Man Convicted of Killing 2 Models Is Sentenced to Die

Bill Bradford, an amateur photographer convicted of the 1984 strangling murders of two young models, was sentenced to death Wednesday by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge.

Bradford, 41, of Mar Vista, was found guilty in December of having separately lured Shari Miller, 21, and Tracey Campbell, 15, to a remote camping spot in the Mojave Desert for photo sessions.

Campbell’s nude, decomposed body was found in the desert and Miller’s body was found in a parking lot on West Pico Boulevard.

“I’m so glad,” said Miller’s mother, MaraLyn, after the sentencing by Judge Paul Boland. “I hope he suffers before he dies, because he hurt my baby.”

Bradford, who did not speak at the hearing, has a long history of violent behavior toward women, dating back to 1961, when he was arrested for jumping from a tree nude in front of two 12-year-old girls after having helped them look for their cat.

Just after his arrest in the murders, he pleaded no contest to charges that he forcibly raped his former girlfriend after taking her to the desert near Lancaster in 1983 to observe a space shuttle landing.

In court papers made public Wednesday, Bradford is described by police officials as “a serial murderer,” who may be responsible for at least eight other killings.

The prosecutor, Deputy Dist. Atty. David Conn, said after the hearing that authorities are still investigating the other cases.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Pamela Ann Ferrero, the co-prosecutor, called the sentencing “bittersweet. I wish we had Shari and Tracey still here. And I wish Bill Bradford had never been born.”

In meting out the death sentence recommended in February by the jury that convicted Bradford, Boland rejected defense arguments that he be retried, because no mitigating evidence was presented in the penalty phase of the trial.

Instead, Bradford, who temporarily fired his attorneys, made a brief statement in which he asked jurors to “think about how many (murders) you don’t even know about.”