On April 13, 1984, Tok Chum Kim, a 37-year-old Asian American woman, was found murdered in her apartment in Oakland, California. Although the user mentioned San Diego, multiple sources confirm that her death occurred in Oakland. Her death was part of a chilling series of murders that took place over a short span of time across California. Tok Chum Kim was one of at least five women believed to have been killed by the same individual during a violent spree that lasted from late March to
mid-April 1984.
The suspect in these murders was identified as Dean Phillip Carter, a 28-year-old freelance television cameraman originally from Alaska. Carter was arrested in May 1984 in Ventura County, California, after being stopped for a separate offense. At the time of his arrest, authorities discovered property belonging to several of the murder victims in his possession. Evidence linking Carter to the murder of 37-year-old Asian American woman Tok Chum Kim included items recovered from his vehicle and forensic findings.
Carter's killing spree began with the rape of a woman in San Diego on March 25, 1984, who survived the attack. He then murdered two women—Jillette Mills, 35, and Susan Knoll, 33—on April 10 in Culver City, followed by the killing of 24-year-old Bonnie Guthrie in Los Angeles on April 11. On April 13, he traveled to Oakland, where he murdered Tok Chum Kim. The next day, he returned to San Diego and killed 25-year-old Janette Cullins. All of the victims were women, and most were strangled in their homes.
Authorities charged Carter with multiple counts of murder, and he was later convicted and sentenced to death. He remains on death row in California. Investigators believe Carter may have been responsible for additional murders beyond the five confirmed cases, as he had traveled extensively along the West Coast and into Canada and Hawaii during the time of the killings. His case remains one of the more disturbing examples of a rapid and deadly killing spree in California's history.
