Infamous Serial Killers

Patrick Kearney | The Trash Bag Killer | Serial Killer

Patrick Kearney, infamously known as the “Trash Bag Killer,” preyed on young men across Southern California during the 1960s and 1970s, leaving behind a trail of violence concealed in plastic bags along highways and desolate ravines.

Partick Kearney Photo

Patrick Wayne Kearney

Patrick Kearney | The Trash Bag Killer

American Serial Killer

  • Full Name: Patrick Wayne Kearney
  • Alias: The Trash Bag Killer
  • Born: September 24, 1939, East Los Angeles, California, USA
  • Status: Incarcerated (Mule Creek State Prison, California)
  • Span of Crimes: 1965 – 1977
  • Number of Victims: Convicted of 21 murders; confessed to 28; suspected of as many as 43
  • Victim Profile: Young men and teenage boys (often hitchhikers, vagrants, or men he picked up in gay bars)
  • Method: Primarily small-caliber gunshot to the head, followed by dismemberment
  • Signature: Clean, efficient dismemberment and disposal in industrial garbage bags
  • Arrest Date: July 1, 1977
  • Sentence: 21 life sentences without the possibility of parole

👉 Note: While most of Kearney’s victims were teens or young men, his depravity reached even lower. Among those he admitted to killing was five-year-old Ronnie Dean Smith, abducted from his Venice, California home in 1975. The murder of a child underscored not only Kearney’s compulsion, but the depths to which he was willing to descend in pursuit of his necrophilic urges.

Current Status

Patrick Kearney is still alive. Now in his mid-eighties, he continues to serve out his sentence at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California. His survival behind bars stands in stark contrast to his contemporaries – William Bonin was executed by lethal injection in 1996, while Randy Kraft remains on death row. Kearney’s calculated decision to confess and plead guilty ensured that he escaped execution, but it also locked him into a lifetime of anonymity within prison walls.

🔹 Classification & Characteristics

Patrick Kearney is classified as a sexual predator and necrophilic lust killer, with a compulsive fixation on domination and control. Unlike his contemporaries William Bonin and Randy Kraft, who often inflicted prolonged torture, Kearney typically killed quickly- using a gunshot – then satisfied his compulsions through postmortem acts of necrophilia and meticulous dismemberment.

Patrick Kearney is also classified as an organized lust killer and necrophilic predator, defined less by sadistic torture and more by his postmortem compulsions. Kearney’s murders were quick, clinical, and efficient. A single shot was his gateway to the act he truly craved: the violation of the dead.

His crimes reveal the hallmarks of an organized offender. He was methodical in victim choice, often targeting men of smaller stature who could be overpowered without struggle. He carefully concealed his crimes through dismemberment and disposal, wrapping remains in trash bags to delay discovery and obscure identity. The consistency of his disposal methods earned him his enduring moniker, the “Trash Bag Killer.”

Psychologists and criminologists often point to Kearney’s withdrawn childhood, frequent bullying and early sexualized fantasies of violence as precursors to his pathology. Where some killers externalize rage through chaotic brutality, Kearney internalized his compulsion, channeling it into ritualized postmortem acts that granted him a fleeting sense of control. His unemotional confessions and calm courtroom demeanor further reinforced the portrait of a man who had compartmentalized murder into a private, necessary routine.

Kearney’s case remains a study in contrasts: a quiet, polite engineer by day and a meticulous necrophile by night. It is that duality – the ability to blend seamlessly into ordinary society while committing extraordinary horror – that secures his place among America’s most chilling killers.

Patrick Kearney | The Trash Bag Killer

The Story

Patrick Wayne Kearney is an American serial killer who, throughout the 1970s, preyed on young men across Southern California. Often targeting hitchhikers, vagrants, or those he met in the gay community, Kearney lured his victims into a deadly trap from which there was no return.

He became known as the “Trash Bag Killer” for his gruesome practice of dismembering bodies, sealing the remains in industrial garbage bags, and discarding them along highways, desert roads, and ravines.

Between 1965 and 1977, Kearney confessed to killing nearly 30 young men – though investigators believe the true toll may be far higher. His calculated methods, necrophilic compulsions, and meticulous disposal techniques set him apart as one of the most chilling predators of California’s “Freeway Killer” era.

Early Life & Background

Patrick Wayne Kearney was born the youngest of three sons in East Los Angeles in 1939. His childhood was marked by frailty and isolation – he was a thin, sickly boy who quickly became a target for bullies and tormentors. The constant ridicule and abuse left him withdrawn and embittered, and by his teenage years, he retreated into dark fantasies. He later admitted that, even as a boy, he daydreamed about killing those who humiliated him.

