Anthony Sully

Anthony John Sully (January 2, 1944 – September 8, 2023) was an American serial killer and police officer responsible for the murders of six people between February and August 1983 at his warehouse in Burlingame, California. Sully placed some of the corpses of his victims in metal drums and poured concrete over them, after which he dumped them in Golden Gate Park. At least three people acted as his accomplices in the crimes. Sully was found guilty of the killings in July 1986, and was sentenced to death.

Early life Anthony John Sully was born on January 2, 1944, in San Francisco, California. He spent his childhood and adolescence in the city of Millbrae, where he graduated from a local high school. In the early 1960s, Sully met Elizabeth Ann, whom he married in 1965. After the wedding, he developed an interest in law enforcement, and Sully applied for a job with the police department in Millbrae, becoming a police officer the following year.

Murders In 1982, Sully met 32-year-old Tina Livingston, the owner of a local escort agency. One of the girls who worked for Livingston, 24-year-old Gloria Fravel, could not repay her $500 debt, and then tried to escape. In early February 1983, Livingston and another sex worker, 23-year-old Keli "Angel" Burns, located Fravel in San Francisco and then took her to Sully's warehouse in Burlingame. When all three arrived at the warehouse, Sully offered to have sex with Fravel, which she refused. He then proceeded to beat the girl and took her to the back of the warehouse, where he handcuffed her and hung her from the ceiling. For the next two days, he kept Fravel in the warehouse, where he tortured and sexually assaulted her, while Livingston and Burns were in another part of the hangar. During one of the torture sessions, Sully tied a hangman's knot and hung it around her neck. Thomas had a criminal record for robbery and drug possession dating back to 1977, while Melendez was a prostitute who had been arrested for prostitution on five occasions in 1982.

Sully's next victim was 22-year-old Barbara Searcy, an ex-girlfriend. In August 1983, he called the girl with an offer to meet and give her financial assistance, to which she agreed. After Searcy entered the hangar, she was shot in the back of the head with his revolver. Soon after, Sully gave all of her clothes and personal belongings to Livingston, as payment for the latter to go into Searcy's apartment and erase the message left on her answering machine telling her to come over to his place, but Livingston was unable to enter the apartment. In October 1983, Anthony Sully was charged with the six murders, but pleaded not guilty on all counts. on the basis of which, just twelve days later, he was sentenced to death. After the announcement of the verdict, Sully made a 40-minute speech professing his innocence.

His main accomplice, Tina Livingston, accepted a plea deal with the San Mateo County Attorney's Office: in exchange for a lighter sentence, she would act as a key witness for the prosecution and give detailed testimony on each case, for which she would be charged with negligent homicide. Livingston was convicted in the summer of 1986 and sentenced to three years imprisonment, but was released with time served as, by the time of the court decision, she had been imprisoned since her arrest in August 1983.

Michael Francis continued to serve his sentence at the High Desert State Prison. He became eligible for parole in 2004 and has been denied several times due to repeated rule infractions and violations while incarcerated, including a 1997 conviction for assaulting a fellow inmate. He waived his right to a parole hearing in 2020 and was automatically denied parole for five years as a result.

Sully's other imprisoned accomplice, Keli Burns, was granted parole and released at the end of 2016, after spending more than 33 years in prison.

Death Prior to his death, Sully suffered from an unspecified form of cancer and had been in declining health. Sully died of natural causes at a medical facility on the morning of September 8, 2023, at the age of 79.

The morning of Sully's death, the Marin County Coroner made an official notification by telephone to Kent Nielsen of Atascadero, California– the only person listed as an emergency contact. The coroner's phone call was followed by a formal visit by an Atascadero police officer.

Nielsen later told CBS News he and his wife, Debbie "DJ" Nielsen, had regularly visited Sully over the previous 20 years and exchanged hundreds of cards and letters during that period. Kent Nielsen met Sully in 1969 when Nielsen was 16 and worked at the Mobil service station in Millbrae that serviced patrol cars for the Millbrae police department. Sully was a 25-year-old Millbrae police officer at the time and the two became friends, but drifted apart after Sully left the police department in 1974.

Out of curiosity, Nielsen reconnected with Sully at San Quentin in 2002, but despite their many meetings over the next two decades, Nielsen never actually asked Sully why he committed the murders. In a story broadcast by CBS in November 2023, Nielsen said he was certain Sully would have told him everything and expressed some regret for not asking.