The Birthday Cake Killers: Inside the 1973 Victor Massacre

November 6th, 1973. A family returns home from bowling night to find their babysitter held hostage. Within hours, nine people are dead. Two children executed on a bed. Adults bound and shot in a closet. And when it's over, the killers go to the kitchen and eat chocolate cake. This is the story of the greatest murder spree you've never heard of.

The 1973 Gretzler-Steelman Murder Spree: 17 Victims in 30 Days

There's this case from 1973 that nobody talks about. Seventeen people died in less than a month, including nine people killed in a single night in a tiny California town called Victor. The whole thing just disappeared into history. We all know about Bundy, the Zodiac, Manson, right? But these guys flew completely under the radar, and when you hear what they did, you're going to wonder how that's even possible.

Let me set the scene for you. It's 1973 and Nixon's imploding over Watergate. The oil crisis is hitting and the whole country feels like it's coming apart at the seams. Somewhere in that chaos, two guys meet in Denver and decide to go on a road trip that's going to leave bodies scattered across three states. Their names are Douglas Gretzler and Willie Steelman, and they weren't killing for some twisted sexual thing or trying to get famous. They were killing because they didn't want witnesses. That's it. Cold, practical, utilitarian murder.

Douglas Gretzler: The Bronx Drifter Who Abandoned Everything

Douglas Gretzler was born in 1951 in the Bronx to a middle-class family. From the outside, everything looked fine until his teenage years when his older brother died by suicide. That event broke something fundamental in Douglas. He got diagnosed with anxiety and depression at thirteen, which back then basically meant nobody did anything about it. By his late teens, he was doing mescaline and LSD, just trying to escape whatever was going on in his head.

In 1970, he got married in Miami and had a daughter. You'd think that would anchor him, give him something to live for, but on December 26th, 1972, he just walked away from it all. He waited until his wife left the apartment with their baby, packed a duffel bag, and drove west in his MGB without saying a word to anyone. He ended up in Casper, Wyoming for six months, bouncing around low-paying jobs until he got arrested for vagrancy and a traffic violation in June 1973. By autumn, he was drifting through Denver with no direction and no purpose. That's when he met Willie Steelman.

Willie Steelman: The Brain-Damaged California Ex-Con

Willie Steelman was born in 1945 in California's San Joaquin County. His dad died when he was thirteen, and Steelman responded by dropping out of school and terrorizing his mom because she remarried. The thing about Steelman is that he'd had serious head injuries from motorcycle accidents, the kind of trauma that can fundamentally change how your brain works. He'd been diagnosed with schizophrenic tendencies and spent time in mental institutions in Stockton and Modesto. Instead of getting better, he just got angrier and more resentful. He had this charisma though, this ability to talk people into things, especially people who were lost and looking for direction.

When Two Broken Men Met in Denver

When they met in Denver in autumn 1973, something just clicked between them. Steelman was the older guy who'd been through the system and knew how things worked. Gretzler was looking for someone to tell him what to do, someone to give his aimless drifting some kind of purpose. They started small with purses and checkbooks, just petty theft, but they were talking about bigger scores and how to get quick cash however they could. When Steelman stole his own sister's purse, that's when you knew they'd crossed over some fundamental line. Family didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered except what they wanted. On October 11th, they left Denver for Arizona, and that's when the killing started.

The Arizona Murders Begin: Bodies in the Desert

Around October 13th to 15th in Globe, Arizona, something happened that we're still not entirely sure about. According to Steelman's later confession, he met up with a drug dealer called "Preacher" to settle some kind of dispute. Things went sideways and Preacher ended up dead, killed by his own brother. Then Steelman and some guy named Larry killed the brother and another man. Steelman said they buried all three bodies in the Arizona desert. Police never found them and no missing persons reports matched up perfectly, but given everything that came after, there's no reason to think he was lying. Those three guys were probably the first victims, just ghosts in the desert that nobody ever accounted for.

