Serial killer confesses to 1986 slaying of young mother in South Pasadena: ‘Long overdue justice’

A 70-year-old convicted serial killer from Lake Elsinore has confessed to another slaying in Southern California, putting an end to a decades-old cold case, authorities announced Tuesday.

William Lester Suff, known over the years as the “Riverside Prostitute Killer” and the “Lake Elsinore Killer,” confessed to killing 19-year-old Cathy Small in 1986, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department Homicide Lt. Patricia Thomas said at a news conference. Suff also admitted to other killings in Riverside County but authorities did not immediately provide details on those cases. He is currently on death row in San Quentin.

According to authorities, Suff’s killings go back to the 1970s and 1980s, when Los Angeles was known as the serial killer capital of America. In 1974, he was convicted in Texas of killing his 2-month old daughter and was sentenced to 70 years. But in 1984, he was paroled to California, Thomas said.

On Feb. 22, 1986, South Pasadena Police responded to a report of a woman lying in the road on Banks Street, Thomas said. The woman was found wearing a nightgown and was unresponsive with multiple stab wounds; she was pronounced dead at the scene. An autopsy determined she was stabbed and strangled to death.

Three days later, detectives got a call from a Lake Elsinore resident, who saw a newspaper article about the homicide and was worried the woman was his roommate, according to authorities. The caller later identified the victim as 19-year-old Cathy Small, a prostitute who had been living with him in his house for a few months.

The man told detectives that Small left the house on Feb. 21 and told him that a man named Bill was picking her up and giving her $50 to drive with him to L.A., Thomas said.

Detectives followed up on several leads throughout the decades but never solved the case. Authorities later discovered that a sexual assault kit from the case and Small’s clothing were never tested for DNA; on Aug. 20, 2020, DNA analysis linked the case to two males. One of them was Suff.

When questioned by detectives in 2022, Suff said he was working at a computer repair shop and living in Riverside County in 1986. One day, Small went into the repair shop and gave him her home phone number. He called her and asked if she would go with him to see his boss in Pasadena.

When they arrived at the location on Banks Street, the two got into an argument and Suff became enraged when she knocked the glasses off his face, Thomas said. Suff retrieved a knife from his car and stabbed her multiple times in the chest. He then pushed her into the street and drove away.

“We believe we’re bringing a sense of long overdue justice and closure to the victim and her family,” L.A. County Sheriff Robert Luna said at Tuesday’s press conference.

Small had two young children and was on her way to getting her life back on track when she was killed, according to a statement from Small’s younger sister that Thomas read at the news conference.

“She was a loving mother and a good daughter,” the statement said. “She had a big heart and would do anything for anyone.”

Suff would remain free until he was arrested during a routine traffic stop in 1992 and ultimately confessed to a dozen other murders in Riverside County between 1989 and 1991 and was sentenced to death.

Suff is not expected to be put on trial for Small’s killing because he is already on death row, authorities said.