Anthony John Sully: The Former Police Officer Who Murdered Six People
From Police Officer to Convicted Serial Killer
Anthony John Sully was an American serial killer and former police officer who murdered six people in the San Francisco Bay Area during 1983. His victims included five women and one man, several of whom were connected to prostitution, escort services or the illegal drug trade. Sully committed the killings in or around an electrical contracting warehouse he operated in Burlingame, California. The warehouse doubled as his residence and became the central location in a series of shootings, beatings, stabbings and acts of torture.
Sully had previously served as an officer with the Millbrae Police Department. He joined the department in 1966 and remained in law enforcement for nearly eight years. His police training included fingerprint detection and other investigative techniques. After leaving the department in 1974, he established an electrical contracting business and eventually rented a warehouse in an industrial section of Burlingame. The building appeared to be an ordinary commercial property, but prosecutors later demonstrated that Sully used it to imprison, assault and kill his victims.
Violence Behind the Warehouse Doors
By the early 1980s, Sully had become involved with escort agencies, prostitutes and cocaine users in the Bay Area. He was known to some people in that circle as “Jack.” He invested money in an escort business and regularly invited women to his warehouse. Testimony presented at his trial described Sully as controlling and violently abusive. Women who visited the warehouse were reportedly subjected to beatings, sexual violence and threats.
Sully did not act entirely alone. Tina Livingston, an escort-service operator, became an important prosecution witness. Keli “Angel” Burns and Michael Anthony Francis were also implicated in portions of the crimes. Livingston later entered a plea agreement and testified about what she had witnessed inside the warehouse. Her testimony was supported by fingerprints, footprints, rope, plastic wrapping, barrels, cigarette evidence and other physical material recovered during the investigation.
The Murder of Gloria Jean Fravel
Gloria Jean Fravel, 24, worked for an escort service connected to Tina Livingston. Fravel reportedly owed Livingston approximately $500. In early February 1983, Livingston and Keli Burns located Fravel in San Francisco and took her to Sully’s warehouse under the pretense of obtaining camping equipment. After Fravel refused Sully’s request for sex, he struck her and ordered her into the rear portion of the building.
Fravel was held captive through the weekend. According to trial testimony, she was gagged, handcuffed and suspended from the ceiling. Sully sexually assaulted and tortured her while using cocaine. At one point, a rope was fashioned into a noose and placed around her neck. When Fravel began screaming, Burns attempted to silence her while Sully tightened the rope. Fravel became limp, but she may not yet have been dead when she was wrapped in plastic and placed inside a vehicle.
While Sully and Burns were transporting Fravel’s body, they reportedly realized she was still alive. Sully stopped the vehicle and struck her repeatedly in the head and neck with a hatchet or similar sharp instrument. Her body was abandoned along Skyline Boulevard, also known as State Route 35, in San Mateo County. It was discovered on February 7, 1983. An autopsy determined that she died from severe cutting and blunt-force injuries to her head and neck.
The Golden Gate Park Barrel Murders
After Fravel’s murder, Sully told Livingston that he wanted a young woman who was relatively inexperienced in prostitution. Livingston identified 19-year-old Brenda Oakden, who was also known as Brenda Rule. Oakden had reportedly worked for the escort service on one occasion. She was taken to Sully’s Burlingame warehouse during February 1983 and was shot in the back of the head.
Sully later killed Michael Thomas, 24, and Thomas’s 20-year-old common-law wife, Phyllis Melendrez. Her surname was also reported in some accounts as Melendez. Thomas was involved in pimping and drug activity, while Melendrez had worked as a prostitute. Sully had reportedly argued with Thomas before inviting the couple to the warehouse in April 1983. Once they arrived, Sully forced them into position and shot both victims in the back of the head.
The bodies of Oakden, Thomas and Melendrez were placed in large steel drums. Sully and his associates poured concrete into the containers in an effort to seal them and conceal the remains. The barrels were then transported to Golden Gate Park in San Francisco and abandoned near the shore of a lake. They were discovered in early May 1983. Investigators found Sully’s fingerprints on the barrels and impressions left in the wet concrete. Keli Burns’s palm print was also found on one of the containers.
The Murder of Barbara Lee Searcy
Barbara Lee Searcy, 22, had previously associated with Sully and had visited his warehouse. In August 1983, Sully contacted her and indicated that he had money for her. After Searcy arrived, Sully shot her in the back of the head. He then removed her clothing and personal belongings and attempted to eliminate evidence connecting him to her disappearance.
Sully asked Livingston to enter Searcy’s apartment and erase a message he had left on her answering machine. Livingston was unable to complete the task. Sully wrapped Searcy’s body in plastic and placed it in a hamper outside the warehouse. He and Livingston then loaded the body into his truck.
Sully attempted to drag Searcy’s body behind the vehicle in order to damage it and make identification more difficult. The attempt was interrupted when Sully and Livingston encountered a witness. They fled and left the body near a roadway in the Woodside area of San Mateo County. Searcy’s remains were discovered on August 18, 1983, near the Pulgas Water Temple. Investigators recovered rope, blood evidence and a footprint that connected the disposal site to Sully.