In early adulthood, Kearney married briefly, but the union collapsed almost as quickly as it began. Seeking stability, he relocated to California, where he secured employment as an engineer with Hughes Aircraft, a respected position that masked the storm within. According to his later confessions, it was during this period that his homicidal urges turned into action.

Kearney claimed his first victim was a male hitchhiker in 1967, a crime he said he committed after an argument with his long-term partner, David Hill. Their relationship was fraught with tension, and Kearney often coped by taking long drives to escape the conflicts at home. It was on these solitary drives that he began picking up vulnerable young men – hitchhikers, drifters, and strangers from gay bars who were plentiful in Southern California at the time.

A necrophile at heart, Kearney developed a ritual that became his signature. He would kill swiftly-usually with a small-caliber gunshot to the head-then engage in sex with the corpse. Once his impulses were satisfied, he transported the bodies to remote areas, where he methodically dismembered them. Each part was sealed into trash bags, which he abandoned along highways, in ravines, or scattered across the desert. This chilling pattern earned him the name by which he is still remembered: the Trash Bag Killer.

Patrick Kearney’s Path to Murder

By the mid-1960s, Patrick Kearney’s violent fantasies had evolved into a grim reality. He would later tell investigators that his first killing occurred in 1965 or 1967, when he murdered a hitchhiker he had picked up along a California highway. The details of that crime blurred over time, but Kearney admitted it set in motion the compulsions that would dominate the next decade of his life.

Kearney lived openly with his partner, David Hill, and the two presented themselves as an ordinary couple. But their relationship was stormy, marked by arguments that often sent Kearney on long, brooding drives through the backroads of Southern California. It was on these trips that he began preying on the vulnerable: teenage runaways, drifters, and men lured from gay bars or street corners. For many, his car ride seemed like a welcome escape. In reality, it was a one-way passage.

Unlike killers who toyed with their victims, Kearney was chillingly efficient. He preferred victims who were slight of build, men he could dominate easily. A small pistol became his weapon of choice. Once the victim was inside his vehicle or home, Kearney would fire a single shot to the head—quick, decisive, and lethal. Death came swiftly, but what followed revealed the depths of his pathology.

Kearney was a necrophile, driven by urges that could only be satisfied through postmortem violation. Afterward, his methodical mind took over. In the privacy of his home, he dismembered the bodies with practiced precision, placing the parts in industrial garbage bags. Those bags were then scattered along highways, deserts, and ravines, often left for unsuspecting motorists or hikers to find. It was this ritualized disposal that cemented his reputation as the Trash Bag Killer, a predator whose efficiency masked the horror of his acts.

Patrick Kearney | The Trash Bag Killer

Modus Operandi of Patrick Kearney

🔹 Victim Selection & Approach
Kearney targeted vulnerability. His victims were most often teenage boys and young men – hitchhikers, drifters, or men he met in gay bars and cruising areas. He favored those who were slight of build and trusting enough to accept a ride. His approach was opportunistic and unremarkable on the surface: a friendly offer of a lift, a sympathetic ear, a ride out of town. That normalcy helped him lower guard and isolate his prey.

🔹 The Killing Method
Kearney’s killings were quick and clinical. He typically used a small-caliber handgun and delivered a single shot to the head, chosen for speed and finality. The act itself was brief; the violence was the means to access the postmortem behavior that he craved.

🔹 Postmortem Behavior (necrophilia)
A defining element of Kearney’s pathology was necrophilia. He frequently engaged in sexual acts with the dead – an urge that shaped both the timing and the manner of his murders. This compulsion made the killing an instrument toward satisfying a later, private ritual rather than the focal point of prolonged torture.

🔹 Dismemberment and Concealment
After the killing and the postmortem acts, Kearney moved to disposal. He would transport bodies to a secluded place, or bring them to his residence, where he dismembered them with methodical detachment. Body parts were sealed in industrial trash bags – practical, inexpensive, and easily transported. The use of bags allowed him to move and discard remains without overtly arousing attention.

🔹 Dump Sites & Pattern of Disposal
Kearney abandoned the bags in remote or seldom-traveled locations: highway shoulders, ravines, dry riverbeds, and desert stretches outside urban centers. The pattern of scattered, plastic-wrapped remains along roadways ultimately provided investigators with a grim signature, enabling police to link multiple discoveries to a single offender.

🔹 Forensic Footprint & Evasion
Despite the brutality, Kearney’s work showed elements of an organized offender. He attempted to limit forensic traces by killing quickly and using remote dump sites. Nevertheless, his repeated dumping along roads created a disposal pattern. When police compared the recovered remains, commonalities in packaging, cutting technique, and victim profile emerged — a pattern that later helped focus the investigation and tie multiple recoveries together.