Kenneth Unrein and Michael Adshade: The VW Van Murders

On October 17th in Phoenix, they met two young guys named Ken Unrein, who was 21, and Michael Adshade, who was 19. These guys were living in a VW van, and Gretzler and Steelman saw an opportunity to get a better vehicle and whatever money and belongings these guys had. So they befriended them, got them comfortable, and then overpowered them. Here's where you see the pattern really forming though. They didn't just rob them and leave. They kidnapped them and drove them all the way across state lines into California. They found a remote spot in Stanislaus County, and then they didn't just shoot them either. They stabbed them and strangled them, methods that require you to be close and really feel it happening. Then they hid the bodies in bushes and drove right back to Arizona like nothing had happened. That's when their system was fully formed. No witnesses, no matter what. It didn't matter how nice you were or how cooperative you were. If they robbed you, you were dead.

The Sleeping Bag Execution of Steven Loughran

On October 23rd in the Superstition Mountains, they came across an eighteen-year-old named Steven Loughran. What Steelman did here shows you how calculated the cruelty had become. He made the kid crawl into a sleeping bag, zipped it up, and then shot him in the head. Think about that for a second. The sleeping bag served no practical purpose at all. It was purely about control, about making the victim feel even more helpless before pulling the trigger.

Killing People They Knew: Bob Robbins and Katherine Mestistes

On October 24th and 25th, they killed Bob Robbins and Katherine Mestistes, and here's the thing that really tells you how far gone they were. These were people Steelman actually knew. They lived in a trailer park where he'd spent time. He killed them anyway. Social connections meant absolutely nothing anymore. If you were in the way or you were a potential witness, you were dead. Gretzler later admitted to these murders almost as an afterthought, just mentioned them while riding in an elevator with detectives like he was remembering where he'd left his keys.

Gilbert Sierra Murder: When Gretzler Laughed at Death

On November 2nd in Tucson, a guy named Gilbert Sierra stopped to give two hitchhikers a ride because he was a decent person trying to help someone out. They forced him to drive to a ravine where Steelman ran him down and shot him in the face and temple. Witnesses said Gretzler was laughing during the whole thing. That detail becomes really important later because his lawyers are going to argue that he was just under Steelman's control, that he was this passive follower who didn't really want to do any of this. But you don't laugh at someone's execution if you're just going along for the ride. That's active participation and enjoyment.

Vincent Armstrong: The Only Victim Who Escaped

On that same day in the same area, they kidnapped a guy named Vincent Armstrong and took his Firebird. Armstrong saw an opening though, and he scrambled over a wall and ran into a church. He's the only person who got away from them. This turned out to be huge because Armstrong gave police descriptions and they were able to create sketches. The problem was that in 1973, communication between jurisdictions was terrible. The Tucson cops had faces and names, but California had no idea what was heading their way.

The Sandberg Torture Murders in Tucson

Before they left Arizona, they had one more stop to make. On November 3rd, they ended up at Michael and Patricia Sandberg's condo in Tucson. This young couple was just home at the wrong time. This crime was different from the others though because it took hours. They didn't just kill them and leave. They held them hostage for an extended period. They tied Michael up in this elaborate hog-tie position using parcel post twine, and the ligature connected his ankles to his neck in a V-pattern so that if he tried to straighten his legs, he would strangle himself. That's not something you do in a panic. That takes planning and someone who knows exactly what they're doing.

They forced Patricia to take Valium to keep her calm while they ransacked the house and figured out their next move. When they were finally done with whatever they were doing, Steelman shot Michael and then turned the gun on Patricia. She was still moving though, still twitching after being shot, so he grabbed a golf club and beat her to death with it. Then they packed up the Sandbergs' belongings in a suitcase, stole their Datsun, and headed west toward California.

The Victor Massacre: Nine People Dead in One Night

November 6th, 1973. Victor, California. Population 275. This was Steelman's home turf, and he was coming back to commit the worst massacre of the entire spree. The target was Walter Parkin's house. Wally Parkin owned the local supermarket and was known as a generous guy who was building a beautiful new home with redwood paneling for his growing family. It was the American dream in progress.

