Santa Ana, California -
One of two registered sex offenders charged with raping and killing four California women confessed to a police detective after his arrest earlier this year, testimony from a grand jury transcript unsealed on Monday revealed.
Steven Dean Gordon, 45, also told police that he and co-defendant Frank Cano killed a fifth woman who has never been identified.
The confession by Gordon came during an interview that lasted more than 13 hours the day after his arrest, police detective Julissa Trapp told the grand jury.
The grand jury returned four murder and rape indictments against Gordon, 45, and co-defendant Frank Cano, 28.
Both defendants have pleaded not guilty.
Phone and email messages left for Cano's attorney, Houman Fakhimi, and Gordon's attorney, Denise Gragg, were not immediately returned.
The crimes, carried out in during a five-month period ending in March, attracted widespread attention when it was revealed that the suspects, both convicted sex offenders who were homeless, were wearing electronic tracking anklets.
In her testimony about Gordon's interview, Trapp said he began by saying Cano didn't know of Gordon's plans to strangle the women. But by the end of the interview, Gordon said Cano had strangled each woman while Gordon punched them in the stomach to “get the air out faster”.
The women were then washed, stripped of their clothes and placed in a Dumpster.
The body of the final woman killed, 21-year-old Jarrae Nykkole Estepp of Oklahoma, was found on a conveyor belt at a trash-recycling plant but the bodies of the other three have never been found. The fifth woman, referenced by Gordon in the interview, has not been identified and the two are not charged in her death.
The two were arrested on April 11 after Estepp's body was found the month before.
Police believe Cano and Gordon have known each other since at least 2010, when Cano cut off his GPS device and fled to Alabama, where he was arrested with Gordon. - Sapa-AP