The story of any serial murderer is one of pain and horror. Serial killers often sink to the lowest depths of human depravity. Some cases, though, are especially horrifying. Such is the case of Gordon Northcott, a Canadian who enlisted the aid of his 11-year-old nephew in killing and burying some of his victims.
Gordon Northcott
Born in Bladworth, Saskatchewan, and raised in British Columbia, Gordon Northcott moved to Los Angeles with his family in 1924. He asked his father to buy a plot of land in Wineville, California. There, with the help of his father, who was in the construction business, he built a house and a chicken ranch. He also enlisted the help of his young nephew, 11-year-old Sanford Clark, who Northcott brought to the United States from Bladworth.
Not long after Clark arrived in Wineville, Northcott began to abuse him physically and sexually.
The Gordon Northcott Murder Spree
On February 2, 1928, the naked, headless body of a teenage boy was discovered in a ditch along a road near the Los Angeles suburb of La Puente. Authorities identified the victim as Jose Gonzales, 18, who had been shot multiple times and his body covered with a chicken feed sack.
One month later, Walter Collins, age 9, disappeared from the Mount Washington neighborhood of Los Angeles. On March 10, Walter’s mother, Christine, gave him a dime to see a movie. He never returned home. (Five months later, a boy in Dekalb, Illinois, surfaced and claimed to be Walter Collins. When authorities reunited the “lost” boy with his mother, Christine Collins denied he was her son, which triggered an unbelievable saga of its own.)
While police frantically searched for Walter Collins, two more boys, Nelson and Lewis Winslow, ages 10 and 12, vanished after a Model Yacht Club meeting in Pamona. Northcott had kidnapped the two boys and taken them to his chicken ranch. At the ranch, he raped them over several days before killing them with an axe. Some accounts say he forced his nephew, Sanford Clark, to kill one of the boys.
Gordon Northcott Unmasked
In August 1928, Sanford Clark’s sister Jessie visited him at the Wineville ranch. He told her that he feared for his life and that Northcott had murdered four boys at the ranch. Upon returning to Canada, Jesse reported what Sanford had told her to the American consul. This started a chain of events culminating with Immigration Service inspectors Judson F. Shaw and George W. Scallorn visiting the ranch on August 31, 1928.
Northcott saw the agents driving up the road to his ranch and fled. He ordered Clark to stall the men, threatening to shoot him with a rifle if he failed. After two hours, Clark finally felt comfortable confiding in the agents, but by that time, Northcott had vanished.
Gordon Northcott and his mother, Sara Louise Northcott, fled to Canada but were arrested on September 19, 1928, near Vernon, British Columbia. Because of the paperwork required for extradition, the two did not return to Los Angeles until November 30, 1928.
Gordon Northcott Tried and Convicted
While in custody in Canada, Gordon Northcott confessed to killing five boys. Sarah Northcott separately admitted to killing Walter Collins. However, both recanted before their extradition to Los Angeles.
Upon her arrival in California, Sarah Northcott again confessed to Walter Collins’ murder and pleaded guilty. On December 31, 1928, Judge Morton sentenced her to life in prison, sparing her the death sentence because she was a woman.
Gordon Northcott was implicated in the Collins murder, but authorities did not try him for it because his mother had already confessed and been sentenced. Instead, they charged him with the murders of the Winslow brothers and the so-called “headless Mexican.” His 27-day murder trial ended with a guilty verdict on February 8, 1929. Judge George R. Freeman sentenced Northcott to death on February 13, 1929.
Epilogue
Gordon Stewart Northcott was hanged at San Quentin prison on October 2, 1930. He was 23 years old.
Assistant District Attorney Loyal C. Kelley did not charge Sanford Clark because he believed Clark was a victim of Northcott’s death threats and sexual abuse rather than a willing participant. Instead, Clark spent 23 months at the Whittier State Reform School. He returned to Canada and died there on June 20, 1991, at age 78.
Wineville changed its name to Mira Loma in 1930, primarily to escape the negative publicity surrounding the murders. The cities of Eastvale and Jurupa Valley absorbed different parts of Mira Loma in 2010 and 2011, respectively.
Clint Eastwood based his 2008 film Changeling on Christine Collins and the Wineville Chicken Coop murders.
You can read more about Gordon Northcott and the Wineville murders in Nothing is Strange With You by James Jeffrey Paul and The Road Out of Hell by Anthony Flacco and Jerry Clark. The latter book focuses on the case from Sanford Clark’s viewpoint.
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