‘I-5 Strangler’ Roger Kibbe, Who Killed at Least Seven Women, Dies After Being Strangled in Prison

Roger Reece Kibbe, the convicted serial killer known as the “I-5 Strangler,” died in a California prison in February 2021 after being strangled by his cellmate, bringing a violent end to the life of a man responsible for the murders of at least seven women.

Kibbe, 81, was serving multiple life sentences at Mule Creek State Prison in Amador County, California, when correctional officers found him unresponsive inside his cell shortly after midnight on February 28, 2021.

His cellmate, Jason Budrow, was found nearby. Prison staff rushed Kibbe to the facility’s medical unit and attempted lifesaving measures, but he was pronounced dead at 1:23 a.m.

An autopsy later confirmed that Kibbe died from manual strangulation. Authorities classified his death as a homicide.

A Serial Killer Linked to Murders Along Interstate 5

Kibbe earned the nickname “I-5 Strangler” because several of his victims were found near Interstate 5 and other highways in Northern California during the 1970s and 1980s.

Investigators said he raped and strangled women and girls, many of whom were vulnerable or traveling alone. He was initially convicted in 1991 of murdering Darcine Frackenpohl, a 17-year-old runaway whose body was discovered near Echo Summit in 1987.

For years, detectives suspected Kibbe was responsible for additional killings but struggled to establish the connections between the cases.

Advances in DNA testing eventually helped investigators link him to six more murders. In 2009, Kibbe pleaded guilty to six additional killings, bringing the number of murders for which he was convicted to seven.

The victims included Lou Ellen Burleigh, Lora Heedrick, Barbara Ann Scott, Stephanie Brown, Charmaine Sabrah and Katherine Kelly Quinones.

Investigators continued to suspect that Kibbe might have been responsible for other unsolved killings, although those suspicions did not result in additional murder convictions.

His Own Death Became a Homicide Investigation

Following Kibbe’s death, Budrow was placed in a restricted housing unit while investigators examined what had happened inside the cell.

Budrow was already serving a life sentence for a separate murder. He later admitted killing Kibbe and described the act as an attempt to avenge the serial killer’s victims, according to news reports.

Kibbe’s death attracted widespread attention because the man who had used strangulation to kill his victims ultimately died by the same method while incarcerated.

For the families of the women he murdered, his death closed one chapter of a long and painful story. But investigators had long maintained that the full scope of his crimes might never be known.

Sources:

• PEOPLE
• Los Angeles Times
• CBS Sacramento