The murder of a teenager in 1986 was finally solved when DNA evidence connected it to a serial killer on death row. William Lester Suff admitted to stabbing 19-year-old Cathy Small to death and leaving her body by the side of a California highway decades ago. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Lt. Patricia Thomas said Suff confessed to the murder after the DNA evidence was presented to him.
The serial killer, who has been on death row since 1995, murdered Cathy Small in February 1986. Police discovered her body after receiving a call reporting a woman lying on a street in South Pasadena. Officers found the young woman with several stab wounds, and she was pronounced dead at the scene.
Small was initially designated a Jane Doe identity until her roommate contacted the police to report her missing. He later identified the dead woman and told officers that the 19-year-old was working as a prostitute. The unnamed friend also stated that a man named Bill had contacted Small and offered her $50 to travel to Los Angeles with him. That was the last time she saw her.
Police struggled to find any leads in the case or locate the mysterious Bill, and the case went unsolved for decades. In 2019, however, coroner investigators responded to the scene of a natural death close to where Cathy Small’s body was found. Inside the home were several photographs of women being held captive and injured, and while the dead man’s DNA did not link him to Small’s murder, the investigation inadvertently revealed that DNA from the 1986 crime scene had never been tested.
In August 2020, that was finally remedied, and police found the presence of two different strands of DNA, one of whom was confirmed as that of William Suff – who was convicted of 12 separate murders in July 1995.
On the day he murdered Small, he had hired her services but said he became enraged when she knocked the glasses from his face. He grabbed a knife he kept in his car and stabbed her several times in the chest.
