June 20, 2007

Exposed

A "CSI: Miami" Actress Crosses Paths With A Real Serial Killer

  • Video Lagattuta's Notebook

    Only On The Web: Bill Lagattuta talks about his upcoming "48 Hours" report, "Exposed," in which an actress on "CSI: Miami" crosses paths with a real serial killer.

    • William Richard Bradford

      William Richard Bradford  (CBS)

    • "CSI: Miami" actress Eva La Rue.  (CBS)

    •  (AP)

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(CBS)  Darlene Ricker, Bradford's lawyer on his federal death penalty appeal, is determined to help him win back his freedom.

Ricker says the evidence that Bradford killed Shari Miller and Tracy Campbell was circumstantial: he never confessed to their murders and his attorney did not present any defense.

Asked how she explains the fact that Bradford looked at the jury and said, "You have no idea how many others are out there," Ricker says, "I wasn’t there at the time. I surmise that Mr. Bradford was angry at the jury at that point and just kind of tossed up his hands and said, ‘You know what guys, you don’t believe me, do what you want with me now.’"

"When you hear him described as worse than the devil. Pure evil. What are you saying?" Lagatutta asks.

"I say he’s being described by people who haven’t met him," Ricker says.

But ex-wife Cindy Horton lived with Bradford for five years and she knows him all too well. "If you gave me a choice to be in the room with Charles Manson, Lucifer himself or Bill Bradford, I would rather be in a room with Lucifer and Charles Manson than Bill Bradford. I do believe that he is the devil. He is Satan himself," she says.

Cindy is one of four women who married Bradford. Each of his wives wound up on the sheriff’s poster; all are alive. Bradford also has five children. One of his daughters, 32-year-old Jodeen Larson, talked to 48 Hours.

"I remember him being a doting dad. Daddy’s little girl," she remembers.

She says Bradford was a good father - up to a point. "He loved to take photographs and we did that often. He was a good dad," Jodeen says.

But, Jodeen says, everything changed after Bradford was sent to prison and she visited him as a teenager. "All of a sudden, I had what those women had. He was so fixated on talking about it. You know? 'Show a little of this. Show a little of that.' You know, 'You're foxy, you're a foxy girl.' I, you know, you don't say that to your kid," she recalls.

Bradford’s reaction convinced Jodeen that there is a killer living inside her father and she cut him out of her life. "It just angers me that somebody can do what they do and have no remorse or regret. Damage families the way he did. He didn’t just damage them, he damaged us," Jodeen says.

Former D.A. Pam Bozanich knows the toll Bradford’s actions have taken. "The whole thing is so awful and so haunting and so disgusting but for the sake of all the families and for the sake of those lost souls, somebody has to keep this thing alive," she says.

Meanwhile, Sgt. Bobby Taylor's investigation is moving ahead. He and his partner Sgt. Fred Castro have even more work to do, with scores of additional Bradford photos only just rediscovered.

"Twenty-three additional women are going to be added and in addition to that we’re going to also publish nine photographs containing different individuals," Taylor explains.

With the new photographs, a new poster is created, and this poster features a belt buckle left beside an unidentified woman’s body found in the desert in June 1984, not far from Bradford’s killing field. That case remains open.

One of Bradford’s ex-wives recognized that belt buckle as Bradford’s. It’s a tantalizing lead.

But his attorney, Darlene Ricker, says she knows he is innocent.

Asked if it isn't possible that she was charmed by Bradford, like police say he charmed all of his victims," Ricker says, "I doubt it 'cause I am just not that naïve. I’m pretty good at judging whose conning me and who isn’t and he isn’t."

Bradford’s own daughter begs to disagree. "I fell sorry for the people that suffered," she says. "And if I could just reach out and say 'I’m sorry for your pain and your loss. I’m sorry for your suffering.'"

After the second poster was released to the public, 39 women have been identified. Dozens of others still have not been heard from.

Even if they only find two or three women, that’s two of three more families who know what happened to their loved ones and that’s what police do. They’re here to solve crime," says Bozanich.

And police vow to keep searching until they know who’s alive and who’s dead.



The L.A. County Sheriff’s Department is still trying to develop enough evidence to charge Bill Bradford with at least six additional murders.

Darlene Ricker has offered her resignation to the California Bar Association for actions unrelated to the Bradford case. She can no longer practice law.

Bradford has new attorneys seeking a new trial.


Produced By Paul LaRosa
©MMVI, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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