That night, the house happened to be full of people. Wally and his wife Joanne were out bowling for the evening. The babysitter was Debbie Earl, and she was watching the Parkin kids along with her boyfriend Mark Lang. Debbie's parents, Richard and Wanda Earl, were also visiting, and their son Ricky was there too. Gretzler and Steelman showed up while the Parkins were still out bowling and took control of everyone in the house. Then they just waited. When the Parkins came home from their bowling night, they walked right into it. Nine people total were in that house, including two children named Lisa, who was eleven, and Robert, who was nine.

Inside the Parkin House: How Nine People Were Executed

They bound everyone with nylon cord using complex knots and gagged them with neckties. The adults and teenagers were herded into the walk-in closet in the master bedroom, and the two little kids were placed on the bed. Then they started shooting. Forensics teams later recovered 25 bullets from the scene. Debbie Earl was shot four times. Her father Richard was shot five times. Every single person in that house was systematically executed.

When it was all over, when nine people were dead and there were bodies stacked in the closet and two children shot on the bed, they walked into the kitchen. Gretzler ate a slice of chocolate birthday cake and drank a bottle of wine while Steelman poured himself some Seagram's whiskey. They sat there having a snack in a house full of corpses like they'd just finished a long day at work. Around 1:20 in the morning, they finally got up and left, just drove off into the night.

How Gretzler and Steelman Were Caught

The next morning, a houseguest named Carol Jenkins discovered the bodies. For a town of just 275 people, this absolutely obliterated the community. Nine people murdered in one house in one night. Sheriff Mike Canlis looked at the scene and immediately thought this had to be someone with local knowledge of the area. He reached out to the FBI and asked about fugitives from the region. Willie Steelman's name came up right away because they already knew he was wanted for the Arizona murders.

They released Steelman's booking photo to the press, and on November 8th, just two days after the massacre, a desk clerk at the Clunie Hotel in Sacramento saw the photo in the newspaper and recognized the guy who had just checked in. Police surrounded the hotel and arrested Gretzler when he came back. He didn't even fight. He just told them where they could find Steelman. After seventeen murders in less than a month, it was over. Just like that. All because of a hotel clerk with a good memory.

The Trial and Death Sentences

California dealt with them first. On June 6th, 1974, Gretzler pleaded guilty to all nine counts of first-degree murder for the Victor massacre and received nine concurrent life terms. Arizona extradited both of them to stand trial for the Sandberg murders. Both men were convicted and sentenced to death.

Willie Steelman's Death on Death Row

Willie Steelman never made it to the execution chamber. He died of cirrhosis on August 13th, 1986, at forty-one years old on death row at Florence State Prison.

Douglas Gretzler's 1998 Execution

Douglas Gretzler spent over 24 years on death row. On June 3rd, 1998, at Florence State Prison, Arizona conducted its first daytime execution. Gretzler was put to death by lethal injection in front of thirty-five witnesses, including relatives of the victims. His last words were an apology that took 25 years to arrive: "From the bottom of my soul, I'm so deeply sorry and have been for years for murdering Patricia and Michael Sandberg. Though I am being executed for that crime, I apologize to all 17 victims and their families."

Why Nobody Remembers the Gretzler-Steelman Murders

Why don't we know about this? Seventeen people dead, nine of them killed in a single night. Gretzler and Steelman are just footnotes in true crime history. Part of it is timing. In 1973, America was drowning in Watergate, Vietnam, and the oil crisis. A massacre in a tiny California farm town couldn't compete for attention. Part of it is the victims. They were rural and working class. The Parkins weren't celebrities. They were regular people who happened to be home on the wrong night. And part of it is the killers themselves. No catchy nickname, no mystery, no manifesto.

But seventeen families were destroyed. Kids who never got to grow up. Parents who never saw their children again. A town that still carries the trauma fifty years later. The Parkin house was once a place where a family was building their future. It became the site of one of the most brutal mass murders in American history. A place where killers ate birthday cake while nine bodies grew cold around them.

That's the story of the greatest murder spree you've never heard of. Seventeen victims over thirty days of terror. A criminal justice system that eventually caught them but couldn't give the families the one thing they really wanted, which was an answer to why. Why did this happen? Why their loved ones? Why that night? Gretzler and Steelman took those answers with them to their graves, and Victor, California carries the scars forever.