Son of alleged serial killer held in attempted robbery
The 22-year-old son of the alleged Westside Rapist serial killer was charged Monday with attempted robbery and assault for allegedly using a stun gun to incapacitate a woman and steal her purse on Melrose Avenue in Hollywood.
Authorities are investigating whether David Victor Thomas is connected to two similar Taser attacks in the area and are encouraging anyone with information to contact police. He is scheduled to appear in court Tuesday and prosecutors have recommended that he be held on $70,000 bail.
His father, John Floyd Thomas, 73, was charged last year in the slayings of seven older women and is under investigation in connection with many more killings in the 1970s and 1980s. Authorities believe he could be responsible for as many as 30 homicides.
The younger Thomas was arrested by Los Angeles Police Department officers Wednesday after a group of valets from a karaoke club in the 4800 block of Melrose Avenue, near Western Avenue, witnessed the attack, police said. The men chased Thomas and held him down until police arrived.
The attack, which was captured on a video surveillance camera, showed the woman collapsing after she was jolted by the stun gun and valet workers chasing the suspect. After lying motionless on the sidewalk briefly, the victim struggled to her feet and staggered off before authorities arrived.
Police had tried to identify the victim, but it wasn’t until this weekend that she contacted detectives after seeing reports of her attack on Spanish-language television. Lt. Bob Binder of the LAPD’s Hollywood Division said she is in her 40s.
David Thomas is on probation for a drug-related conviction and is classified as a nonviolent offender.
The Westside Rapist attacks targeted seniors in neighborhoods from Hollywood to Inglewood. The crimes led to the formation of a special police task force in the mid-1970s.
Authorities say John Floyd Thomas, a former state insurance claims adjuster, strangled his victims before placing bedding over their faces.
In 1978, a witness took down Thomas’ license plate after he raped a woman in Pasadena. He was convicted and sent to state prison, and the attacks appeared to stop. He was released in 1983 and moved to Chino.
Around that time, a killer began stalking older women, this time in the area around Pomona, where Thomas was working. The half-dozen or so killings, authorities say, stopped inexplicably in 1989.
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