps jail for weapons theft and desertion after he was dishonorably discharged…
Fantasy Becomes Reality
Soon after, Claralyn left Lake because of his increasingly strange behavior and obsession with porn, but allowed Lake and Ng to continue renting her cabin, which Lake had built a dungeon next to. With Claralyn out of the picture, the 2 men’s twisted sex and torture fantasies started coming to life.
The Killing Spree Begins
Over the following year, Lake and Ng abducted Lonnie Bond, his girlfriend Brenda O’Connor, and their infant son Lonnie Jr. Lake and Ng later abducted another couple Harvey and Deborah Dubs, and their son Sean. In both cases, Lake and Ng killed the men and babies right away but kept the women alive to rape, torture, and film them. When they grew tired of the women, they were either killed or left to die from the injuries they sustained from being tortured…
Other Victims
Lake and Ng also abducted and murdered many of the couple’s friends or families that came looking for them, 2 gay men, and some of Ng’s colleagues. By that point, Lake had also murdered his own brother and his friend Charles Gunnar to steal their money and their identities.
The Killing Spree Comes To An End
Lake and Ng had no intention of stopping their killing and torture spree, but it came to a sudden end when Ng was caught stealing a vice from a local hardware store on June 2, 1985. Ng fled the scene, but Lake ended up being taken into custody because of the gun in his car and the stolen identity…
Lake’s Backup Plan
Once police figured out Lakes true identity, he knew it wouldn’t be long before they searched his home. Lake gave up his partner’s name and then swallowed cyanide pills that he had sewn into the collar of his shirt. Lake died 4 days later, and by that point, Ng was long gone.
Uncovering The Truth
While searching for Ng, investigators went to the cabin the 2 men shared and found the dungeon, a burial site containing 40 pounds of burned and crushed human bones, video footage of the attacks, and countless weapons. Police also discovered a treasure map, which lead them to 2 buried 5-gallon buckets full of the victims’ personal belongings…
The Charges
Based on all the evidence at the cabin, investigators suspect Lake and Ng were responsible for the deaths of 11 to 25 men, women, and children. By that point, Ng had made his way across the border into Canada but was caught stealing yet again. Eventually, Ng was extradited to California to face the 12 counts of first-degree murder that he had been charged with.
The Verdict
Ng tried to argue that he had only observed the murders, rapes, and tortures but none of the evidence supported him. “Mr. Ng was not under any duress, nor does the evidence support that he was under the domination of Leonard Lake,” the judge said. Ultimately, jurors found Ng guilty of 11 of the 12 murders. Today, Ng is still on death row at San Quentin State Prison.
Police Arrest Former Marine After His Treasure Map Leads Them To A Disturbing Discovery is an article from: LifeDaily