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."

Taking Action

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.

Peavy said his aim is to identify every woman on the poster, and if some of the women are still missing to mount separate homicide investigations for each. So far, four women who appear on the poster are believed to have been murdered, and detectives have been following up leads. In the month since L.A. County first showed this haunting gallery of nameless faces, 23 have been identified -- alive and well but shaken.

Ex-Wife: Worse Than Manson

What kind of man is William Bradford? His ex-wife Cindy Sue Horton appears on the poster as photo No. 23. She told "20/20" he threatened her life, and then backed up those threats by telling her he had murdered before -- more than once.

"He'd come home and tell me that he did somebody in today," Horton said.

She claimed her life with Bradford was filled with beatings, rape and torture.

"If you picked rooms," she said, "and put Satan and Charles Manson in one room and put Bill Bradford in the other one … I'd go in with Satan himself and Charles Manson, because Bill is far worse than anything they could do."

Tina Teets, a former NFL cheerleader, was one of the young models on the board, listed as No. 8.

"When I first saw it, my heart just sank," Teets said. "It's a shock, disbelief."

Teets met Bradford at a semi-public photo shoot, an outdoor event where amateur photographers gathered to take pictures of amateur models to try to learn from one another. But Bradford was not like the other photographers.

"Bill Bradford was very possessive," Teets said. "I'm here, you're shooting with me, pay attention to me. Didn't like sharing."

Teets said he tried to get her alone for private shots.

"I remember him asking us to come down to a tree down the way," she said.

To this day, Teets wonders why she is not another victim of the photo killer.

"I haven't stopped thinking about it," she said.

Teets and others contacted by "20/20" support the new investigation but have lingering questions about why it took law enforcement officials so long to take a second look.

Peavy is bothered by that too.

"Well, obviously that was a question that, that came up right away," he said. "As for why it wasn't done then, I honestly don't know. All I know is that once we were made aware of it, we knew that we had to, we had to answer some questions, and that was, that's what we're doing.

Since Bradford is in San Quentin and no longer a threat to the public, decisions were made not to spend the money to investigate other cases, until now, that is. With its cold case division in place, the sheriff's department finally has the resources to find out, once and for all, how many of those frightened but beautiful faces became victims of the photo killer.

Sitting on death row, Bradford told "20/20" he's not even sure all the pictures in the poster are his photographs but said he is willing to take a look. He denies murdering anyone and said his ex-wife, who testified against him at his trial, is a liar.