Convict Pleads Guilty in Deaths of 5 Gay Men

A Los Angeles man who told police he hated homosexuals and had to “stop them” has pleaded guilty in the strangulation killings of five gay men a decade ago.

Juan Chavez, who is already serving one life term in Folsom prison for an unrelated crime, faces life in prison without parole when he is sentenced in June. The second life term will be added to his sentence, meaning he will probably never be freed.

Chavez, 35, pleaded guilty in the middle of his trial last week in exchange for an agreement by the district attorney’s office not to seek the death penalty.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Michael Duarte said he made the deal because evidence in some of the cases was week.

“The victims’ families and the police all were in agreement on this one,” he said.

Four of the victims--Ruben Panis, Ronald Kleeman, Leo Hildebrand and Michael Cates--were killed from September to early November 1989. Panis, a fashion designer who outfitted Zsa Zsa Gabor and other celebrities, was found in the master bedroom of his two-story Wilshire district home. The fifth victim--Alfred Rowswell--died in July 1986.

Chavez told police he killed the men because he wanted to teach them a lesson.

“They pick people up. They don’t let them know that they are sick, and a lot of people be dying because of them,” he said during a police interview at Folsom. “So I better, you know, stop them.”

Duarte said it took police four years to break the case. Authorities originally did not consider the slayings related because the bodies were found in different places around Los Angeles County. The Sheriff’s Department investigated two of the cases, and different divisions of the Los Angeles Police Department handled the other three.

Duarte said the court proceedings lasted five years because of the continuing investigation and the complexity of the case. Dozens of suspects were investigated and hundreds of witnesses questioned.

Chavez said the victims picked him up, offered to pay for sex and drove him to their homes. Once there, he usually threatened them with a knife and tied their hands and feet before strangling them with a rope or piece of clothing, he said.

Each case differed in some details, but Chavez usually met with the victims while he was seeking to buy illegal drugs on Vermont Avenue between 6th and 8th streets or near Echo Park or Elysian Park, according to court papers.

Chavez told police that the victims drove up to him while he was walking home or to a bus stop and would offer $50 for sex.

“Hey man, I don’t look for them,” he told police in 1993. “They come to me all the time.”

As the victims began disrobing at their homes, he would go to the bathroom so he could get out his knife and surprise them, he said.

In four of the five cases, Chavez took their bank cards and forced them to tell him their personal identification numbers. Mostly he stole cash, jewelry or electronics. In at least two cases, he also took the victims’ vehicles.

Although Chavez exclusively killed homosexuals--and used similar methods in each slaying--Duarte said he did not display the usual hallmarks of a serial killer. He did not, for example, take a souvenir from the crime scene, Duarte said, or leave an item that would become his trademark.

At one point, Duarte said, police had a list of more than 40 suspects. Investigators focused on Chavez when an acquaintance identified him in a picture from a camera at an automated teller machine taken while he was using the first victim’s bank card. The acquaintance also said Chavez had stolen the victim’s car and let the friend drive it, police reports said.

In December 1993, while in prison, Chavez confessed to that killing and gave incriminating statements in several of the other cases.

Duarte said Chavez’s parents abandoned him in Mexico when he was very young, and he was taken in by his grandmother. He ran away at the age of 7, Chavez told authorities, after she beat him. He came to the United States in 1980 and lived with a brother in Los Angeles.

In 1992, Chavez was convicted in Merced of kidnapping for ransom. He was sentenced to life in prison, plus 28 years, court papers say.