Sunday, May 10, 1967

The Orange County Register

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FROM C4 airman first class and supervisor-manager. But Kraft's seemingly successful time in the military took a drastic turn in July 1969. For reasons officials refuse to divulge, he was discharged from the Air Force three years early. The National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, which stores military records, cited confidentiality policies in not releasing documents detailing the reason for his dismissal. A spokesman for the Air Force's Office of Special Investigations said its records have been destroyed. After leaving the Air Force, Kraft settled in Long Beach, a city with a substantial and visible gay community. For the next decade, he worked as a bartender, truck driver, teacher, computer programmer and analyst. From 1980 to 1983, he worked for Lear Siegler Inc., a Santa Monica-based aerospace and automotive firm. In 197S, according to Bridge man, Kraft met Jeff Seelig at a party. The two began living together, first in a condominium, then in the Roswell Avenue house that Kraft purchased in August 1979. "There was a commitment between the two," Bridgman said in a 1983 interview. " I t was kind of tantamount to a marriage." Seelig, contacted recently, declined to be interviewed for this story. But at a 1983 news conference he held after Kraft's arrest, Seelig described Kraft as "gentle and kind ... a friend, companion and mentor." Kraft and Seelig, a candy-shop operator, settled into a comfortable lifestyle. They spent much of their free time remodeling the house and tending their yard and garden, neighbors told the Register in 1983. "They had their dinner, sometimes they had a few friends in," Penny DeWees, their former next-door neighbor, said recently. "They were very quiet." DeWees, who said it was common knowledge around the neighborhood that the two men were gay, recalls Kraft as the less outgoing of the two, a "nicelooking, clean-cut, wholesomelooking man" who helped her with heavy packages and once fixed an outdoor faucet for her sprinklers. She said she was startled when she arrived home on the evening of May 14,1983, and saw police cars and curious neighbors gathered in front of 824 Roswell. "Oh gosh, I simply could not believe it," she remembers. " I had no inkling whatsoever."

CHAPTER 2

Beach, the prosecution charges, Kraft led a double life. Court documents sketch a picture of a man who allegedly had a penchant for treachery, sexual violence and murder. The pattern allegedly began on March 11,1970, when 13-yearold Joseh Alwin Fancher had an argument with his stepfather and ran away on his bicycle to Huntington Beach. He was riding near the pier late in the afternoon when he stopped and asked a man for a cigarette. When Fancher testified in court 13 years later, he identified Randy Kraft as the man he met that day. According to Fancher's testimony, Kraft gave him a cigarette and the two began talking. Kraft asked Fancher if he had ever had sex with a woman. Fancher said no. Kraft asked him if he would like to. That piqued the 13-year-old's curiosity, and the boy answered yes, according to his testimony. Fancher put his bicycle between two oil tanks near the pier and rode off on the back of the man's motorcycle to the 4100 block of Ocean Boulevard in Long Beach. He said he went upstairs with Kraft into a studio apartment and Kraft asked him if he ever had smoked marijuana. The boy said yes, and the two smoked a joint. Fancher later testified that the marijuana made him drowsy, hungry and sick. When he told Kraft he didn't feel well, Fancher testified, Kraft gave him four red capsules and some wine, telling him it would make him feel better. The capsules didn't seem to help, so the man gave him four more. According to Fancher's testimony, Kraft showed him some pictures, including one of a man and a woman engaging in sex and another of two men engaging in a homosexual sex act. Fancher said one of the men in the picture was Kraft. He testified that he got up from the couch to put some music on and fell flat on his face. When he made his way back to the couch, he said, Kraft asked him if he'd ever had sex with a man. Fancher said no. Kraft then forced him to perform oral sex, raped him repeatedly and struck him several times, according to Fancher's testimony. He said he passed in and out of consciousness. Time was drifting slowly, like an eternity, he testified, and he knew only that he wanted to go home. When he tried to get away, he said, Kraft threatened to kill him. At some point, Fancher realized his captor had left the apartment. Two boys younger than he came to the door and asked for Randy, Fancher testi-

fied. He told them Kraft wasn't there, and they left. Fancher made it out of the apartment and stumbled across the street. An onlooker called an ambulance and he was taken to the hospital. His stomach was pumped and he was sent home.

The next day, he was bleeding and in pain from sexual assaults, Fancher fied. He told police Kraft given him drugs, but he o cealed the alleged sexual saults and beating. No cha were filed. Long Beach

asked recently about the incident, refused comment. Fancher's police report, however, caught the attention of Orange County investigators in 1983. They traced him to Aurora, Colo., where he told them about the alleged attack.

That November, at Kraft's preliminary hearing, Deputy District Attorney Bryan Brown asked Fancher why he did not report the attack. "How are you supposed to tell your mom that somebody raped you?" Fancher asked.

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