Tracy Walker

Tracy Walker (born 1964) is an American serial killer who murdered three homeless people in Rancho Dominguez, California, from 2020 to 2021. Having previously been incarcerated for a 1991 voluntary manslaughter conviction, Walker later pleaded guilty to the murders and was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Early life Walker was born in 1964 in Mississippi, growing up in an impoverished household. His mother frequently cohabited with various men and gave birth to seven other boys from different fathers. Unable to afford tuition, Walker dropped out of school in the late 1970s and began working in manual labor, often changing jobs. Immediately after committing the killing, Walker attempted to flee in a school bus, managing to drive several blocks away from the crime scene, but was soon stopped by police officers on San Pedro Street.

Vagrancy Soon after his release, he returned to Los Angeles, where he lived as a vagrant for the next two decades. During this period, he changed residences frequently, slept in homeless shelters or on the streets, and was forced to work in manual labor due to his lack of education. At different times, he is known to have worked as a cleaner, security guard, or laborer. He had no relations with his relatives or ex-wife, who divorced him in the mid-1990s after his conviction and moved out of state. The youngest of four siblings, Loeza was raised in South Los Angeles after her father was deported to Mexico in 2003. As a high school student, she began abusing drugs, ran away from home, and began to live as a vagrant. During this period, she lived with a group of fellow homeless people on the streets of Los Angeles, gave birth to a son from an unknown father, and was arrested several times, spending time in the county jail. She had no contact with family members between 2016 and 2019.

Upon learning that the officers had discovered what was in the storage unit, Walker made a plea deal with the District Attorney's Office. In exchange for them dropping the death penalty, he would explain what happened and how he committed the murders. In his confessions, Walker alleged that Loeza, whom he supposedly mistook for a male gang member, broke into his tent and stole several items while he was absent, but when he came back and caught her stealing, he decided to teach her a lesson and subsequently stabbed her to death.

In regards to the Jones murder, Walker claimed that he killed the man after he caught him using a bolt cutter to cut the wire on his bicycle lock in an attempt to steal it. Walker said that before going to bed, he tied the bicycle to his tent so he could feel even the slightest of movements, and after noticing Jones was attempting to run away with his bicycle, the two engaged in a scuffle in which Walker stabbed Jones in the chest and tried to break his neck. During the struggle, Jones supposedly bit him on the left hand, after which Walker used the bolt cutter to bludgeon him to death. He claimed that he threw the knife into some nearby bushes and hid the bolt cutter in the storage room.

The final murder, that of Mazariegos, Walker claimed to have committed in self-defense, supposedly on the grounds that the victim had attempted to rob him at gunpoint with a TEC-9. Walker claimed that he noticed by the way the man was holding the gun that he was unfamiliar with it, and using his advantage of being 6'1" and weighing 360 pounds, he rushed at Mazariegos, took the gun, and then beat him to death. His testimony was questioned, but during further questioning, he partially confirmed it with some evidence. To do so, he pointed out where he had buried the gun, with detectives finding a gun matching the one described by Walker at the exact spot. Once examined, it was found that Mazariegos' fingerprints were on it.

As six cellphones and several IDs in other people's names were found among Walker's belongings, it was initially believed that he may have committed more murders, despite him insisting that he had only committed three. In the following months, a number of forensic tests were conducted in an attempt to locate the owners of the cellphones, but this proved unsuccessful as the devices were either too old or too badly damaged. On the other hand, a check of the IDs showed that all the owners were still alive. As a result, it was assumed that Walker likely had not committed any other killings besides the ones he had already been connected to. It was established that some of the stolen items belonged to his murder victims, which prosecutors presented as trophies that he had taken from "battle" and "warfare."

Trial and imprisonment Walker's trial began in the fall of 2021. On September 16, he pleaded guilty to all charges, and on October 18, he was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after serving 110 years in prison.