Lester Ford

Last updated
Lester Ford
Born (1963-02-11) February 11, 1963 (age 61)
St. Albans, Queens, New York, U.S.
Other names"Justice"
Criminal status Incarcerated
Conviction(s) Second degree murder (3 counts)
First degree rape
Criminal penalty40 years to life in prison
Details
Victims3
Span of crimes
January 6 –July 25, 1991
CountryUnited States
State(s) New York
Date apprehended
July 26, 1991
Imprisoned at Elmira Correctional Facility

Lester Ford (born February 11, 1963) is an American convicted serial killer and serial rapist who strangled three women in Queens, New York, between January and July 1991. [1] He was arrested and pled guilty to three counts of second degree murder, receiving life in prison with a minimum of 40 years served. He has been incarcerated at the Elmira Correctional Facility ever since.

Contents

Early life

Ford was born on February 11, 1963, in the neighborhood of St. Albans in Queens, among five other siblings. [2] In 1979, he was arrested after a botched drug deal, a crime for which he was later sent to prison and served ten years. [2] Released in 1989, he began living a quiet life in his native neighborhood. He was nicknamed by neighbors as "Justice". [1]

Murders

On January 6, 1991, Sheilda Dixon, a 36-year-old mother of two, dropped off her friend off at Gethsemane Baptist Church in Hollis Park. [3] While on her way home, she encountered Ford, who attacked her. He taped her mouth shut and strangled her to death, then dumped her body at Peters Park baseball field, where it was found on January 24. [1] Over a month later, on February 23, Ford strangled to death 28-year-old Tracy Covington, a former social worker, outside her home. [3] In March, police in Queens began investigating the killing after noticing similarities. This began speculation about a possible serial killer active in the city. [3]

Ford struck again on July 4, when he raped a 16-year-old girl in St. Albans, but did not kill her. On July 24, Ford attacked 20-year-old Sabrina Fost, who was eight months pregnant, as she was walking to a bus stop. [4] Ford raped and shot Fost in the face. She did not die immediately and was rushed to the hospital, where she successfully delivered her baby Brian. Hours later, however, Dixon died of her injuries. [4] The day after attacking Dixon, Ford raped a 29-year-old woman, but did not kill her. [5]

Arrest and conviction

On July 26, 1991, Ford was arrested after being positively identified by one of the rape victims. [6] [7] He was charged with the rape, and was additionally charged with the three murders. [8] After his arrest, Ford's girlfriend confronted and beat one of Ford's surviving victims, threatening her if she testified. [9] She was arrested. In March 1992, Ford accepted a plea agreement, confessing to his crimes, and was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison. [1] He is serving his sentence at Elmira Correctional Facility.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phillip Carl Jablonski</span> American serial killer (1946-2019)

Phillip Carl Jablonski was an American serial killer and rapist convicted of killing five women in California and Utah between 1978 and 1991.

John Francis Duffy and David Mulcahy are two British serial rapists and serial killers who together attacked numerous women and children at railway stations in southern England during the 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Richard Cottingham</span> American serial killer (born 1946)

Richard Francis Cottingham is an American serial killer who was convicted in New York of six murders committed between 1972 and 1980 and convicted in New Jersey of twelve murders committed between 1967 and 1978. He was nicknamed by media as the Torso Killer and the Times Square Ripper, since some of the murders he was convicted of included mutilation.

Antoni Imiela was a German-born convicted serial rapist who grew up in County Durham, England. He was found guilty of the rape of nine women and girls, and the indecent assault, and attempted rape, of a 10-year-old girl whom he repeatedly punched and throttled. The crimes took place in Surrey, Kent, Berkshire, London, Hertfordshire and Birmingham, and the press dubbed the offender the M25 Rapist after the M25 motorway that passes in the vicinity of all those areas except Birmingham. He died in HM Prison Wakefield on 8 March 2018.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Altemio Sanchez</span> Serial killer and rapist

Altemio C. Sanchez, also known as the Bike Path Rapist, was a Puerto Rican serial killer who is known to have raped and murdered at least three women, and raped at least 9 to 15 girls and women in and around Buffalo, New York, during a 31-year span from 1975, though perhaps earlier, to 2006. He was apprehended in 2007 through DNA evidence and sentenced to 75 years-to-life, serving 16 years before dying from apparent suicide in 2023.

Henry Louis Wallace, also known as the “Taco Bell Strangler”, is an American serial killer who killed eleven black women in South Carolina and North Carolina from March 1990 to March 1994. He is currently awaiting execution at Central Prison in Raleigh.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lorenzo Gilyard</span> Convicted American serial killer

Lorenzo Jerome Gilyard Jr., known as The Kansas City Strangler, is an American serial killer. A former trash-company supervisor, Gilyard is believed to have raped and murdered at least 13 women and girls from 1977 to 1993. He was convicted of six counts of murder on March 16, 2007.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Benjamin Atkins</span> American serial killer

Benjamin Thomas Atkins , also known as The Woodward Corridor Killer, was an American serial killer and rapist who murdered, tortured, and raped 11 women in Highland Park and Detroit, Michigan, during a period of eight months between December 1991 and August 1992. He was apprehended after being arrested for rape charges and soon after he confessed to the murders. He was ultimately found guilty and given several life sentences in April 1994. He died from AIDS in 1997.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guy Georges</span> French serial killer (born 1962)

Guy Georges is a French serial killer and serial rapist, dubbed le tueur de l'Est Parisien or The Beast of the Bastille. He was convicted on 5 April 2001, of murdering seven women between 1991 and 1997. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 22 years.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Floyd Thomas Jr.</span> Convicted American serial killer

John Floyd Thomas Jr. is an American serial killer, serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for the murders of seven white women in the Los Angeles area during the 1970s and 1980s. Police suspect Thomas committed 10 to 15 more murders.

