Leonard Lake

Leonard Thomas Lake, 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.

Early life

Leonard Lake was born in San Francisco, California, the first of three children to Elgin Leonard Lake and Gloria May Williams. Lake's parents divorced when he was six years old, and her second marriage produced two half-sisters. The siblings moved in with their maternal grandmother after the divorce.
Lake was reportedly a bright child, but developed an obsession with pornography after habitually photographing his sisters nude, which his grandmother apparently encouraged. Lake allegedly killed mice by dissolving them in chemicals, in the same manner he would later dispose of his human victims' corpses, and became fascinated with the idea of holding women captive after reading the John Fowles novel The Collector in his teens.
After attending Balboa High School, Lake enlisted in the United States Marine Corps in 1964. He served two tours of duty during the Vietnam War as a radar electronics technician. During this period, Lake was first diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder. After what was termed a "delusional breakdown" in Da Nang, Lake received psychotherapy and, in 1971, a medical discharge.
Lake settled in San Jose and enrolled at San Jose State University, but dropped out after one semester upon becoming enamored of San Francisco's hippie community. He moved to a commune in San Francisco and married briefly in 1969. The marriage dissolved, however, after his wife discovered that he was making and appearing in amateur pornographic movies, usually involving bondage or sadomasochism.
For the next eight years, Lake lived at the Greenfield Ranch, a 5,600-acre back-to-the-land settlement near Calpella, north of Ukiah. In 1975, he met and eventually married Claralyn Balazs — nicknamed "Cricket" — who accepted Lake's fantasies and appeared in many of his pornographic films. Lake's growing fear of impending nuclear holocaust prompted him to begin construction of a "bunker" on the settlement grounds until the owner of the property became aware of the project and ordered it halted.

Murders

Lake met Charles Ng, a fellow former Marine originally from Hong Kong, in 1980 or 1981. Sources claim the two met through an advertisement Lake, by that time managing a Philo motel, had placed in a survivalist magazine. Ng had escaped from a military prison following a conviction for weapons theft and stayed at Lake's motel, eventually moving into a house along with Lake and Balazs. Several witnesses testified that Lake was a domineering figure in their relationship; Ng stated that he looked up to Lake "like a brotherly, fatherly figure."
In April 1982, police arrested Lake and Ng on weapons charges. Ng was returned to Fort Leavenworth to complete his sentence. Lake jumped bail and began life as a fugitive, using various aliases and disguises in an attempt to hide his identity. In July 1984, Ng rejoined Lake and his wife after he had completed his sentence and had been dishonorably discharged. He first stayed in an apartment rented by one of Lake's sisters before moving into an apartment on Lenox Way in San Francisco that autumn. Meanwhile, Lake moved into a remote cabin near Wilseyville owned by his in-laws. Next to the cabin he had built a structure described in his journals as a "dungeon."
Over the next year, Lake and Ng began a pattern of kidnapping and murdering men, women and children. These crimes became known as the Miranda Murders, named after a character in The Collector, the book that inspired Lake. According to court records, Lake and Ng killed the men and infants immediately, but subjected women to a period of enslavement, rape and torture before killing them. Lake is known to have committed several murders without the assistance of Ng, and wrote in his journal that Ng was initially "very hesitant to get involved with my plan."

