5 of the most infamous inmates ever held in Orange County
Orange County looks polished until you start digging.
Lindsey Marino
Orange County native, and a licensed California real estate agent. What I do
CA DRE 02055819
September 10, 2026 · Orange County
These are five cases from Orange County's criminal history. All of them are decades old, all were prosecuted, and all are matters of public record.
Worth saying plainly: this is history, not a comment on anywhere as a place to live. The cases are here because of the people, not the postcodes.
05
Itzcoatl Ocampo
For weeks in late 2011 and early 2012, homeless men were being stabbed across north Orange County. Four died in under a month.
The final killing happened outside a Carl\u2019s Jr. in Anaheim in front of witnesses, who chased him until police arrived. He was charged with six murders and died in the Orange County Jail before trial after swallowing cleaning powder.
Died in custody in 2013. Never tried.
04
Skylar Deleon
Tom and Jackie Hawks were selling their yacht so they could move closer to their first grandchild.
Deleon answered the advertisement pretending to be a buyer and arrived with a pregnant wife and a young child, so the Hawks believed they were dealing with another family. During a test voyage he and his accomplices forced the couple to sign over the yacht, tied them to its anchor and threw them overboard alive. The yacht came back. Tom and Jackie did not.
Convicted in 2009. Their bodies have never been found.
03
Scott Dekraai
The deadliest mass killing in Orange County history, and it lasted under two minutes.
Dekraai and his ex-wife were in a bitter custody dispute over their eight year old son. She worked at a salon in Seal Beach, and the day before the shooting they had been in court, where one of her coworkers testified for her. The following afternoon he entered the salon wearing body armour and carrying three guns, and shot nine people. He killed his ex-wife, the coworker who had testified, and six others.
2011. Sentenced to life without parole after the death penalty was taken off the table over a jailhouse informant scandal.
02
Randy Kraft
A traffic stop in 1983 ended one of the longest killing sprees in California history.
A highway patrol officer pulled Kraft over and approached the car. The man in the passenger seat looked asleep. He was dead, hands bound, a ligature mark around his neck. A search of the car turned up photographs and a coded list of 61 entries, which is why he became known as the Scorecard Killer.
Convicted of sixteen murders. Investigators suspected many more.
01
Rodney Alcala
In 1978 he appeared on The Dating Game in the middle of his killing spree. He won.
The woman who picked him refused the date, because he had frightened her backstage. Less than a year later, twelve year old Robin Samsoe disappeared while riding her bicycle to a ballet class in Huntington Beach. Alcala was eventually convicted of her murder and six others.
Police later released 120 photographs of unidentified women and girls found in his storage locker, fearing the known victims were only part of it. He died in prison in 2021.
Lindsey Marino
Orange County native, and a licensed California real estate agent. What I do
CA DRE 02055819