Philip Joseph Hughes Jr.: The East Bay Strangler
Overview
Philip Joseph Hughes Jr., born on January 29, 1948, was an American serial killer who operated in Northern California during the early 1970s. Commonly called the “East Bay Strangler,” Hughes was convicted of murdering three young women in and around Contra Costa County. His known crimes occurred between November 1972 and March 1975 and involved abduction, sexual violence, strangulation, stabbing and blunt-force trauma.
Hughes did not always act alone. His wife at the time, Suzanne Perrin, participated in aspects of his crimes and later became the prosecution’s most important witness. Perrin said that she helped Hughes identify possible victims, assisted in at least one abduction and took part in concealing a victim’s body. She eventually received immunity from prosecution in exchange for testifying against him.
The Murder of Maureen Patricia Field
Maureen Patricia Field was a 19-year-old woman from Pleasant Hill, California. On November 14, 1972, she finished working a shift at a Kmart store and waited for her father to collect her. Before he arrived, Hughes offered Maureen a ride. When her father reached the store, he was told that she had already left.
Two days after Maureen disappeared, her family received a disturbing telephone call from a man who claimed that he had killed her. The caller provided no useful explanation and did not contact the family again. Maureen remained missing for approximately three months.
On February 15, 1973, her badly decomposed body was discovered beside Morgan Territory Road in a rural part of Contra Costa County. Investigators determined that she had been stabbed and strangled. Although her remains were not recovered until 1973, official records place her death on November 14, 1972, the date she disappeared.
The Murder of Lisa Ann Beery
Lisa Ann Beery was a 15-year-old girl from Oakland. On January 26, 1974, she left home intending to cash checks and was seen hitchhiking near her neighborhood. Hughes and Suzanne Perrin approached her and abducted her at knifepoint.
Lisa was taken to a house in Oakland and held in its basement. She was sexually assaulted and stabbed to death. Her body was wrapped in a sheet, transported away from the house and buried in a shallow grave on a secluded hillside in the Rheem Valley area near Moraga.
Lisa’s disappearance remained unresolved for more than five years. After Perrin began cooperating with police in July 1979, she supplied information that led investigators to the burial site. Lisa’s remains were recovered from the hillside that month. Her established date of death is January 26, 1974, the day she was abducted.
The Murder of Letitia Thompson Fagot
Letitia “Tish” Thompson Fagot was a 25-year-old woman who lived on Los Cerros Avenue in Walnut Creek. She worked with Suzanne Perrin at the French Bank of California in San Francisco, giving Hughes and Perrin a personal connection to her.
On March 19, 1975, Letitia failed to arrive at work. Concerned coworkers requested that someone check on her. She was found dead inside her Walnut Creek home that day. She had been strangled with a cord and struck severely in the head with a blunt object, reported to have been a hammer.
The attack inside Letitia’s residence demonstrated that Hughes did not rely exclusively on abducting strangers from public places. In this case, he targeted someone connected to his wife and attacked the victim in her own home. Letitia’s confirmed date of death is March 19, 1975.
Confirmed Victims
- Maureen Patricia Field, 19 — Killed on November 14, 1972, after leaving a Kmart store in the Pleasant Hill area of Contra Costa County, California. Her body was found beside Morgan Territory Road on February 15, 1973. She had been stabbed and strangled.
- Lisa Ann Beery, 15 — Abducted and killed on January 26, 1974, after being picked up near her Oakland home. She was taken to an Oakland residence, sexually assaulted and stabbed. Her remains were recovered from a shallow grave near Moraga in July 1979.
- Letitia “Tish” Thompson Fagot, 25 — Killed on March 19, 1975, inside her home on Los Cerros Avenue in Walnut Creek, California. She was strangled with a cord and suffered fatal blunt-force injuries to her head.
Investigation and Arrest
The investigation changed dramatically in July 1979, when one of Suzanne Perrin’s friends contacted the Oakland Police Department on Perrin’s behalf. Perrin was reportedly frightened of Hughes and wanted to disclose what she knew. She met with a police sergeant and described Hughes’s involvement in Lisa Beery’s murder.
On July 13, 1979, investigators obtained a warrant to search Hughes’s home in Pleasanton. Perrin’s statements also enabled police to locate Lisa’s grave. Her testimony connected Hughes not only to Lisa’s death but also to the murders of Maureen Field and Letitia Fagot.
After Hughes became a suspect, investigators from numerous California law-enforcement agencies examined whether he could have been responsible for additional disappearances and murders. He was questioned or considered in relation to other unsolved cases from the region, but he was convicted only of the three murders described above. Other possible connections have not been proven in court.
Trials and Convictions
Hughes was tried first for the murder of Lisa Beery. On April 3, 1980, a jury found him guilty of first-degree murder. Because his mental condition had been raised during the proceedings, the jury separately considered whether he had been legally sane at the time of the crime. On April 8, 1980, the jurors determined that he had been legally sane.
On May 21, 1980, Hughes received a life sentence for Lisa’s murder. Perrin testified about her husband’s actions and her own participation, including the abduction and disposal of Lisa’s body.
Hughes was later tried for the murders of Maureen Field and Letitia Fagot. On October 14, 1980, he was convicted of both first-degree murders. On November 25, 1980, he received two additional life sentences, ordered to run concurrently. The sentencing judge described him as a continuing danger to society.
Imprisonment and Legacy
Hughes’s murder convictions were upheld by a California appellate court in August 1983. He later appeared before parole officials several times, but his requests for release were denied. His case remains associated with a particularly frightening period in Contra Costa County, when several violent offenders were active and numerous disappearances and murders remained unresolved.
The evidence presented at Hughes’s trials established a pattern of selecting vulnerable young women, gaining control of them through deception or force and killing them in different settings. His crimes included the disappearance of a worker waiting for a ride, the abduction of a teenage hitchhiker and the killing of a woman inside her own home. The testimony of Suzanne Perrin ultimately exposed that pattern and allowed prosecutors to obtain three murder convictions.
Maureen Field, Lisa Beery and Letitia Fagot were Hughes’s confirmed victims. Their names, rather than the nickname given to their killer, remain central to the history of the case.
