Ray Dell Sims: The Fresno Serial Killer
Background and Early Violence
Ray Dell Sims was an American serial killer whose known crimes centered on teenage girls and young women in Fresno County, California, during the 1970s. Born in Oklahoma in 1935, Sims used several names during his life, including David McGown, David Reed Sims and David Sims. His changing identities later complicated the investigation into his background and initially concealed the fact that the man questioned in one murder case already had a serious criminal history.
Sims demonstrated violent and sexually predatory behavior long before he was identified as a serial murderer. In 1965, he was convicted of raping his 70-year-old landlady during a burglary in East Oakland. After serving time in prison, he eventually moved to Fresno, where he married, became the father of a daughter and worked as a cook. His former wife later described him as sexually coercive and physically abusive. She testified that he forced her to have sex and, on one occasion, strangled her until she pretended to lose consciousness.
Between 1974 and 1977, a series of girls and young women disappeared or were found murdered in and around Fresno. The victims were generally teenagers, several lived near Sims, and strangulation was a recurring feature of the crimes. Although Sims was ultimately convicted of only two murders, investigators linked or strongly associated him with at least five victims. DNA evidence developed decades after the killings became central to identifying him in the previously unresolved cases.
Known and Suspected Victims
- Kathy Marie Stark, 17 — August 22, 1974, Fresno County, California: Stark was raped and strangled. Biological evidence preserved from the crime was later tested using modern DNA technology and linked Sims to the attack. Prosecutors charged him with her murder in 2001, but the charge was eventually dismissed after he was convicted in another cold case because an additional trial would not have increased his effective prison sentence.
- Elizabeth Ann Ortega, 15 — November 9, 1974, Avocado Lake, Fresno County, California: Ortega disappeared after leaving school on November 8, 1974. Her body was discovered the following day on the bank of Avocado Lake. She was fully clothed and had visible marks around her neck. An examination determined that she had been killed by ligature strangulation, with additional evidence suggesting an attempt at manual strangulation and a recent sexual injury. DNA recovered from her clothing was later matched to Sims. He was convicted of her first-degree murder in September 2008.
- Robin McCullar, 18 — November 14, 1975, Fresno, California: McCullar was raped and strangled. Investigators considered her death part of the same pattern of attacks on young women in the Fresno area. Sims was suspected in her murder, but the case against him was later dismissed rather than taken to trial. Some reports spell her surname as McCuller.
- Eva Hernandez Lucio, 16 — June 9, 1976, Fresno County, California: Lucio was last seen walking home from school. Her body was found in a vineyard, and investigators concluded that she had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Sims was named as a suspect in her murder, but the charge was ultimately dropped. Some contemporary reports listed her age as 15, while later accounts identified her as 16.
- Janet Darlene Herstein, 17 — May 18, 1977, near Mendota, Fresno County, California: Herstein disappeared on May 16 while delivering copies of the Fresno Guide newspaper along her regular route. Two days later, a federal water employee found her body near a canal outside Mendota. She had been sexually assaulted and strangled with a cord. Sims, then using the name David McGown, was identified as the occupant of the final residence connected to her delivery route. He was arrested, exposed as Ray Dell Sims and convicted of her first-degree murder.
The Murder of Kathy Stark
Kathy Stark’s killing was one of the earliest crimes later connected to Sims. The 17-year-old was murdered on August 22, 1974, during a period in which Sims was living in Fresno and had access to neighborhoods occupied by several of the victims. Stark was sexually assaulted and strangled, establishing a pattern that would be repeated in the later killings.
At the time, investigators lacked the scientific tools necessary to identify a suspect through the biological evidence recovered from the crime scene. The evidence remained preserved for years as the case grew cold. Once DNA profiling became more advanced, detectives revisited Stark’s murder and compared evidence from the case with a blood sample taken from Sims while he was imprisoned.
The resulting DNA evidence linked Sims to Stark. Prosecutors charged him with her murder in December 2001, nearly three decades after her death. However, the charge was not brought to a final verdict. Following Sims’s later conviction for killing Elizabeth Ortega, prosecutors determined that trying the Stark case would not meaningfully extend his imprisonment. The charge was dismissed with the possibility that it could be reconsidered if Sims ever approached release.
The Murder of Elizabeth Ortega
Elizabeth Ortega lived with her mother and four siblings in Fresno. She knew Sims through his family and had reportedly visited his home. Sims lived approximately one block from the Ortega residence, placing him within the teenager’s immediate neighborhood and social environment.
On November 8, 1974, Elizabeth failed to return home from school. Her mother, Ramona Soriano, contacted police and reported her missing. The following day, Elizabeth’s body was found beside Avocado Lake in Fresno County. She had been dressed after the attack, and investigators discovered injuries consistent with both ligature and manual strangulation. Evidence also indicated that she had been sexually assaulted shortly before her death.
Her clothing was carefully stored, allowing investigators to reopen the case as forensic science improved. In the 1990s, testing laboratories examined biological material found on her underwear. The sperm-cell DNA profile was consistent with Sims and did not match the other suspects whose samples were tested. Statistical analysis showed that the match was extraordinarily rare within the general population.
When detectives interviewed Sims at San Quentin State Prison in November 2001, he denied knowing Elizabeth, denied involvement in her murder and claimed that he was unfamiliar with Avocado Lake. Investigators considered those denials suspicious because Elizabeth had been acquainted with his family and the lake was a well-known fishing area. Sims continued to deny responsibility even after detectives repeatedly confronted him with the DNA results.
