Case file
Douglas Gretzler and Willie Steelman: seventeen killings in three weeks
It ended in a farmhouse in Victor, California, with nine people dead in a single evening — two of them children — and the pair arrested in Sacramento the next day.
- BornDouglas Edward Gretzler, the Bronx, New York, 21 May 1951
- AccompliceWillie Luther Steelman
- Victims17, across Arizona and California
- Span18 October – 7 November 1973
- Executed3 June 1998, Florence, Arizona, by lethal injection
Douglas Gretzler was born in the Bronx in May 1951 and drifted west. In September 1973 he met Willie Luther Steelman in Denver, at the home of Steelman's sister. Apart, each had a record of unremarkable crime. Together, over the three weeks between 18 October and 7 November 1973, they killed seventeen people.
Arizona, October 1973
The pattern was consistent and it was not complicated. They took what they wanted — a car, money, somewhere to stay — and killed everyone who had seen them do it.
- 18 Oct 1973Kenneth Unrein, 21, and Michael Adshade, 19
- 23 Oct 1973Steven Loughran, 18
- 24 Oct 1973Robert Robbins, 19
- 25 Oct 1973Katherine Mestites, 21
- 2 Nov 1973Gilbert Sierra, 19
- 3 Nov 1973Michael Sandberg, 28, and Patricia Sandberg, 32
Eight people in seventeen days, none of them older than thirty-two. The Sandbergs, killed in Tucson, are the murders that would eventually put Gretzler on Arizona's death row.
Victor, California, 7 November 1973
On 7 November the two men entered a house on Orchard Road in Victor, a hamlet in San Joaquin County, California. Nine people were in it that evening, and all nine were killed.
- Walter Parkin, 32the owner of the house
- Joanne Parkin, 33his wife
- Lisa Parkin, 11their daughter
- Robert Parkin, 9their son
- Debra Earl, 18babysitting the Parkin children
- Mark Lang, 20Debra Earl's boyfriend
- Richard Earl Sr., 38Debra's father
- Wanda Earl, 37Debra's mother
- Richard Earl Jr., 15Debra's brother
The victims were bound, and were killed in the master bedroom. It remains one of the worst mass killings in California's history. The two men were arrested the following day, 8 November, in Sacramento.
Two states, two sentences
California came first. On 8 July 1974 Gretzler was sentenced to life imprisonment for the Victor murders; Steelman was convicted of the same nine counts. Neither faced execution in California.
Arizona did sentence them to death, on 27 August 1975, for the murders of Michael and Patricia Sandberg. Steelman never reached an execution date — he died of cirrhosis in August 1986, aged forty-one, on death row.
Gretzler spent twenty-three years on Arizona's death row and was executed by lethal injection at Florence State Prison on 3 June 1998. He was convicted of eleven of the seventeen murders in total.
Why nobody outside two states has heard of them
Seventeen victims, including a mass killing of nine, and outside Arizona and California's Central Valley almost nobody can name either man. There is no nickname, nothing unsolved, and no manhunt to speak of: they were caught the day after the largest of the killings, three weeks after the first.
Cases become famous when they stay open. This one closed almost immediately, and what remains is a list of names — most of them people in their teens and twenties who were in the wrong house on the wrong evening.
Questions people ask
How many people did Gretzler and Steelman kill?
Seventeen, between 18 October and 7 November 1973, across Arizona and California. Gretzler was convicted of eleven of them.
What happened at Victor, California?
On 7 November 1973 the two men killed nine people in a house on Orchard Road: the Parkin family of four, the babysitter Debra Earl, her boyfriend, and three members of her family. It is one of the worst mass killings in California history.
Was Douglas Gretzler executed?
Yes — by lethal injection at Florence State Prison, Arizona, on 3 June 1998, for the murders of Michael and Patricia Sandberg in Tucson.
What happened to Willie Steelman?
He died of cirrhosis on Arizona's death row in August 1986, aged forty-one, without reaching an execution date.
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Sources
Every date and name on this page was checked against at least two of the following. Where they disagree, the disagreement is stated in the text rather than resolved silently.
- Douglas GretzlerWikipedia
- The Shocking Killing Spree of Douglas Gretzler and Willie SteelmanOxygen
- Norm Parkin remembers the evil that visited Victor 50 years agoLodi News-Sentinel, 2023
- A 50-year-old California mass murder case forever etched in my consciousnessCalMatters, 2023
- Photos: The Steelman/Gretzler murdersArizona Daily Star