Anthony McKnight

Little is known about McKnight's early life. He was born in 1954, and enlisted in the United States Army in 1982. He also enlisted in the Navy and later served at Naval Air Station Alameda, located in the San Francisco Bay Area near the cities of Alameda and Oakland. He was married, and had a child. McKnight was known as a lively and friendly man, thanks to which he was popular in the area, with his many friends describing him very positively.[2]

In 1982, McKnight was arrested by Oakland police while attempting to rape a girl who refused to have sex with him. He was not convicted and got off with a fine, but his information was entered in a sex offender database and his fingerprints entered in the U.S. criminal database.[3]

In October 1985, McKnight committed his first attack, stabbing a girl in the neck and chest, then raping and leaving her unconscious on the outskirts of one of the western districts of Oakland, where she was found and taken to a hospital. A few days later, McKnight raped and beat up another girl at one of the city's construction sites. Seizing the moment, the victim managed to escape her attacker and hid in a drainage ditch, after which she notified the police. By December 1985, McKnight had carried out two more similar attacks, in one case inflicting 10 stab wounds on the victim, and stabbing the other in the face, but both survived and subsequently gave law enforcement officers a description of the offender, his vehicle and part of the license plate. In January 1986, McKnight carried out another attack, during which he raped the victim and attempted to strangle her, dumping her in Oakland's industrial area. She survived the ordeal.[4]

In November 1985, McKnight's car was stopped by law enforcement during a routine identification check. Since his car matched the description in which the unknown attacker was supposedly traveling in, he was interrogated and subsequently released. Nevertheless, as a known sex offender, McKnight came under suspicion. His photograph was shown to three of the victims, all of whom identified him as their rapist, and he was arrested on January 24, 1986. In addition to these charges, he became the main suspect in the murder of at least seven women and girls in Oakland and its suburbs, whose killer demonstrated the exact same modus operandi. He did not plead guilty, however, based on the victim testimony and the results of a complete blood count, his blood matched that of the rapist. On August 24, 1987, McKnight was found guilty of several cases of kidnapping, assault, rape and attempted murder, receiving 63 years imprisonment.[5][6][7]

Following his conviction, he was transferred to Salinas Valley State Prison to serve his sentence. In 1999, he gave a blood and saliva sample. In subsequent years, thanks to a DNA profiling test, McKnight was connected to five rape-murders: 22-year-old Betty Stewart, whose throat was slit on September 22, 1985; 17-year-old Diana Stone, whose corpse was found on the grounds of a primary school in Oakland with knife wounds to the neck on September 29, 1985; 13-year-old Talita Dixon, who was stabbed to death on October 8, 1985; 18-year-old Monica Davis, who was killed by several blows to the head with a blunt object on December 9, 1985; and finally, 24-year-old Beverly Bryant, who was beaten to death on December 25, 1985.[8][9][10] In a new trial, McKnight was found guilty of the murders and sentenced to death on November 17, 2008. He did not admit his guilt.[11][12]

After his second conviction, McKnight was transferred to San Quentin State Prison, where he spent the next years of his life awaiting execution. On October 17, 2019, after having spent more than 33 years behind bars, McKnight died at the age of 65 from unspecified causes.[13]

• Charles Jackson
• Joseph James DeAngelo
• Joseph Naso
• Philip Joseph Hughes Jr.
• Roger Kibbe

General

• List of serial killers in the United States