More than seven years after he walked into the Humboldt County Sheriff's Department with a woman's severed breast in his pocket, Wayne Adam Ford is headed to trial for the slayings of four women dumped in waterways around the state.
The gruesome case, to be tried in San Bernardino over the coming year, is hardly a whodunnit: Ford, an Arcata trucker, presented the key evidence to investigators himself.
He is charged with four counts of murder and could be sentenced to death.
The defense is expected to focus on the mental state of a man who says he was so distressed after the break-up of his second marriage that he killed four women, mutilated two and kept body parts in his freezer.
"I don't know specifically what the defense is going to do but I know that Mr. Ford has been seen by a number of psychologists, psychiatrists, and I know that they will be placing his mental state at issue," prosecutor J. David Mazurek said.
Ford, a 44-year-old Petaluma native, has said he was driven to kill by rage at his ex-wife, who reportedly kept him from seeing their 2-year-old son.
Other details of his mental health also have surfaced, including reports of a long history of troubled relationships.
Humboldt County Coroner Frank Jager said Ford came unhinged when questioned about his mother. Her estrangement during Ford's childhood proved to be a source of enduring pain, family members said.
Ford told Jager that mental health problems prompted his discharge from the Marine Corps in 1985. And in the weeks leading up to his surrender, Ford said he couldn't keep times, dates and details straight for his trucking logs, Jager said.
Ford's attorney did not return numerous phone calls about the upcoming trial.
Investigators say he admitted killing four women, including a still-unidentified hitchhiker whose beheaded and dismembered torso was found Oct. 26, 1997, in Eureka's Ryan Slough.
Also killed were:
Patricia Anne Tamez, 29, a Victorville prostitute whose Ziplocked breast Ford carried with him into the sheriff's office on Nov. 3, 1998.
Tina Gibbs, 26, a Las Vegas prostitute found in a Kern County aqueduct June 2, 1998.
Lanette White, 25, a Fontana prostitute found Sept. 25, 1998 in a ditch near Lodi.
Ford told investigators they were just some of the women he picked up during his travels as a long-haul trucker and subjected to rough sex and bondage before abandoning them on various highways.
Among the others was a Santa Rosa Avenue prostitute who survived a savage beating and rape Aug. 23, 1998. Evidence in that case could be presented during Ford's trial.
Mazurek said it's possible there were more women killed. "Do I have any evidence of that?" he said. "No."
Ford apparently believed his ex-wife might be next.
He had requested a trip to Las Vegas, where she lived, but turned himself in because he feared he would kill her and leave their son an orphan, authorities said.
Drinking in the lounge at a motel in the tiny seaside community of Trinidad the day before his surrender, he told at least two people that he was contemplating shooting himself.
Distraught, he called a brother in Vallejo and persuaded him to meet him at the motel.
The brother, though still unclear about the source of Ford's grief, accompanied him to the sheriff's office, where Ford presented the breast and told authorities where they could find body parts that had recently been moved from his freezer.
Ford told family members he wanted no trial - hoping to get his execution over with.
But the path to justice has been a long slog, owing in part to a legal debate over the decision to have a single trial for four slayings from different counties, the first use of a 1998 law allowing the consolidation of such cases.
Additionally, the defense contested an indictment handed down by a grand jury in San Bernardino, and quashed some confessions Ford made after telling a psychologist that he wanted an attorney, a request never relayed to authorities.
Other capital cases have sidelined the judge and both attorneys at times, making it difficult to synchronize their schedules and forcing previous trial dates to be abandoned.
With the case finally set to go forward, 6,300 prospective jurors were summoned to appear at a San Bernardino courthouse beginning Tuesday.
The trial is projected to last until October, with a guilt phase and, if Ford is convicted, a penalty phase during which jurors would determine if he should face death. Opening arguments are scheduled for March 13.
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