Credit: Oregon State Police
Almost 45 years ago, in the early morning hours of July 18, 1980, Oregon State Police responded to a report of a deceased, unidentified male along Interstate 5 near Woodburn, Oregon. A homicide investigation was opened and while extensive efforts were made to identify the victim, he remained a John Doe—until recently.
The Oregon State Police Cold Case Unit, in partnership with Parabon Nanolabs, has now identified John Doe as Vietnam veteran Larry Eugene Parks, who was 30 years old at the time of his death. Given the location of the body and the evidence, Parks is believed to be another victim of serial killer Randy Kraft, also called the Scorecard Killer and the Freeway Killer.
Between 1971 and 1983, Kraft is believed to have killed 67 people. All of his suspected victims were males between the ages of 13 and 30, the majority of whom were in their late teens to mid-twenties. Many of the victims were members of the United States Marines Corps, and most of their bodies were found to have high levels of both alcohol and tranquilizers. They were then bound, tortured, and sexually abused before they were killed, usually by either strangulation, asphyxiation, or bludgeoning.
Despite an incredible amount of evidence indicating many, many more murders, Kraft was ultimately charged and convicted of sixteen homicides, all of which occurred between 1972 and 1983.
John Doe 1980
The discovery of Parks’ body came a day after the body of Michael O’Fallon was also found along I-5. Due to similarities in the evidence, investigators at the time suspected the two murders were related. However, both cases went old.
In 1983, Kraft was arrested in Orange County, California for murder. During his trial and sentencing, evidence from both the O’Fallon and Parks murders was transferred to the Orange County District Attorney’s Office to be used in court. The evidence remained there until 2024.
Then, in January, an investigator from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department reached out to the Oregon State Police Cold Case Unit and offered to help identify the remains using forensic investigative genetic genealogy.
A blood sample was sent to Parabon Nanolabs and a genetic profile was developed. Investigators used this information to lead them to the family of Parks, who submitted DNA samples for comparison. Parks’ family had lost contact with him in 1979. Until his identification last month, the circumstances of his disappearance were unknown to them.
Overwhelming evidence
On May 14, 1983, a California Highway Patrol officer conducted a traffic stop on Kraft. A deceased male, later identified as Terry Lee Gambrel, was found in the front seat with several empty beer bottles and an open bottle of Lorazepam at his feet. Upon searching the rest of the vehicle, the police found a “scorecard”—a coded list of 61 neatly printed terms and phrases that appear to reference victims. The police also found over 50 photos of young men in pornographic poses with most of the subjects appearing asleep, unconscious or dead.
Physical evidence recovered from Kraft’s house included clothes and personal possessions of numerous young men who had been murdered over the previous decade.Fibers taken from a rug matched those found on victim Scott Hughes. In addition, the couch in Kraft's living room was identified as being the one in the photographs found in Kraft's car.
In May 1989, Kraft was convicted of 16 murders and sentenced to death. An additional 10 murders Kraft was suspected of committing were not filed by the Orange County District Attorney. Today, he remains on death row at San Quentin State Prison.
The previous identification
The last victim identification tied to Kraft occurred almost two years ago. In November 2023, Othram and the Orange County Sheriff’s Department (OCSD) used genetic genealogy to identify the then unknown body of 17-year-old Michael Ray Schlicht of Cedar Rapids, Iowa.
On Sept. 14, 1974, two people were off-roading on a fire road when they discovered a deceased male over the side of the trail. He was estimated to have died 3-5 days prior to his discovery. His death was initially determined to be accidental due to alcohol and diazepam intoxication. However, it was reclassified as a blunt force trauma homicide.
Due to victim’s age, the alcohol and diazepam in his system, the method of murder, and the location of the body disposal, he was long thought to be an early victim of Kraft by local law enforcement.
In November 2022, OCSD investigators submitted tissue samples for then-John Doe to Othram to develop a DNA profile. In February 2023, Othram sent a DNA profile to the Cold Case Unit. In October 2023, after months of work, investigators identified the possible grandparents of John Doe. They contacted a granddaughter of the couple, who told investigators she had not seen her 17-year-old brother since April 1974. Investigators traveled to Kansas City, MO, to obtain a DNA sample from the woman, which positively identified the victim as Michael Ray Schlicht.