I'm Disgusting And Despicable

What motivated Steven Dean Gordon to abduct and murder four women?

- Hannah Abbott

In November 2013, 28-year old Martha Anaya from Santa Ana, California, suddenly went missing.

Her disappearance set off immediate alarm bells for her mum, Herlinda Salcedo, especially as Martha had two children she would never desert.

Something serious had to have happened.

Days passed, and the police were doing what they could, but Herlinda decided to take matters into her own hands, too.

She handed out flyers, walked the streets looking for clues, and took down the number plates of cars she thought suspicious.

Six months later, there were still no leads. But then Herlinda got a call from police, who broke the tragic news that Martha had been murdered.

They knew the man responsible – Steven Dean Gordon, a registered sex offender who’d confessed after being arrested for another killing.

Back in the 1990s, Gordon, 47, had been convicted of molesting a child.

He’d recently been released from jail on parole, on the condition he wore an electronic tag at all times.

When the dead body of the other woman, Jarrae Estepp, 21, had been found at a recycling plant in Anaheim, near LA, police had launched a murder investigation, which had led them straight to Gordon.

Sadistic spree