Victims

Donald Steven Lake, 31, was Leonard's younger brother. He had been hit by a train as a child and was mentally disabled from the accident. Leonard resented him because his disability required the full attention of their mother, resulting in Leonard being raised by their grandparents. Leonard referred to him as a "leech" in conversations with his ex-wife Balazs, and said that he did not deserve to live. In December 1982, Donald was living with his mother in San Francisco, California when Leonard stopped by and asked Donald to come along to a house-sitting job. Donald was never seen again, and his mother reported him missing. Leonard resurfaced on New Year's Day in 1983 to rent a room in a house under the name "Alan Drey". Leonard had stolen Donald's identity and began cashing his disability checks. Leonard also later forged a letter to their mother claiming to be Donald and that he had moved away to live with drug dealers in Reno, Nevada.
Four months later, Lake moved in with his friend Charles Donald Gunnar, 34. Gunnar was the best man at Lake's wedding to Balazs in 1981. On May 20, 1983, Lake invited Gunnar on a road trip to Las Vegas after his divorce. Several days later, Lake returned alone in Gunnar's van and told acquaintances that Gunnar ran off with a woman. Gunnar was never seen again. After the murder, Lake stole Gunnar's identity and began to cash his government checks. Lake introduced himself as Gunnar to most of the people he met while living in Wilseyville. Gunnar's body was not found by police during the initial 1985 investigation, but was unearthed in 1992 when a subsequent owner of the Wilseyville property was digging down to install a footing for a new garage.
In 1984, Reginald "Reggie" Frisby, 29, was murdered. He was never reported missing and it is unclear how he met Lake and Ng. His remains were found on June 7, 1985, by police investigating a cabin near Wilseyville during the initial investigation but not identified until January 2025 using investigative genetic genealogy. Frisby had been living in San Francisco and disappeared from public records after January 1984; his body was buried alongside that of Maurice Rock, indicating they were possibly killed around the same time in July or August of that year. In 1993 while he was still unidentified, his remains were chosen to be analyzed by a forensic anthropologist due to the fact that he was the only complete skeleton found on the property whose identity was still unknown, and a sketch was prepared of his likeness.
On May 1, 1984, Jeffrey Dean Askren, 30, was reported missing after not showing up for work in Santa Clara, California. His late model Honda automobile was found three days later in the West Point area of Calaveras County, six miles from Lake's home. His disappearance occurred within the time range of Lake's killings although his remains have not yet been identified from those that were recovered at the Wilseyville site.
On July 11, 1984, Donald Albert Giulietti, 36, a disc jockey from San Francisco, California, was shot in the head by an assailant armed with a pistol. Giulietti lived with a man named Richard Carrazza. Carrazza was also shot in the chest but survived and contacted police after the shooter fled. Carrazza, the only known victim of Lake or Ng to have survived, identified Ng as the shooter.
Harvey R. Dubs, 30, Deborah Ann Dubs, 33, and Sean Christopher Dubs, 1, went missing on July 25, 1984, from their San Francisco home. On the night they disappeared, Deborah was speaking on the telephone to a friend when the doorbell rang at their apartment. Deborah told her friend that she had to end the conversation, as two men had arrived. The Dubs family were never heard from again. A receipt in Harvey's name and video equipment from the Dubses' home were found at Lake's cabin.
In July or August 1984, Maurice Anthony Rock, 37, disappeared from a San Francisco rooming house. Lake had rented a room at the same establishment under the pseudonym "Alan Drey". Sometime after Rock disappeared, the woman renting the room next to Rock's saw a man remove a refrigerator from his room. The man introduced himself as "Steve" and offered to photograph her. She agreed but felt unsettled and changed her mind once he came to her room with his camera equipment. She later identified the man as Lake. Rock's remains were recovered from the Wilseyville property.
On October 15, 1984, Randy Vern Jacobson, 35, disappeared from a San Francisco rooming house after becoming involved in a business deal with Lake. Lake subsequently stole his identity and tried to steal his van after the murder, but the van was towed before he was able to move it. Jacobson's remains were buried on the Wilseyville property.
On November 2, 1984, Paul Steven Cosner, 39, was last seen in San Francisco, California. His brown 1980 Honda Prelude disappeared with him. Cosner had advertised the vehicle for sale in a local newspaper and went missing when he went to show his car to a potential buyer he described as “weird". Lake was arrested with Cosner's car on June 2, 1985. Cosner's remains have never been found.
On November 16, 1984, Cheryl Lynn Okoro, 25, disappeared from the same San Francisco rooming house where Rock had lived. Photographs, personal belongings, and an 11-page letter by Okoro were recovered from the Wilseyville property, but her remains were never found.
On January 20, 1985, Clifford Raymond Peranteau, 23, went missing from San Francisco. He was a coworker of Ng's at Dennis Moving Company and in April 1985, Lake sold Peranteau's motorcycle to a man in West Point, California. Several of Peranteau's personal belongings were discovered in an apartment Ng owned.
On February 24, 1985, Jeffrey Dean Gerald, 25, went missing from San Francisco after saying he was going to help Ng move for a side job.
On April 12, 1985, Michael Sean Carroll, 22, who had served with Ng in Fort Leavenworth, and his girlfriend Kathleen Elizabeth Allen, 18, were spending time in a Milpitas, California motel room. At 10 p.m., Carroll told Allen that he had to leave and never returned. On April 15, Allen received a phone call at her workplace and was told that Carroll was at Lake Tahoe and may have been shot. She immediately told her boss she had to leave and was last seen getting into a car with Lake. Allen appeared in a videotape found at Lake's home and her last paycheck was sent to a town near his cabin. Carroll was also mentioned in the videotape and his driver's license was found at the property.
On April 19, 1985, Lonnie Wayne Bond Sr., 27, his live-in girlfriend Brenda Sue O'Connor, 20, their son, Lonnie Wayne Bond Jr., 1, and a family friend, Robin Scott Stapley, 26, went missing from Wilseyville. When Lake was arrested on June 2, Lonnie's license plate was affixed to the car he was driving. Lonnie Sr.'s and Stapley's bodies were found buried at Wilseyville in a shallow grave about a mile from Lake's property. O'Connor's remains were identified as being among those found at the cabin by police in 2025. Lonnie Jr. has never been found.