Ronald Elliot Porter

Serial Killer

Ronald Elliot Porter: California Serial Killer and Serial Rapist

Background

Ronald Elliot Porter was a California murderer and serial sexual predator whose known crimes occurred primarily between 1985 and 1988. Porter, an automobile mechanic who was approximately 41 years old when arrested, targeted women traveling along Interstate 8 east of San Diego. Many of the women were hitchhikers, transients, or otherwise isolated from immediate assistance. Porter offered women rides in his silver Honda and initially presented himself as an ordinary motorist willing to help. Once he had driven a victim away from populated areas, however, he pulled onto remote roads near Buckman Springs and the mountains of eastern San Diego County. He then strangled or choked the woman until she became unconscious or incapable of resisting, sexually assaulted her, and abandoned her in the wilderness. Several women survived Porter's attacks and later described an almost identical sequence of events. Their accounts established a recognizable pattern involving the same type of vehicle, the same highway corridor, similar secluded locations, and the same method of strangulation and sexual violence. Although Porter has frequently been associated with a much larger series of murders in San Diego County, he was convicted of killing only one identified woman, Sandra Cwik. Other deaths attributed to him in secondary accounts have not been conclusively established in court.

The Interstate 8 Attacks

Porter hunted for victims along Interstate 8, the major highway running east from San Diego through sparsely populated mountain and desert communities. Women who accepted rides from him were effectively trapped once he left the highway. The region surrounding Buckman Springs contained narrow side roads, rugged terrain, and isolated stretches where an unconscious or injured person could remain undiscovered for hours or days. Porter commonly stopped his vehicle after reaching a secluded location and attacked without warning. Survivors said he placed his hands or arm around their throats and choked them. Some lost consciousness during the assault. Porter then sexually violated them and left them exposed in remote areas, apparently expecting that they would die or be unable to identify him. The isolation of the crime scenes delayed the recognition that the attacks were connected. Different law-enforcement agencies handled incidents occurring within their respective jurisdictions, and some victims belonged to socially marginalized populations whose reports did not initially receive broad public attention. By the late 1980s, however, investigators recognized that numerous women had been attacked under remarkably similar circumstances. ...

Confirmed Victims: (1)

Sandra Cwik Age: (43), Date of Death: 1988-07

Suspected Victims:

Donna Gentile Age: (22), Date of Death: 1985-06-23

Con Accused in Killings of 2 Women : Crime: Ronald Porter of ...