The Deep Dive. Unmasking Jigsaw John, the LAPD's
legendary serial killer hunter. Join us on this
exclusive deep dive into the 51 -year career
of John P. St. John, arguably the most relentless
LAPD homicide detective in history. Known as
Jigsaw John, St. John spent decades investigating
the darkest chapters of Los Angeles true crime.
From his early assignment on the infamous Black
Dahlia murder to tracking down notorious serial
killers like the Night Stalker, the Hillside
Stranglers, and the freeway killer William Bonin,
this deep dive explores the mind, methods, and
legacy of a true law enforcement legend. Discover
how a mix of dogged determination and encyclopedic
memory and a controversial confession letter
secured his place in history. Perfect for true
crime enthusiasts and anyone fascinated by the
evolution of criminal science and forensic techniques.
SEO keywords woven in. LAPD Detective, Jigsaw
John, John P. St. John, True Crime, Black Dahlia
Murders, Serial Killers, Richard Ramirez, Night
Stalker, Hillside Stranglers, Freeway Killer
William Bonin, Los Angeles True Crime, Criminal
Science, Forensic Techniques, SEO Keywords woven
in. Welcome to another custom tailored deep dive.
We have a really dense and honestly a fascinating
subject to explore with you today. I really do.
So I want you to just take a second and think
about the physical and mental toll of working
a high stakes job. Right, any high -stakes job.
Exactly. We all know people who burn out of demanding
fields. Law, medicine, finance. They last maybe
five, ten years if you're lucky. Yeah, exactly.
But today, we are looking at a man who walked
into the Los Angeles Police Department in 1942,
became a homicide detective, and didn't retire
until 1993. It's almost hard to comprehend. It
really is. That is 51 years on the force. And
43 of those years were spent actively investigating
the most horrific complex and just grotesque
murders in one of the most volatile cities in
America. And we are unpacking the life, the methodology,
and really the massive historical footprint of
John Patrick St. John. Better known to the world
as Jigsaw John. Yes. And it's a timeline that
almost defies human endurance. When we analyze
his career today, using all these incredible
historical sources, we are not just looking at
a biographical sketch of a single detective.
Right. We are looking at a walking breathing
archive of modern criminal investigation. To
start in 1942. That's World War II. Exactly.
He was trained in an era. where policing relied
on literal shoe leather, carbon paper, and neighborhood
informants. Yeah, very analog. Highly analog.
Yeah. But by the time he retired in the early
1990s, he was operating in a world of computerized
fingerprint databases, behavioral profiling,
and the dawn of DNA evidence. And what's most
striking to me from the materials we're reviewing
is that he didn't just passively witness this
evolution. No, he actively bridged the gap. OK,
let's unpack this because that timeline is exactly
what caught my attention first. the LAPD in 1942
places him right in the middle of World War II.
Los Angeles was a mobilized, booming wartime
city back then. Right, the social fabric was
shifting so rapidly and then he stayed on through
the post -war population boom. And the massive
cultural upheavals of the 60s and 70s. The rising
crime rates, the crack epidemic of the 90s. transformed
completely, demographically, technologically.
But his specific mandate, solving homicides,
remained this dark, unchanging constant that
he just had to confront every single day. And
because of that incredible longevity, upon his
retirement, He held the highest seniority in
the entire LAPD. Which earned him a very specific
honor, right? Yes. LAPD Detective badge number
one. Wow. And badge number one carries an immense
psychological and institutional weight within
law enforcement. It's not just an honorary title
they hand out for good behavior. Not at all.
It is a physical manifestation of survival. The
burnout rate in homicide divisions is notoriously
high. I can only imagine. Detectives are exposed
to the absolute worst of human nature daily.
The grief of families, the grotesque reality
of crime scenes. And the constant pressure from
the media and politicians to close cases. Exactly.
So to hold badge number one means you have outlasted
every single one of your peers. You've absorbed
decades of trauma and stress without letting
it break your analytical mind. It signifies a
resilience that very few human beings possess.
And he needed every ounce of that analytical
mind right from the beginning. He really did.
Because he was assigned to the Homicide Division
in 1949, which... just for context for you listening,
later merged into the legendary robbery homicide
division or RHD in 1969. And one of his very
first assignments as a young homicide detective
was the Black Dahlia murder. Elizabeth Short.
Yes. That case is essentially the cornerstone
of Los Angeles true crime lore. It was a brutally
violent, highly theatrical and unsolved murder
that just spawned an absolute circus of false
confessions and media hysteria. It was an investigative
nightmare. In 1947, when she was murdered, and
continuing into 1949 when St. John joined homicide.
The sheer volume of tips must have been overwhelming.
