Sebastian Shaw (serial killer)

On July 1, 1991, the body of 40-year-old Jay Andrew Rickbeil, a quadraplegic suffering from cerebral palsy, was found in his Portland home by his roommate and apartment manager Mac MacCartney. He had bled to death as a result from a injury to the neck, likely inflicted with a knife. According to his neighbors, Rickbeil was a New Age believer who'd often invite strangers into his apartment to have discussions, and often attempted to convert the visitor to his religion. A trusting man, he would often give them a business card with his name and address, and occasionally even money, which often resulted in his personal possessions being stolen.[3] At that time, Shaw had just been fired from his job at Paragon Cable, following complaints of sexual assault by his colleague Shirley Phillips. In order to vent out his anger, he picked Rickbeil at random, slashing his throat while the man lay in bed.[4]

On July 20, 1992, a couple were found murdered in their trailer home by their fathers in Portland. Todd A. Rudiger, 29, and his live-in girlfriend Donna G. Ferguson, 18, were both stabbed in the necks and bled to death, with Donna having been bound and raped beforehand.[5]

On May 27, 1994, after returning home from work, John Lin found the partially naked body of his 14-year-old daughter Jenny in the bathroom of the family's home in the Palomares Hills neighborhood, in Castro Valley. She had been stabbed multiple times, but, peculiarly, there were no signs of a struggle, of any apparent sexual assault or any items missing from the house, which puzzled the investigators. She had no known enemies, was a straight A-student and gifted violinist who was about to graduate the following month. According to her friends, when they last spoke to her via phone around 5:15 PM, Jenny said that she was fine and that she was currently at home.[6] Despite these circumstances, authorities believed that Jenny's killer was a man, as she had been easily overpowered, and that they didn't know each other. They announced that they were looking for a young man on a motorcycle who was seen handing out leaflets in the area, as they wanted to question him as a potential witness.[7]

Strangely enough, John Lin later recalled that two weeks before his daughter's death, he had been stopped at a parking lot by a disheveled man who claimed to have "got his daughter", but, knowing that Jenny was on her violin lessons, he brushed the man off and left. Although this bizarre individual wasn't considered a suspect, a sketch of him was released to the press in an attempt to identify and then interrogate him.[8] In the meantime, the Lin family created "Friends of Jenny Lin", a volunteer organization aimed at spreading awareness about their daughter's case, a move backed by the executive director of the Adam Walsh Center and the father of Polly Klaas.[9] In October, a neighbor came forward to police, claiming that they had seen a stocky man in a dark jacket and cap outside the Lin residence near the time of the murder, claiming that they had been afraid to come forward out of fear that the killer might return to exact revenge on the informants.[10]