His trial was delayed for several years, but in September 2008, a Fresno County jury convicted Sims of first-degree murder. He showed little visible reaction as the verdict was announced. The conviction gave Elizabeth’s family a measure of legal recognition more than 33 years after her death. Sims was sentenced to another life term in October 2008.
The Murder of Janet Herstein
Janet Herstein was a Roosevelt High School student who also delivered the Fresno Guide newspaper. On May 16, 1977, she set out along her normal delivery route but never returned home. Her mother reported her missing after realizing that something had interrupted a routine Janet had completed many times before.
Detectives retraced the paper route and learned that nearly every residence had received a newspaper. One of the final houses connected to the route belonged to a man who identified himself as David McGown. He became one of the last known people positioned to have seen Janet alive. Investigators began examining him more closely after other witnesses failed to provide an explanation for Janet’s disappearance.
On May 18, Janet’s body was discovered near a canal outside Mendota. The condition of her body showed that she had been sexually assaulted and strangled with a cord. Investigators arrested McGown, who denied having anything to do with the murder. A background check then revealed that David McGown was an alias and that the suspect’s true name was Ray Dell Sims.
Sims was prosecuted for abducting and killing Janet. The case resulted in his first murder conviction and a life sentence. His imprisonment prevented any additional known attacks, but the full significance of the conviction would not become apparent until investigators began comparing him with Fresno’s other unsolved murders.
The Cold-Case Investigation
For many years, Sims was viewed primarily as Janet Herstein’s convicted killer. That changed as investigators began using DNA profiling to review unresolved sexual assaults and murders. In 1996, a blood sample was obtained from Sims as part of a broader effort to compare incarcerated offenders with evidence from cold cases.
Testing linked Sims to biological material associated with more than one murdered girl. A male hair found beneath a ring worn by one victim also became important after improved laboratory methods made testing possible. By November 2001, detectives believed the forensic results connected Sims to multiple murders committed while he lived in Fresno.
On November 29, 2001, investigators and a prosecutor interviewed Sims at San Quentin. They told him that his DNA had been identified in evidence from two separate murder victims. Sims refused to confess and repeatedly claimed that he did not know the girls. He insisted that he would go to trial and challenged investigators to prove their allegations.
In December 2001, Sims was transported to the Fresno County Jail and charged with four additional murders and related sexual offenses. The charges covered the deaths of Kathy Stark, Elizabeth Ortega, Robin McCullar and Eva Hernandez Lucio. Prosecutors believed the cases revealed a continuing series of sexually motivated strangulation murders rather than isolated incidents.
Pattern of the Crimes
The murders associated with Sims shared several important characteristics. The victims were young females, most of them teenagers, who lived in or had ties to the Fresno area. Several were attacked after leaving school, traveling through their neighborhoods or performing ordinary activities such as delivering newspapers. These circumstances allowed the killer to approach victims without immediately attracting attention.
Strangulation was the dominant method of killing. Elizabeth Ortega was strangled with a ligature, Janet Herstein was strangled with a cord, and the remaining victims were also reported to have died from strangulation. Sexual assault or evidence of sexual contact accompanied the murders, demonstrating that the attacks were sexually motivated.
The disposal locations also reflected an effort to isolate the victims and delay discovery. Bodies were left beside a lake, in a vineyard, near a canal or in other less populated sections of Fresno County. The killer apparently relied on familiar rural and semi-rural areas where a body might remain unnoticed long enough for him to escape.
Sims’s prior rape conviction and his former wife’s description of forced sex and choking further demonstrated a long-standing pattern of sexual violence. Although such evidence did not by itself prove the individual murders, it closely resembled the conduct documented in the attacks on the Fresno victims.
Convictions and Dismissed Charges
Sims was convicted of two first-degree murders: the 1977 killing of Janet Herstein and the 1974 killing of Elizabeth Ortega. Each conviction resulted in a life sentence. The Ortega verdict was especially significant because it was obtained more than three decades after the crime through preserved evidence and modern DNA testing.
The other cases did not result in convictions. Prosecutors dismissed the Kathy Stark charge after the Ortega verdict because Sims was already serving two life sentences and could receive no practical additional punishment. The cases involving Robin McCullar and Eva Hernandez Lucio had been dropped earlier, even though investigators continued to regard Sims as the principal suspect.
The absence of convictions in those cases does not mean that the victims were forgotten or that investigators cleared Sims. Rather, prosecutors made strategic decisions based on the age of the cases, available evidence, legal complications and Sims’s existing life sentences. Public accounts have continued to describe him as responsible for or strongly linked to at least five murders.
Legacy of the Case
The Ray Dell Sims investigation demonstrates how preserved evidence can solve violent crimes decades after they occur. When the girls were murdered in the 1970s, investigators could not obtain an individual genetic profile from biological material. Years later, DNA technology transformed that same evidence into a powerful means of identifying the attacker.
Sims’s use of aliases, his ordinary employment and his outward appearance as a married father allowed him to conceal a deeply violent history. His first murder conviction removed him from the community, but it took decades for investigators to uncover the broader pattern surrounding the other Fresno victims.
Although he was prosecuted successfully for only two killings, Sims is regarded as a serial killer connected to at least five girls and young women between 1974 and 1977. The cases of Kathy Stark, Elizabeth Ortega, Robin McCullar, Eva Hernandez Lucio and Janet Herstein remain tied together by geography, victim profile, sexual violence, strangulation and forensic evidence. Sims received two life sentences, ensuring that he would remain imprisoned for the crimes proven against him.
