Missing Models: Victims of a Killer?

Aug. 18, 2006 — -- It is a haunting poster: It shows row upon row of faces with bright eyes and big smiles. Period pieces, snapshots of how young women looked in the late 1970s and early '80s.

Many are Farrah Fawcett blond, others folk-singer brunet, all trying for that "model" look.

Fifty-four pictures make up the poster, each woman photographed by a man who Los Angeles County Sheriff's Capt. Ray Peavy said liked to capture his victims on film before capturing their souls.

"Some of them look terrified, quite frankly," he said. "You look in their eyes and you wonder to yourself, was this her last day on the planet?"

Peavy wonders, because the man behind the photographs, William Richard Bradford, is a convicted murderer. He called himself a photographer, but photography was his hobby. He earned his living as a handyman in Hermosa Beach, Calif.

Bradford was sent to San Quentin prison in 1987. Now he's on death row for the murder of two women, Shari Miller and his neighbor Tracey Campbell. Bradford lured the two aspiring models to the Mojave Desert, where he photographed them and then strangled them to death.

Campbell was just 15 years old when she was found at a remote campsite.

Shari Miller's body was found in a Hollywood parking lot.

Peavy explained Bradford's mode of operation.

"He frequented bars … and he would convince the women that he was a legitimate photographer and he wanted to take them somewhere, take their photograph and then possibly get them into a modeling career," Peavy said. "A lot of women did take him up on the offer. Some of them didn't come home."

The pictures, combined with what Bradford muttered to the jury upon conviction, tell Peavy there may be other victims. Sent to prison for the murders of two women, Bradford faced the jury box and said, "Think of how many you don't even know about."

That is why, 22 years after the murders of Shari Miller and Tracey Campbell, the newly formed L.A. County Homicide Cold Case Department created a chilling poster with pictures of nearly 50 women from Bradford's collection that were found in a box during his arrest.