Anthony Shore, a serial killer sentenced to die in Texas confessed to more than 60 rapes before his execution. The Houston serial strangler was known as the Tourniquet Killer and was the nation's first killer executed in 2018.
The former wrecker driver also admitted to two copycat assaults in the 1970's previously thought to have been committed by a Sacramento predator known as the East Area Rapist. This predator's sisters were on to him saying, "Everywhere we lived, there was a rapist."
The quadruple murderer confessed to authorities before his Thursday night execution. He even boasted of seducing strangers at bars, dosing them with Rohypnol, the date rape drug, and sexually assaulting them in the back of his van.
He didn't have any details such as the names or races of the victims, he only knew that he had raped them. A woman who knew Shore recalled many nights of drug-fueled parties, as well as blank spots in her memory.
"I know that he drugged and date-raped me," she said, asking to remain anonymous. The women went on to say it wasn't just her who she knew was raped, there were others.
Shore grew up as a musical prodigy before going on to be one of the Bayou City's most notorious serial killers. He was convicted of the rape and murder of 21-year-old Maria del Carmen Estrada in 2004.
Police finally caught him after a DNA breakthrough tied him to one of several killings in the 1980s and 1990s. Patrick McCann defended Shore in his initial trial, "He would allude to other things, but it was always an allusion. 'If you guys only knew the whole story.' But honestly, we were just trying not to ask questions we didn't want the answers to."
At his 2004 trial, the court heard about how Shore raped several women, including his pre-teen daughters for which he was placed on the sex offender registry. It was because of being on the sex offender list that police were able to match his DNA later to a cold case.
Around a week before his execution in January, he told investigators that he'd regularly drugged girls in bars and raped them in his van. He told them there were roughly 60 victims and it probably didn't stop there.
As his final act, he wished a family member happy birthday and signed over his remains to a pen pal instead of family.
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