A convicted sex offender charged with raping and killing four Southern California women while he wore an electronic monitor was a predator like the shark in the movie Jaws, the prosecution said on the trial’s opening day on Wednesday.
In his opening statement, Orange County Deputy District Attorney Larry Yellin said GPS and mobile phone data was used to track down Steven Dean Gordon and another homeless man, comparing it to the hunt for the killer shark.
“Jaws is about a predator,” Larry Yellin told jurors. “This case is about two. You are about to see the hunt.”
Gordon, 47, who is acting as his own attorney, declined to make an opening statement.
He and another sex offender, Franc Cano, 30, were wearing GPS tracking devices for prior offenses when they worked together to target the women in 2013 and 2014, authorities said.
One body was found at a recycling plant, while three other women have not been found.
Gordon and Cano have pleaded not guilty to rape and murder with special circumstances. Cano’s separate trial has not started. Both could face the death penalty if convicted.
Gordon confessed during grand jury proceedings, giving graphic details about picking up the women in his car with another registered sex offender, raping them behind an Anaheim paint and body shop where the men camped, and killing them, authorities said.
The confession will not be allowed at trial.
The judge excluded it because Gordon told police he did not want to talk before launching into the elaborate account of the killings, Yellin has said.
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