Billy Ray Waldon (N.I. Sequoyah)
 

Billy Waldon scarcely knew his mother. During 1957, at the tender age of five, he was delivered to his grandmother's care, and the older woman raised him as her own around Tahlequah, Oklahoma, teaching him the values that she hoped would guide his steps through life. Enlisting in the navy out of high school, Waldon had fourteen years of service behind him when he was discharged, as a first petty officer, in January 1985. One-quarter Cherokee, he was described by friends and neighbors as "a brilliant man" who "spent more time listening to others than talking about himself." If Waldon had a quirk, it was his fascination with the subject of AIDS, a compulsive quest for knowledge that encouraged some associates to think he might be homosexual.

The death of Waldon's grandmother, in 1985, appeared to be the trigger incident for an astounding, lethal shift in Billy's personality. A quiet, unassuming man by all accounts before her death, he changed dramatically in later weeks, like Mr. Hyde emerging from the passive Dr. Jekyll. With the change of seasons into autumn, Billy launched a one-man reign of terror that could claim four lives and leave at least eight other persons injured.

The rampage began in Tulsa, close to home. Police suspect that Waldon was the gunman who wounded an elderly man outside a neighborhood grocery store on October 10, 1985. The following day, they believe, he robbed three persons at a shopping mall, rebounding for an unsuccessful robbery attempt on October 15. Witnesses were hazy on descriptions of their assailant, but the crimes fit an emerging pattern, and there would be no doubt of Waldon's involvement in the next outbreak. Laying off a month from his activities, the phantom gunman surfaced on November 15, firing a single shot that grazed 20-year-old Cynthia Bellinger's skull outside her parents' Tulsa home. Two days later, Annabelle Richmond, age 54, was cut down by four .25-caliber bullets outside her apartment. The shooting continued in Broken Arrow, on November 23, when Waldon confronted Frank Hensley and Tammie Tvedt in a parking lot, demanding cash, wounding them both when they refused to pay up.

The heat was on in Tulsa, and Waldon fled west, presumably to visit his ex-wife and their two small children in Gardenia, California. Drifting into San Diego, refreshing old memories of his navy days, Billy picked up his crime spree where he had left off in Tulsa. By mid-December, he would be suspected of three rapes, five robberies, two burglaries, and one count of receiving stolen property.

On December 7, a gunman invaded the home of 42-year-old Dawn Ellerman, shooting her in the neck with a .25-caliber pistol, beating her dogs and locking them inside a bathroom, then setting the house on fire before he fled with a personal computer and other valuables. Erin Ellerman, 13, came home from babysitting to find the house in flames, and she died in a futile attempt to save her mother's life.

Two weeks later, on December 20, a masked man tried to rob a San Diego woman in a parking lot. Foiled in the attempt, he fled on foot, veering through a yard where two men were working on a car. Frustrated again in his attempt to steal the vehicle, the gunman killed Charles Wells, 59, and critically wounded John Copeland, 36, with a spray of .25-caliber bullets. Eluding 150 officers in a seven -hour manhunt, the killer still left traces of himself behind. Police recovered the Ellerman computer in an abandoned car registered to Billy Waldon, along with Waldon's military passport and other pieces of I.D.

Communication with police in Tulsa matched the murder slugs from San Diego with the Oklahoma shootings. On January 3, 1986, a federal warrant charged Waldon with unlawful flight to avoid prosecution for murder, attempted murder, robbery, burglary) rape, and arson. His name was added to the FBI's "Most Wanted" list on April 23. By that time, Billy had performed an eerie disappearing act. His latest stolen car, picked off a street December 20, had been discovered outside Tijuana on January 27. There was no other trace of the fugitive before June 16, when San Diego officers routinely stopped a car with a defective brake light. They had planned to let the driver off with a warning, but his face was familiar, and Waldon's use of the alias "Steven Midas" fooled no one at police headquarters.

Ordered to trial on multiple charges in San Diego, Waldon had truly run out of luck. Jailers discovered his effort to tunnel through a wall of his cell, and fellow inmates proved dangerous. On July 24, 1986, Waldon was severely beaten by cellmates, hospitalized for two days, after he refused their orders to kill another prisoner. The motive for the bungled contract? Jailers noted that the target was unpopular with other cons because of his attitude, which was "basically antisocial."