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 serie 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."

Michael Newton - An Encyclopedia of Modern Serial Killers - Hunting Humans

Billy Ray Waldon Gets Death Sentence

Los Angeles Times

February 29, 1992

While emotional victims, jurors and relatives looked on, Billy Ray Waldon was formally sentenced to death Friday for a 1985 crime spree that took three lives.

Superior Court Judge David Gill had announced Wednesday his intention to uphold a jury's recommendation that Waldon be executed, but the action was not completed until Friday.

"Billy Ray Waldon shall be put to death by the administration of lethal gas behind the walls of San Quentin," Gill said, completing a trial that began May 10, 1991.

Waldon, a 40-year-old former Navy enlisted man who prefers the name Nvwtohiyada Idehesdi Sequoyah, defended himself during a bizarre trial.

The jury deliberated for just over six hours to convict Waldon of three murders and 21 other crimes, including rape.

Local Death Penalty Case From 1985 Finally Goes To Appeal

CBS8.com

08-08-06

More than 20 years after he killed three people in San Diego, Billy Ray Waldon's death penalty appeal is finally ready to go.

A jury convicted Waldon of murdering a mother and her 13-year-old daughter during a 1985 robbery in Del Mar. Two weeks later, Waldon fatally shot a Kensington man in the head while running from police.

Defense attorney Allen Bloom was one of several lawyers briefly assigned to the case.

"In this case there was an enormous amount of starts and stops in the case, and it left a paper trail in the county courthouse," Bloom said.

It took seven years to convict Waldon, mainly because he insisted on representing himself.

Waldon claimed he was set up by the FBI and the CIA, and he filed long, rambling, handwritten motions. One of them claimed his female attorney was a psychopath who had sex with the trial judge.

Waldon was found competent to act as his own attorney, and questioned himself on the witness stand during the trial. All of this generated massive amounts of paperwork -- hundreds of thousands of pages.

"Not only does the defense lawyer have a copy, but the attorney general has a copy, the courts get a copy, so there's a huge logistical effort," Bloom said.

San Diego court clerks have spent the past 14 years organizing and binding the official case record and tracking down missing transcripts. In 1996, an appellate attorney was finally assigned.

"They don’t pay all that well, and there's not a whole lot of lawyers that are qualified, so there's a long time getting a lawyer," Bloom said.

A judge certified the case record as accurate just two months ago. Now, it all gets shipped to San Francisco, where the state supreme court will hear new motions and new oral arguments. Those justices have the power to order a new trial.

"It doesn't usually happen. The percentages are very high that the courts affirm convictions, because we have a good system at the starting point. But we know it's flawed, we know it's not perfect," Bloom said.

In a death penalty case, the court want to make sure they get it right.

SEX: M RACE: W TYPE: N MOTIVE: PC-non-specific/CE

MO: Apparent thrill-klller on motiveless rampage; some victims robbed incidentally

DISPOSITION: Condemned, 1987.