Anthony McKnight
Anthony McKnight (1954 – October 17, 2019), was an American serial killer and serial rapist who attacked ten women in Oakland, California between September 1985 and January 1986, killing five of them. He was found guilty of these murders and sentenced to death, but died awaiting execution. Biography. 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. Also  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. In 1983 he got 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, unaware that he was a sex offender. Crimes. McKnight's first attack was in October  when he stabbed a girl in the neck and chest, then raping her 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, He raped and beat up another girl at one of the city's construction sites. Seizing the moment, the victim managed to escape McKnight 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, saying that he was a black man, early 30s and with a beard and mustache. One of them also gave a description of 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. In late 1985, the Oakland Police Department (OPD) became aware of the serial rapist targeting young black women in city 's suburbs and outskirt areas. Overtime to police, the unknown rapist 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 and pattern. Now that the OPD had a vehicle description, they started examining men in the area who matched the physical and vehicle descriptions. In the investigation they came across McKnight, who immediately stuck out to investigators because of his criminal background. They found out that at the time of the rapes, McKnight was stationed at Treasure Island in the San Francisco  bay area as part of the navy. In January he was taken into the police station and interrogated. He denied attacking anyone, and police didn't have enough evidence to arrest him, and he was soon released. In January 1986, investigators were able to obtain a photograph of McKnight and showed it to three of the victims, all of whom identified him as their rapist, and he was arrested on January 24, 1986. He was again interrogated, but still insisted his innocence. Despite being originally suspected in the seven murders, police found no evidence that McKnight was responsible for those  murders, so they decided to not charge him with them and instead he was charged with the rapes and attempted murders, and 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. Exposure. Following his conviction, he was transferred to Salinas Valley State Prison to serve his sentence. Twelve years into his sentence, investigators once again began to hypothesize the idea that  McKnight may have been responsible for unsolved murders in the Oakland area, and possibly other areas in or around the east bay. They got the affirmative to get a DNA sample from McKnight and enter it into California's Combined DNA Index System, (CODIS). McKnight obliged and he gave a blood and saliva sample. In subsequent years, thanks to a DNA profiling test, McKnight was connected to five rape-murders: Conviction and death. The trial started in August 2008. McKnight was being charged with all five murders, which made him death penalty eligible. McKnight himself pled not guilty to all  5 charges, but the prosecution cited the overwhelming DNA evidence that tied him to the crime scenes. After almost two months the jury made up of seven women and five men found McKnight guilty of the murders and he was sentenced to death on November 17, 2008. He did not admit his guilt. He was transferred to San Quentin State Prison to await his execution. In the years after, McKnight sat on death row awaiting execution. On October 17, 2019, after having spent more than 33 years behind bars, and 11 years on death row, McKnight died at the age  of 65 from unspecified causes. See also. General