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“There’s some evidence that we’re processing to determine that
link,” Kennedy said. “We are very confident that we have the
correct person of interest.”
Kraft, now 80, was convicted in 1989 of brutalizing and killing
16 men over a decade in California and sentenced to death. He
remains incarcerated at San Quentin State Prison and has denied
killing anyone.
On July 18, 1980, police responded to a report of a body now
identified as Parks along I-5 south of Portland near Woodburn.
Police opened a homicide investigation at the time and
unsuccessfully tried to identify the victim.
Parks, a Vietnam veteran whose family had lost contact with him
in 1979, had last been seen in Pensacola, Florida, police said.
Kraft was pulled over in his vehicle on a California freeway in
1983 after a trooper spotted him driving erratically. In the
passenger seat of the vehicle was a strangled U.S. Marine. In
the trunk of Kraft’s vehicle was a coded list believed to tally
67 victims in California, Oregon and Michigan, according to
police.
Prosecutors described Kraft, a former computer programmer, as a
fetishist who kept some of the dismembered parts of his victims
in his freezer.
In 2024, an Orange County Sheriff’s Department investigator
reached out to the Oregon State Police Cold Case Unit and
offered to help identify the remains using forensic
investigative genetic genealogy. A genetic profile was developed
from a blood sample and Parks' identity was confirmed after
possible family members submitted DNA profiles for comparison,
according to police.
Until his identification last month, the circumstances of his
disappearance were unknown to the his family, police said.
In 2023, the remains of a teenager believed to have been killed
by Kraft in California were also identified using investigative
genetic genealogy.
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