California cult led by ‘master manipulator’ committed brutal murders, detective says: ‘One body after another’
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Detective Gary Deckard and his team walked into a real-life nightmare on Elm Street.
Shortly after midnight on May 21, 1990, police entered a house at 5223 Elm Street in Salida, a small farming town in California. Inside were the bodies of Dennis Colwell, Darlene “Emmie” Paris, Franklin Raper and Richard Ritchey. All the victims suffered blunt force trauma and multiple stab wounds. Paris had been nearly decapitated.
“When I got to the crime scene, we had two deputies who responded to the first 911 call,” Deckard, the lead investigator, told Fox News Digital. “All these deputies were spooked by what they saw. And these are very big deputies… When I entered the crime scene, I understood why.”
“When they went to murder these people, they flipped off the electricity,” Deckard explained. “So it was completely dark in there… It was just a horrific crime scene. One of the female deputies told me it felt like Freddy Krueger was going to come out of the closet. It was one body after another in this small house.”
The quadruple homicide is being explored on Investigation Discovery’s true-crime series, “The Real Murders on Elm Street.” It explores chilling cases across the country that all took place on “Elm Street.” It features interviews with loved ones and investigators, among others.
“People have always wanted to know why anyone would go to a house and savagely kill people,” said Deckard. “Was this the act of an individual or a leader of a group?”
he police would soon get their answer.
There was one survivor, a woman named Donna, who managed to escape the attack. She described how the murders were committed by several people who had been dressed in camouflage and wore masks.
“I tried to get as much information out of her as possible,” said Deckard. “What I learned was that Donna arrived at the house. She had nowhere to go that particular night. She arrived with another individual who ended up being one of the victims. She was in one of the bedrooms when the murders started taking place. One of the suspects had taken off his mask. That allowed Donna to see his face.”
“As everybody was being murdered, Donna ran to the garage,” Deckard continued. “There were no lights inside, but she found a pile of clothes. She hid underneath the clothes and the suspects didn’t see her… When she had a chance, she ran down Elm Street and knocked on people’s doors, hoping somebody would hear her screams. Someone finally did. That’s how the 911 call came in.”
Many in town gathered outside the crime scene. After getting a description from Donna of the suspect she saw – a Caucasian male with Afro hair – one of the locals said, “It sounds like a guy named Jason. He lives off ‘the Camp.’”
Police were familiar with the residential area known to locals as “the Camp.” Those who lived there kept to themselves.
When police headed there, pieces of camouflage clothing were found hanging on a clothesline. Investigators then headed to a nearby trailer that belonged to Gerald Cruz. He denied knowing anything about the murders but gave a few names of members of his commune.
Authorities soon identified Jason LaMarsh from “the Camp.” He matched the description of the suspect that Donna saw that night. As the investigation continued, police learned that Cruz was the leader of “The Cause,” a group that, according to court documents obtained by Fox News Digital, “was supposed to be the advancement of mankind.” LaMarsh was connected to the group.
“Gerald Cruz was a dynamic personality,” said Deckard. “He would take people off the street, those who were maybe unemployed, didn’t have any money. He would then become like their father, promising that he would provide for them. They became so emboldened… that they would do almost anything for him.”
Content retrieved from: https://www.foxnews.com/us/california-cult-led-master-manipulator-committed-brutal-murders-detective.
