SACRAMENTO, California — Update
According to an update from the Amador County Sheriff’s Office Investigations Bureau and following a forensic autopsy performed by the Sacramento County Coroner’s Office, it was determined that Kibbe was strangled.
Original Story
A Sacramento-area serial killer was found dead in his prison cell, Mule Creek State Prison officials said in a press release.
Roger Kibbe, also knows as the 'I-5 Strangler,' was found unresponsive around 12:40 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 28, and was pronounced dead less than an hour later. Kibbe was 81 years old.
Mule Creek State Prison said in a press release a corrections officer was conducting population counts when he noticed Jason Budrow, 40, standing in his cell with Kibbe, Budrow's cellmate, lying on the floor.
Budrow has been placed in a separate unit while the death is under investigation. According to the press release, Budrow was sentenced to California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation in 2011 from Riverside County to serve a life without parole sentence for first-degree murder as a second-striker.
Kibbe was convicted of crimes related to the 'I-5 Strangler,' and had admitted to six murders in the Sacramento area spanning from 1977 to 1986. He began his killing spree roughly in the mid-1980s. He would stalk victims on the freeways near Sacramento at night, looking for young women with car trouble. After offering to help, Kibbe would then abduct the women, drive them to remote locations, and rape and strangle them with their own clothing.
Kibbe was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole for two counts of first-degree murder at the state prison. He was also serving a life-with-parole sentence concurrently for the 1987 murder of 17-year-old Darcie Frackenpohl of West Sacramento, for which Kibbe was convicted in 1991 before the other crimes had come to light.
Kibbe's other known victims are:
Lou Ellen Burleigh, 21, or Walnut Creek; killed Sept. 11, 1977
Lora Heedrick, 20, of Modesto; killed April 21, 1986
Barbara Ann Scott, 29; killed July 3, 1986
Stephanie Brown, 19, of Sacramento; killed July 15, 1986
Charmaine Sabrah, 26, of Sacramento; killed Aug. 17, 1986
Katherine Kelly Quinones, 25, of Sacramento; killed Nov. 5, 1986
