Leonard Lake
Leonard Lake | |
|---|---|
| Born | Leonard Thomas Lake October 29, 1945 San Francisco, California, U.S. |
| Died | June 6, 1985 (aged 39) |
| Cause of death | Suicide by cyanide poisoning |
| Other names | Leonard Hill Leonard Blake Alan Drey Tom Meyers Jim Bright Ted White Steve Charles Gunnar Donald Lake Randy Jacobsen Robin Stapley Paul Cosner |
| Spouse(s) | 1st: Karen Lee 2nd: Claralyn Balazs (both divorced) |
| Convictions | Previously convicted of vehicle theft to one year of probation; never convicted for murder |
| Details | |
| Victims | 11 confirmed 25 suspected |
Span of crimes | 1983–1985 |
| Country | United States |
| State | California |
Date apprehended | June 2, 1985 |
Leonard Thomas Lake (October 29, 1945 – June 6, 1985), also known as Leonard Hill and a variety of other aliases, was an American survivalist and serial killer who raped, tortured and murdered an estimated eleven to twenty-five victims with his accomplice Charles Ng at a remote cabin near Wilseyville, California, 150 miles east of San Francisco, between 1983 and 1985. Lake was never convicted of murder, as he swallowed cyanide pills that he had sewn into his clothing and died four days after his arrest.
Lake and Ng are sometimes referred to as the Sex Slave Killers because of the prolonged torture they imposed on their female victims which they often videotaped. Those tapes, along with human remains and journals, were used to convict Ng on eleven counts of capital murder in 1999.