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WARNING!: Description below may be disturbing to some readers.
A 150' aerial view overlooking Interstate 5 along Lake Shasta south of Lakehead, California. This bridge in the northbound lane, which has a 105' drop to the lake during peak lake level, is the scene of a horrific crime that took place in 1978 by Darrell Keith Rich, a serial killer otherwise known as the The Hilltop Rapist. More info below:
Darrell Keith Rich (February 14, 1955 – March 15, 2000), known as The Hilltop Rapist, was an American serial killer and serial rapist who murdered three women and an 11-year-old girl in Redding, California between June and August 1978. Raised in a rough upbringing & involved w/ many mental health issues, he committed additional sexual assaults on five more women and injured another during the same timeframe. He earned his moniker name due to most of his crimes in the Hilltop Drive area in Redding.
His fourth and final victim was 11-year-old Annette Lynn Selix, whose family was known to Rich. On August 13, he abducted her as she walked to a market to buy groceries. He sexually assaulted her, forced her into other sexual fetishes, then drove her up the freeway & stopped midway on this bridge in the middle of the night - to which he threw her over the edge. Her body was found underneath the bridge in Shasta County the following day in the rocks. An autopsy revealed that she was still alive when thrown from the bridge but had died shortly after.
Initially Rich was not known to police. It was only because Rich often bragged to coworkers about his involvement in the murders that police launched & investigation after he revealed details about where he dumped his victim's bodies. He was sentenced to death in California in 1981 for two of the murders and would be executed on March 15, 2000 at San Quentin State Prison by lethal injection.
Annette Selix is buried in nearby Cottonwood, California. Her grave is inscibed w/ the following: Ours to love for a little while.
More info here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darrell_Keith_Rich
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