Capture & Confession of Patrick Kearney

By 1977, investigators in Southern California were quietly linking a pattern of bodies wrapped in plastic, discarded across multiple counties. The similarities in disposal were undeniable, but a name to match the bags remained elusive. That changed when a young man accused Patrick Kearney and his partner, David Hill, of murder. Detectives began focusing on the pair and the pressure mounted.

Rather than deny, Kearney made a calculated choice: he walked into the Riverside County Sheriff’s Office and surrendered. In a move few killers ever make, he volunteered to confess. His reasoning was simple – by cooperating, he could avoid the death penalty. What followed stunned detectives.

Kearney calmly admitted to killing more than two dozen young men. He drew maps, described dump sites and recounted his methods with chilling precision. He claimed responsibility for 28 murders, though investigators suspected there could be more. His willingness to talk, combined with the detailed accuracy of his confessions, confirmed him as the elusive “Trash Bag Killer.”

In court, Kearney pled guilty to 21 counts of murder. The plea spared him execution but guaranteed he would spend the rest of his life behind bars. Even in the face of such revelations, those who saw him in court described him as polite, mild, and almost nondescript – a quiet, gray figure whose outward calm belied the horrors he confessed to.

Patrick Kearney’s Trial & Sentencing

Patrick Kearney’s trial was unlike most cases involving serial murder. There was no spectacle of a drawn-out courtroom drama, no lengthy testimony from survivors or expert witnesses. By the time the legal proceedings began, Kearney had already admitted to his crimes in extraordinary detail. His confessions eliminated the need for a contested trial.

In 1977, he pled guilty to 21 counts of first-degree murder in Los Angeles, Riverside, and Orange Counties. Each plea was deliberate, quiet, and without hesitation. He spared the state the burden of proving his guilt but ensured his own survival. By confessing outright, Kearney avoided the death penalty, which prosecutors would almost certainly have pursued.

Instead, he received 21 consecutive life sentences without the possibility of parole. The ruling meant that even if one sentence was overturned, dozens more would stand. For the families of victims, the outcome was final: Kearney would never walk free again.

Courtroom observers remarked on his demeanor – soft-spoken, unemotional, and disturbingly ordinary. He addressed the judge politely, never once displaying the rage, frenzy, or bravado often associated with killers of his magnitude. In the end, the very qualities that allowed him to pass unnoticed for years – his mildness, his apparent normalcy – were the same traits he carried into the courtroom as he quietly sealed his fate.

As of 2025, he is incarcerated at Mule Creek State Prison in Ione, California, serving 21 consecutive life sentences without parole. He is one of the few notorious California “Freeway Killer”- era predators (alongside Bonin and Kraft) who did not receive the death penalty, precisely because of his guilty pleas and cooperation.

Source: 20thcenturymurder | mylifeofcrime | medium.com | murderpedia |www.rottenmango.com

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Court & Legal Records

  • Los Angeles County Superior Court, 1977–1980: Records of Kearney’s guilty pleas to 21 counts of murder. These files include case numbers, sentencing details, and transcripts of his plea hearings. While not digitized, they are available through the California State Archives and the Los Angeles Superior Court records office.
  • People v. Patrick Wayne Kearney: Consolidated case summaries and sentencing orders that documented his decision to accept life sentences without parole.

Confession Transcripts & Police Files

  • Riverside County Sheriff’s Office Reports (1977): Notes taken during Kearney’s voluntary confession, where he described his methods, victims, and disposal practices. Investigators reported that he drew maps and gave directions to dump sites.
  • Orange County Sheriff’s Department Case Logs: Records tied to recovered remains and body part identifications linked through Kearney’s detailed confessions.
  • Victim Recovery Reports: Autopsy notes and identification documents for many of the 21 confirmed victims, preserved in county medical examiner archives.

Psychological & Criminological Assessments

  • No formal psychiatric evaluation was performed during trial, as Kearney pled guilty and avoided extended proceedings. However, criminological studies—including those referenced in Sexual Homicide: Patterns and Motives by Ressler, Burgess, and Douglas—cite Kearney as a case study in organized necrophilic lust killers.
  • Academic criminology journals in the late 1970s–1980s reference his meticulous dismemberment and disposal methods as indicators of obsessive-compulsive traits.

Archival Sources & Media Coverage

  • Los Angeles Times Archive (1977–1978): Contemporary news reports on his arrest, confessions, and courtroom appearances.
  • Associated Press Bulletins (1977): Wires documenting Kearney’s surrender and confession.
  • California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR): Current incarceration records, confirming his status at Mule Creek State Prison.

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