The Murder of Kathryn Barrett
Kathryn Barrett, 24, was a drug dealer who offered to sell Sully approximately six ounces of cocaine. Sully and Michael Anthony Francis planned to steal the drugs. Barrett was driven to Sully’s warehouse, where she was attacked. Livingston later testified that she saw Francis stabbing Barrett in the chest.
Barrett remained alive after the stabbing and could be heard moaning. Sully became dissatisfied with Francis’s inability to kill her quickly. He then struck Barrett with a sledgehammer or another heavy blunt object. She suffered multiple stab wounds, severe head trauma and extensive blood loss.
Barrett’s nude body was wrapped in plastic and abandoned on a street in an industrial section of South San Francisco. It was discovered on August 19, 1983. A footprint belonging to Sully was found on the plastic surrounding her body. Investigators also recovered a cigarette butt from the body that matched the batch number of cigarettes found inside Sully’s warehouse.
Confirmed Victims
- Gloria Jean Fravel, 24 — Murdered in early February 1983 and found on February 7, 1983, along Skyline Boulevard in San Mateo County, California. She was strangled, cut and struck in the head and neck with a hatchet.
- Brenda Oakden, 19 — Murdered in February 1983 inside Sully’s warehouse in Burlingame, California. She was shot in the back of the head. Her body was later placed in a steel drum and found in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco in early May 1983.
- Michael Thomas, 24 — Murdered in April 1983 inside Sully’s Burlingame warehouse. He was shot in the back of the head and placed in a steel drum found in Golden Gate Park in early May 1983.
- Phyllis Melendrez, 20 — Murdered in April 1983 inside Sully’s Burlingame warehouse. She was struck and shot in the back of the head. Her body was placed in a steel drum found in Golden Gate Park in early May 1983.
- Barbara Lee Searcy, 22 — Murdered shortly before her body was discovered on August 18, 1983, near the Pulgas Water Temple and Woodside area of San Mateo County, California. She was shot in the back of the head.
- Kathryn Barrett, 24 — Murdered shortly before her body was discovered on August 19, 1983, in an industrial area of South San Francisco, California. She was stabbed and beaten with a heavy blunt instrument.
The Investigation and Arrest
The discovery of the three bodies in barrels produced one of the most disturbing homicide investigations in San Francisco during the early 1980s. Investigators traced the containers to barrels stolen from a storage area near Sully’s warehouse. Sully’s fingerprints were found on the barrels, including prints impressed in wet concrete. Burns’s palm print provided another direct connection to the containers.
Police also linked plastic bags found in Sully’s vehicle to material used to wrap Michael Thomas’s body. Rope recovered from Sully’s property contained microscopic characteristics matching rope used to bind Barbara Searcy. A footprint tied Sully to Searcy’s body, while another footprint appeared on the plastic surrounding Kathryn Barrett. The cigarette evidence found on Barrett further connected her killing to the warehouse.
Sully was arrested on August 25, 1983. Searches of his warehouse and vehicle produced weapons, rope, plastic bags and other materials associated with the murders. Investigators also learned that Sully had replaced or removed the barrel from one of his revolvers, making it difficult to determine whether the weapon had fired the bullets that killed several of the victims.
Accomplices and Prosecution Witnesses
Tina Livingston became the prosecution’s principal witness. She admitted helping Sully move bodies and described the violence she had observed. Under a plea agreement, she pleaded guilty to being an accessory in connection with Kathryn Barrett’s murder and received a three-year sentence. Because she had already been jailed for a substantial period, she was eventually released with credit for time served.
Keli Burns was prosecuted for her involvement in the crimes. Evidence and testimony indicated that she participated in the abuse and disposal of Gloria Fravel and was involved in events surrounding the barrel murders. Burns was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole.
Michael Anthony Francis was convicted for his role in Kathryn Barrett’s murder. Testimony established that he stabbed Barrett before Sully delivered the fatal blunt-force blows. Francis received a life sentence with the possibility of parole.
Trial, Conviction and Death Sentence
Sully pleaded not guilty and attempted to shift responsibility onto Livingston, Burns and Francis. However, prosecutors presented extensive physical evidence and testimony demonstrating that Sully was the principal participant in all six murders. The evidence showed a repeated pattern: victims were brought to the Burlingame warehouse, killed through shooting or extreme violence, wrapped or concealed and then transported to isolated disposal locations.
On June 3, 1986, a San Mateo County jury convicted Anthony John Sully of six counts of first-degree murder. The jury also found the multiple-murder special circumstance to be true, making him eligible for the death penalty. He was sentenced to death in June 1986.
Sully continued to deny responsibility and claimed that he had not received a fair trial. His conviction and death sentence were reviewed and upheld by the California Supreme Court in 1991. Additional appeals and attempts to overturn the sentence were unsuccessful.
Death on California’s Death Row
Sully remained under a death sentence for more than three decades. He was incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison, later renamed the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. California did not execute him.
Anthony John Sully died on September 8, 2023, at the age of 79. He died of natural causes at an outside medical facility while still classified as a condemned prisoner. His death ended the legal proceedings surrounding one of the Bay Area’s most brutal serial-murder cases, but the six victims and the extraordinary efforts used to conceal their bodies remain central to the history of the investigation.