Colette Aram was a 16-year-old British trainee hairdresser who was abducted, raped and strangled as she walked from her home to her boyfriend's house in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, on 30 October 1983. The murder was the first case to be featured on the BBC television series Crimewatch when it began in June 1984. However, despite receiving over 400 calls as a result of the programme, Nottinghamshire Police were unable to catch the killer, and it was not until 2008 and following advances in forensic technology that police were able to develop a DNA profile of the suspect. Paul Stewart Hutchinson was finally charged with the murder in April 2009. He initially pleaded not guilty, but changed his plea to guilty on 21 December 2009 and was sentenced to life imprisonment on 25 January 2010. Following his sentencing, Crimewatch ran a recap of the murder and investigation on BBC TV on 27 January 2010 exposing several inaccuracies reported in the press about his background, notably a lie about being a psychology graduate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roger Kibbe</span> American serial killer (1939–2021)

Roger Reece Kibbe was an American serial killer and rapist known as the "I-5 Strangler". Kibbe found all but one of his victims on freeways around Sacramento, California. In 1991, he was sentenced to 25 years to life imprisonment for the death of Darcie Frackenpohl.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">CeCe Moore</span> American genetic genealogist (born 1969)

CeCe Moore is an American genetic genealogist who has been described as the country's foremost such entrepreneur. She has appeared on many TV shows and worked as a genetic genealogy researcher for others such as Finding Your Roots. She has reportedly helped law enforcement agencies in identifying suspects in over 300 cold cases using DNA and genetic genealogy. In May 2020, she began appearing in a prime time ABC television series called The Genetic Detective in which each episode recounts a cold case she helped solve. In addition to her television work, she is known for pioneering the genetic genealogy methodologies used by adoptees and others of unknown origin for identifying biological family.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel Little</span> American serial killer (1940–2020)

Samuel Little was an American serial killer who confessed to murdering 93 people, nearly all women, between 1970 and 2005. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)'s Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCAP) has confirmed Little's involvement in at least 60 of the 93 confessed murders, the largest number of confirmed victims for any serial killer in United States history.

Vladimir Ivanovich Romanov, known as The Kaliningrad Maniac, was a Soviet-Russian serial killer and child rapist. Between 1991 and 2005, he committed at least 12 murders associated with rape.

Edward M. Mayrand Jr. (1947–2011) was an American serial killer and rapist who strangled three women in New England between 1983 and 1994. Convicted of the 1994 murder of Patricia Paquette in Providence, Rhode Island, he died in prison from lung cancer before he could be charged with two other deaths in Massachusetts and New Hampshire, to which he was posthumously linked via DNA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anthony McKnight</span> American serial killer and rapist

Anthony McKnight was an American serial killer, rapist, kidnapper, and sex offender who killed five women and assaulted five others in Oakland, California, over a period of five months in late 1985 and early 1986. In 2008, he was found guilty of these murders and sentenced to death, but died awaiting execution in 2019.

Arohn Kee, known as The East-Harlem Rapist, is an American serial killer and serial rapist who was responsible for four rapes and at least three murders of teenaged girls in different street blocks of East Harlem, located in Manhattan, New York City from 1991 to 1998.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jerome Dennis (serial killer)</span> American serial killer

Jerome Dennis is an American serial killer and kidnapper who abducted and sexually assaulted seven women and young girls in Essex County, New Jersey, from late 1991 to early 1992, killing five. At the time of the murders, he was on parole for a prior rape conviction. After his arrest, Dennis pleaded guilty and was later sentenced to life imprisonment in 1993.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Steven Washington</span> American serial killer (1948–2004)

Steven Washington Jr. was an American serial killer who was sentenced to life in prison for the murders of three elderly women in St. Petersburg, Florida. Dubbed the Window-Screen Rapist by the press, Washington's crimes were committed between August and December 1963 when he was only 15 years old, which makes him one of the youngest serial killers in history. He died while in prison 2004.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Jack Leahy (March 30, 1992). "40 years for murderer-rapist". Daily News.
  2. 1 2 James Dao (July 29, 1991). "Queens kill spree over?". Daily News.
  3. 1 2 3 Gary Raynaldo & Toula Vlahou (March 2, 1991). "A Queens strangler?". Daily News.
  4. 1 2 Ruth Landa (September 8, 1991). "Baby beats odds". Daily News.
  5. ↑ "Cloaking the Truth In Nighttime Rides". New York Newsday. July 29, 1991. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
  6. ↑ "A nightmare ends in Queens". Daily News. July 30, 1991. Retrieved May 10, 2022.
  7. ↑ Russell Ben-Ali & Beth Holland (July 29, 1991). "Murder Suspect Found". Daily News.
  8. ↑ Russell Ben-Ali & Beth Holland (July 29, 1991). "Charged in 3 Murders". Daily News.
  9. ↑ Patrice O'Shaughnessy (July 31, 1991). "Rape case witness threatened: cops". Daily News.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.