San Mateo County serial killer dies on Death Row at 79

In the early ’70s, Sully lived in Millbrae and served the city as a police officer. He quit in 1974 and decided to start an electrical supply business. Sully rented a supply warehouse in Burlingame for the business, which became the scene of some of the killings, according to Bay City News.

Sully was a drug addict who used cocaine, he ordered prostitutes and would sexually assault and torture them, some of which he let go, others he killed, Wagstaffe said.

“The pimp came down to the warehouse to ask where two of his prostitutes were and Sully killed him too,” Wagstaffe said.

Sully and Tina Livingston, a madam and the prosecutors lead witness, told prosecutors that Sully had one of the victims, Barbara Searcy, 22, in the back of his van, took her to Cañada Road, tied her to the back of the van and dragged her down the road leaving a blood stream. Livingston said he did it so that Searcy would be unidentifiable.

He was also responsible for the murders of Kathryn Barrett, 24, Gloria Jean Fravel, 24, Brenda Oakden, 19, Michael Thomas, 24, and Phyllis Melendez, 20, which occurred over a six-month period in 1983, according to a press release.

Barrett was stabbed six times and hit over the head with a sledgehammer. Many of his victims were shot in the back of the head at his Burlingame warehouse, according to Bay City News.

Sully deposited the bodies around the county. One on Skyline Boulevard, one at the end of a cul-de-sac in the industrial area of South San Francisco, one on Cañada Road and two bodies were discovered in metal electrical barrels, filled with concrete and disposed of at Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Wagstaffe said a fingerprint imprinted in the cement led investigators to Sully.

“You have to remember, back then we had no security cameras, no DNA, no Ring cameras and there were no witnesses other than these people, this was old-fashioned good police work,” Wagstaffe said.

Wagstaffe said he remembers the case clearly because he was a prosecutor for the DA’s Office at the time and helped his colleague prosecutor, Tom Stevens, with the case. Stevens eventually convicted Sully and put him on Death Row in June of 1986.

However, his sentence was never carried out after all his appeals were completed, because Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a moratorium on the state’s death penalty. The state hasn’t carried out an execution in 17 years.

“It does seem that there is justice lacking because he was sentenced in summer of 1986 and nearly 40 years later it was never carried out,” Wagstaffe said.

Wagstaffe added he will never forget walking through the warehouse during the police search.

“There were two plaques on the wall in the warehouse from the Millbrae’s Lions Club, he won citizen of the year twice and I thought to myself that is the true definition of Jekyll and Hyde,” Wagstaffe said. “By day he was a successful businessman, receiving awards from the community and by night a drug-addicted mass murderer.”