Larry D. Hubbard: The Fugitive Linked to Four Southern California Murders
Background and Criminal History
Larry D. Hubbard was a convicted robber and suspected serial killer whose crimes remained largely hidden for decades. Born on September 2, 1952, in the United States Virgin Islands, Hubbard also used names including Larry Barnes. His known criminal history began in Florida, where he was convicted of robbery in 1974. In 1977, he escaped from a Florida prison and fled across the country. He eventually settled in Southern California, where he lived while remaining a fugitive.
Investigators later linked Hubbard to the strangulation deaths of three women through DNA evidence. They also considered him the leading suspect in a fourth murder that closely resembled one of the DNA-linked crimes. The killings occurred in two separate periods, first in 1980 and then again in 2000. The twenty-year interval between the cases made the connection extremely difficult to recognize.
The 1980 Los Angeles Murders
The first homicide conclusively connected to Hubbard was the killing of 25-year-old Sonia Smith. Smith was discovered in an abandoned field in Los Angeles on August 19, 1980. Her wrists and ankles had been tied, and she had been sexually assaulted and strangled with a ligature. Evidence was collected during the original investigation, but the forensic technology available in 1980 could not identify her killer.
Less than three months later, 25-year-old Phyllis McClinton was found dead in a vacant lot in South Los Angeles. Her body was discovered on November 4, 1980. Like Smith, McClinton had been bound and left in an isolated outdoor location. Investigators believed that similarities in the victims’ backgrounds, the binding of their bodies and the locations where they were found indicated that the two women may have been attacked by the same person.
A major clue emerged after another woman survived a similar attack in November 1980. The survivor reported that she had been assaulted and bound in a manner resembling the treatment of Smith and McClinton. She identified Hubbard as her attacker. Hubbard was arrested and prosecuted for false imprisonment, but he was not charged with either murder. He received a sentence of six months in jail and four years of probation, while his status as a Florida prison escapee apparently remained undiscovered.
The 2000 Pomona and Riverside County Murders
Twenty years after the Los Angeles killings, two women from Pomona were murdered within approximately two months of one another. On August 11, 2000, 45-year-old Vanessa Williams was found in a vacant field in Pomona. She had been killed by ligature strangulation. Her body had been abandoned in an isolated area, repeating important features of the 1980 cases.
On October 14, 2000, 27-year-old Christine Fields was found strangled in a field in Riverside County. Fields was also from Pomona. The circumstances of her death were sufficiently similar to those of Williams that detectives from the Pomona Police Department and the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department began working together.
Biological evidence recovered in the Williams and Fields investigations produced DNA profiles. When those profiles were compared with preserved evidence from the sexual-assault examination conducted after Sonia Smith’s murder, investigators determined that the three cases involved the same male offender. This finding connected murders separated by twenty years and committed in different jurisdictions.
Known and Suspected Victims
- Sonia Smith, age 25: Killed on August 19, 1980, in Los Angeles, California. She was found bound in an abandoned field after being sexually assaulted and strangled with a ligature. DNA evidence later connected Hubbard to her murder.
- Phyllis McClinton, age 25: Found dead on November 4, 1980, in a vacant lot in South Los Angeles, California. She had been bound and strangled. Her murder strongly resembled Smith’s killing, but the publicly described DNA evidence did not conclusively connect Hubbard to McClinton.
- Vanessa Williams, age 45: Died on August 11, 2000, in Pomona, California. She was found strangled in a vacant field. DNA evidence connected her case to Smith, Fields and Hubbard.
- Christine Fields, age 27: Found dead on October 14, 2000, in a field in Riverside County, California. She had been killed by ligature strangulation. DNA evidence connected her murder to the Smith and Williams cases and ultimately to Hubbard.
Identification Through DNA
Hubbard remained free until May 22, 2007, when Ontario police officers arrested him on the outstanding Florida warrant. He had successfully avoided capture as an escaped prisoner for approximately thirty years. He was returned to Florida before California investigators understood the full significance of his arrest.
In July 2007, investigators learned that DNA evidence connected the murders of Sonia Smith, Vanessa Williams and Christine Fields. Detectives then reviewed the older files and recognized Hubbard’s connection to the surviving woman’s 1980 assault. A sample of Hubbard’s DNA was eventually compared with the unidentified profile from the homicide evidence. On June 22, 2012, investigators received confirmation that Hubbard’s profile matched the DNA associated with the three murders.
Death and Unanswered Questions
Hubbard never faced trial for the killings. After being returned to custody in Florida, he attempted suicide by hanging. He died from complications related to the attempt on January 13, 2008, at the age of 55. His death occurred more than four years before investigators publicly identified him as the man linked by DNA to the California murders.
Because Hubbard lived under an assumed identity and remained outside lawful custody for three decades, investigators considered the possibility that he committed additional crimes. His known and suspected murders occurred across a twenty-year period, leaving a long section of his life for which his activities were not fully documented. The surviving victim’s identification, the similar binding and disposal of the 1980 victims, and the later DNA connections provided investigators with a disturbing picture of an offender who targeted vulnerable women and abandoned them in isolated fields.
Hubbard is most accurately described as being conclusively linked by DNA to the murders of Sonia Smith, Vanessa Williams and Christine Fields, while remaining the principal suspect in the murder of Phyllis McClinton. His case demonstrates how preserved forensic evidence can identify an offender decades after a crime, even when that person has already died and can no longer be prosecuted.
