A 70-year-old convicted serial killer from Lake Elsinore has confessed to another murder in Southern California, ending a decades-old cold case, authorities announced Tuesday.
William Lester Suff, known as the “Riverside Hooker Killer” and the “Lake Elsinore Killer,” confessed to killing 19-year-old Cathy Small in 1986, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department homicide Lt. Patricia Thomas said at a news conference. Suff also admitted to other murders in Riverside County, but authorities did not immediately provide details about those cases. He is currently on death row at San Quentin.
According to authorities, Suff's murders date back to the 1970s and '80s, when Los Angeles was known as the serial killer capital of the United States. In 1974, he was convicted in Texas of killing his 2-month-old daughter and was sentenced to 70 years in prison. But in 1984, he was paroled in California, Thomas said.
On Feb. 22, 1986, South Pasadena police responded to a report of a woman lying on Banks Street, Thomas said. The woman was wearing a nightgown and was unconscious with multiple stab wounds; she was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy determined she had been stabbed and strangled to death.
Three days later, detectives received a call from a Lake Elsinore resident who saw a newspaper article about the homicide and was concerned that the woman was his roommate, according to authorities. The caller later identified the victim as Cathy Small, 19, a prostitute who had been living with him in his home for a few months.
The man told detectives that Small left the home on Feb. 21 and told him a man named Bill would pick her up and give her $50 to drive with him to Los Angeles, Thomas said.
Detectives followed several leads over the decades but never solved the case. Authorities later discovered that a sexual assault kit from the case and Small's clothing were never tested for DNA; on August 20, 2020, DNA analysis linked the case to two men. One of them was Suff.
When questioned by detectives in 2022, Suff said he worked at a computer repair shop and lived in Riverside County in 1986. One day, Small went to the repair shop and gave her his home phone number. He called her and asked if she could accompany him to see his boss in Pasadena.
When they arrived at the location on Banks Street, the two began arguing and Suff became enraged when she knocked his glasses off his face, Thomas said. Suff pulled a knife from his car and stabbed her multiple times in the chest. He then pushed her into the street and drove off.
Suff would remain free until he was arrested during a routine traffic stop in 1992 and eventually confessed to a dozen other murders in Riverside County between 1989 and 1991 and was sentenced to death.
Suff is not expected to stand trial for Small's murder because he is already on death row, authorities said.
“We believe we are bringing a long-awaited sense of justice and closure to the victim and her family,” Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said at Tuesday's news conference.
Small had two young children and was trying to get her life back on track when she was killed, according to a statement from Small's younger sister that Thomas read at the news conference.
“She was a loving mother and a good daughter,” the statement said. “She had a big heart and would do anything for anyone.”
