Fort Worth-area man, 76, charged with four California cold case murders from 1980 and 1995

A North Texas man who’s suspected of killing three women and a teenage girl in California in 1980 and 1995 was arrested in Fort Worth on Thursday night.

Billy Ray Richardson, 76, is charged with four counts of first-degree murder in connection to deaths of three Los Angeles victims — 25-year-old Beverly Cruse, 22-year-old Debra Cruse and 15-year-old Kari Lenander — in 1980, and the killing of Trina Wilson, of Inglewood, in 1995.

Richardson was identified as a suspect through DNA, the Los Angeles Police Department said in a news release, adding that the 76-year-old is being charged on special circumstances of multiple murders and murder in the commission of rape.

Richardson’s most recent address is a nursing and rehabilitation facility in Keller, according to court records. Public records indicate he previously lived in Haltom City, Fort Worth, and Los Angeles County, California. He does not appear to have a criminal record in Tarrant County.

According to the LA Times, the Cruse sisters were found dead on March 6, 1980, by their brother James, in Beverly’s apartment. Their brother had grown concerned after not hearing from his sisters for several days and found their decomposing bodies when he went to the apartment to check on them.

Beverly was a University of Southern California employee and part-time student, and Debra was a receptionist at radio station KFI-AM 640, the Times reported.

Lenander, who was raped and strangled, was found in a gutter on July 26, 1980, according to the Times.

Lenander, who lived in Brentwood and was a student at Palisades Charter High School, had been at her best friend’s house when they decided to hitchhike to Hollywood to go dancing, according to a Los Angeles Times Magazine story published in 2010.

A man who said his name was Ken and that he was visiting from Canada picked up the two girls, but took them back home when Lenander’s friend realized she’d had too much to drink, the article reported.

When they arrived at her friend’s home, Lenander said she wanted to stay with the man and “keep partying,” the Times reported. “Just five hours later, Kari’s body was found under a brightly shining moon, a world away from Brentwood,” the magazine article stated.

Further information about Wilson’s death was not immediately available.

Detectives from Los Angeles traveled to Fort Worth on Thursday to help arrest Richardson alongside local law enforcement. Richardson is being held in Tarrant County before his extradition to California.

Fort Worth police said their Operations and Surveillance Team, also known as the GHOST Unit, helped with the arrest. The team was named using the initials of the late Officer Garrett Hull, who was assigned to the unit, prior to his on-duty murder in 2018.