Bound To Die: The Young Victims of A Serial Killer and Rapist

Los Angeles in the 1950s drew young women with promises of work, independence, and a chance at something bigger. Harvey Glatman saw an opportunity of another kind.

Posing as a photographer and using lonely-hearts clubs and modeling agencies to find victims, Glatman abducted and murdered Judith Dull, Ruth Mercado, and Shirley Bridgeford, leaving their bodies in the Southern California desert. For months, their disappearances remained disconnected and unexplained.

Then Glatman targeted Lorraine Vigil. She fought back, survived, and helped expose the man behind a horrifying series of crimes. Investigators soon uncovered photographs of bound women and evidence linking Glatman to the missing victims.

A killer had been hiding in plain sight. Drawing on court records, contemporary newspapers, archival material, and original research, Bound to Die: The Young Victims of A Serial Killer and Rapist follows Harvey Glatman’s trail from the streets of Los Angeles into the desolate Southern California desert, where three young women met their deaths.