Adolph Laudenberg

Adolph Theodore Laudenberg (June 13, 1926 – June 26, 2015), known as The Santa Strangler, was an American serial killer who murdered three women in the San Pedro neighborhood of Los Angeles and one in San Francisco during the 1970s, and is the prime suspect for another two similar murders. Despite telling two daughters-in-law, decades apart, that he had committed four murders, he was only arrested in 2002, after DNA evidence connected him to the crimes. He was convicted of one murder and sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.

Early life Adolph Laudenberg was born in Lexington, Kentucky, in 1926, to a German immigrant butcher and his wife, who died a few years after his birth. At some point, he took up whittling unique walking canes made from salvaged wood and manzanita shrubs, which he would either give away or sell for $10 on the street. Catherine Medina (50)—On August 18, 1974, Medina was discovered in a local San Pedro bar by her husband, who forced her out after an argument. As the couple walked home, the drunk Catherine ran away and jumped into the van of an unidentified man, which sped off. The following day, her nude body was found beside some bushes in Harbor Lake Recreational Park.

Suspected Irene Hind (55)—Hind was the owner of a San Francisco bar on Larkin Street called Irene's Domar Club. A generous woman who helped the people who frequented her place, she was found raped and strangled on March 12, 1974. Despite his statements declaring his innocence, he was found guilty of the Petrie killing and sentenced to life imprisonment.

The circumstances surrounding how the officers obtained the DNA sample raised some privacy issues, with police arguing that discarded items were considered public property, and therefore no legal permission was required to get a sample. The appellate court upheld the conviction, rejecting Laudenberg's argument that the expectation was that a restaurant employee would have thrown the cup out.