Leonard Lake

Quotes

"What I want is an off-the-shelf sex partner. I want to be able to use a woman whenever or however I want. And when I’m tired or bored or not interested I simply want to put her away lock her up in a little room, get her out of my sight, out of my life."

-Leonard Lake taking about Operation Miranda in his Philosophy tape.

" If you don’t go along with us, we’ll probably take you to the bed, tie you down, rape you, shoot you, and burry you."

and

"While you’re here, we’ll keep you busy. You’ll wash for us, you’ll clean for us, cook for us, you’ll fuck for us."

-Leonard Lake explains to Kathi Allen on the M Ladies tape.

"Your Baby is going to be taken away. There’s a family in Fresno that doesn’t have a baby."

and

"Your baby is sound asleep like a rock."

-Leonard Lake threatens Brenda O’Connor that he’ll take her baby away on the M Ladies tape (though in actuality her baby was already dead).

Leonard Lake (October 29, 1945 - June 6, 1985) was a serial killer who along with Charles Ng filmed themselves raping, torturing and murdering between 11 to 25 people between 1983 and 1985. Most of his murders took place was at his cabin in Wilseyville, Calaveras County, California in the Sierra Nevadas foothills. He used various other alias like Leonard Hill or Charles Gunnar.

Early Life

Lake was born in San Francisco. When he was at the age of six his parents separated, where he and siblings had to live with there grandmother. He photographed his sister nude, which his grandmother encouraged. Leonard completely became obsessed with pornography. He extorted sexual favors towards his sister. He collected mice and later killed some by dissolving them in chemicals.

Military service

After graduating high school, Lake enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and served two tours of duty in Vietnam during the war. He served as a radar technician in Da Nang. Never saw any combat. Later, medically discharged when he was diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder.

Later life

Lake later lived in San Jose and enrolled at university, but later dropped out. He became a hippie and lived on a commune north of Ukiah. He married his first wife but divorced him later, upon discovering that he was starring in pornographic films depicting bondage. Leonard met Claralyn Balazs who he nicknamed Cricket at a renaissance fair where he used a goat with a unicorn horn on it. Soon they got married. Cricket would later star in Lake's pornographic films. Lake met another marine named Charles Ng through a magazine advertisement he placed. Ng would later live with Lake. Ng was stealing weapons from a base in Hawaii. The federal authorities raided Lake's house for stashes of weapons and explosives. Lake was released on $6000 bond and jumped bail. Charles who on the other hand returned to military custody and pleaded guilty for theft and desertion charges. Ng served 18 months at Fort Leavenworth where he was later paroled and dishonorably discharged from service.

Murders

Lake soon reunited with Ng. After he rented a cabin in Wilseyville, Calaveras County. Next to the cabin, Lake had constructed a bunker or dungeon as described in his journal. Over a year Lake and Ng began a series of kidnappings, rapes, tortures and murders called Operation Miranda, named after the character Miranda from John Fowles' novel The Collector. Though, Lake before reuniting with Ng, had murdered his brother Donald and Charles Gunnar. They would find ads in newspapers from people selling or renting things. Lake and Ng would kill the men as they viewed them as threats, while they kept the women they called M Ladies in the Bunker for some time until they were murdered or died of wounds. Also, Leonard and Charles killed babies from two families.

List of Victims

1983 [without Ng]

Donald Lake.

Charles Gunnar.

Maurice Rock.

Sheryl Okoro.

1984 [with Ng during Operation Miranda]

Harvey Dubs, Deborah Dubs and Sean Dubs.

Paul Cosner.

Randy Jacobson.

1985

Jeff Gerald.

Cliff Peranteau.

Mike Carrol.

Kathi Allen. “M Lady no.1”

Lonnie Bond, Brenda O’Connor “M Lady no.2” and Lonnie Bond, Jr.

Robin Scot Stapley [with Lonnie and Brenda].

Arrest and Death

On June 2, Charles Ng was caught stealing a bench vise from a South San Francisco hardware store putting the vise into the trunk of a 1980 Honda Prelude, which later revealed to have belonged to Paul Cosner who went missing seven months earlier with license plates belonging to Lonnie Bond. Immediately the employees had call the police. Ng later fled the scene. While, Leonard Lake tried to give money to the store owners but rejected his offer. When the police came and questioned him, Lake had an ID that it wasn’t his and presented himself as Robin Scot Stapley. The Police officer found a pistol with an illegal silencer on it. Lake was arrested and interrogated the detectives began questioning Stapley and revealed to be Leonard Lake and they walked out of the room Leonard write a note. Then he took two cyanide pills sowed into his shirt and drunk the glass of water ultimately collapsed into the floor. He died four days later on the hospital bed.

Aftermath

The detectives went to the Wilseyville cabin discovered journals written by Lake between 1983 and 1984, video tapes of Lake and Ng torturing two women most notably Kathi and Brenda, ID cards, fragments of bones up to 40 pounds, burn spots where they burned some of the victims, a truck belonging to Bond even a car belonging to Stapley and a couple bodies wrapped in sleeping bags. When they searched the bunker at first it looked like a tool shed. But noticed 21 photos of women in various states of undress, the women were later found alive when they were identified. Later found a entrance with a plywood door that led to two rooms. In one of the rooms it on the wall was a written rules on it. Charles Ng later fled to Canada until he was arrested in a Calgary department store for stealing while getting into a gunfight with a security guard. Was sentenced six years in prison before heading back to California. The trial against Charles was the most expensive in California’s history. Charles would fire different lawyers ultimately hiring new lawyers during the trials and always blamed it on Leonard Lake saying that it was his fault and that Ng did nothing wrong. But in fact, Charles did cartoon sketches of his crimes. One of them was him cooking was baby wearing a chief hat on and said ‘Daddy dies, Mommy cries, Baby fries’ and one in a jail cell picking his nose with pictures of all the victims and written in the wall was ‘No kill, no thrill’. Ng was later found guilty and sentenced to death 13 years later in 1999 and is currently in San Quentin State Prison as of now, no execution has taken place since 2006. There's some evidence that maybe Cricket was invovled with some of the murders, but was given immunity during Ng's trial.

Trivia


 * Lake and Ng were discussed heavily in the Last Podcast on the Left's four part series on them.


 * The documentaries Journey Into Evil, The Boneyard and a episode of Deranged titled Blood Brothers.


 * The novel Die For Me by Don Lasseter, which details the events that took place.