Completely. And they had no centralized database
to cross -reference suspects. Plus, the highly
transient nature of the post -war Los Angeles
population made it a labyrinth. But what stands
out in our sources is not just that he worked
on it early in his career. It's the psychological
grip it had on him. That's a crucial point. His
wife noted that he was still actively trying
to solve the Black Dahlia case just weeks before
his death in 1995. Which is insane to think about.
That is 46 years of carrying an open loop in
his mind. It really shows the kind of mind it
takes to solve puzzles when the pieces are human
lives. I want to dig into that specific mindset,
actually, because that is how he earned the nickname
that defined his entire career. Jigsaw John.
Right. And Jigsaw John didn't actually come from
the Black Dahlia case, right? No. It originated
from another early career case in Griffith Park.
The details are pretty grim. They are. It was
a dismemberment murder where the victim had been
scattered, essentially cut up into puzzle pieces.
And he solved it. He did. And the moniker stuck.
But not just because of the literal dismemberment
in that one specific case. Right. It stuck because
it perfectly described his cognitive approach
to investigative work. Think of a jigsaw puzzle
where half the pieces are missing and the picture
on the box is completely hidden. That was his
daily reality. The metaphor of the jigsaw puzzle
is highly revealing when we break down the psychology
of an investigator. How so? Well, when the average
person or even a young patrol officer walks into
a chaotic, gruesome scene like a dismemberment
in a sprawling area like Griffith Park. The natural
human reaction is to be overwhelmed. Overwhelmed
by the grotesque nature of the violence, the
sheer horror creates cognitive static. Right,
you can't think straight. Exactly. So to earn
a nickname like Jigsaw implies that St. John
possessed a rare ability to bypass that emotional
shock entirely. He could just look at an array
of seemingly disconnected, horrifying elements,
compartmentalize the trauma, and immediately
begin searching for the logical structural connections.
He wasn't looking at the horror. He was looking
at the edges of the pieces to see how they locked
together. And we have to remember, in the 1950s,
piecing together a case wasn't a matter of running
DNA or checking cell phone tower pings. Not at
all. If a body was found in Griffith Park, you
were relying on primitive blood typing, highly
subjective witness descriptions, and manual labor.
You had to physically walk to different precincts
to look through paper files to see if a similar
crime had occurred. You had to have an encyclopedic
memory just to know what questions to ask. Which
means his own brain had to act as the mainframe.
Precisely. The jigsaw methodology required his
mind to be the database. And if we look at the
trajectory of his career, that specific ability
to store, recall, and cross -reference minute
details over decades. That is exactly what allowed
him to transition into the next, arguably most
harrowing phase of his career. The era of the
serial killer. Yes. And this is where his resume
becomes truly staggering. Over his career, St.
John became a recognized, heavily relied upon
authority on serial murders. He didn't just consult
on them. He actively worked 12 serial killer
cases. Which is an incredible number. For context,
most homicide detectives will go an entire career
without crossing paths with a genuine textbook
serial killer. Right? To work 12 of them puts
him in a category of law enforcement that is
almost entirely unique. So working 12 serial
killer cases means he developed a highly refined,
internalized pattern recognition system for psychopathy.
Yes. Because investigating ethereal murder is
fundamentally different from a standard domestic
homicide or a gang -related killing. In a typical
murder, you look closely at the victim's inner
circle, right? Exactly. Spouses, business partners,
rivals. Because there's almost always a pre -existing
relationship between the victim and the perpetrator.
And the motive is usually tangible. Money. jealousy,
revenge. But serial killers generally target
strangers. Their motives are internal, often
driven by highly specific psychological compulsions.
And they operate across vast, sprawling geographical
areas, intentionally crossing police jurisdictions
to muddy the waters. Which is why having a living
database like St. John was so crucial. Just look
at the list of the killers he pursued. It tracks
the evolution of the American serial killer.
It's like a dark, greatest hits of true crime
history. In the 1950s, he worked on Harvey Glatman,
the lonely hearts killer. Glatman used the promise
of modeling jobs to lure young women, tying them
up and photographing them before murdering them.
Then you move into the late 1970s with the hillside
stranglers, Angela Blono and Kenneth Bianchi.
That was a jurisdictional nightmare. It was.
There were dumping bodies on hillsides all over
the greater Los Angeles area, terrorizing the
entire city. Then the 1980s hit, and you have
the South Side Slayer cases, which were deeply
intertwined with the crack epidemic. And the
Night Stalker, Richard Ramirez. Richard Ramirez
is a fascinating contrast to someone like Gladman,
isn't he? Absolutely. The Night Stalker's MO
was incredibly erratic. He didn't stick to a
specific demographic. He broke into homes randomly,
using different weapons. Guns, knives, blunt
objects. That level of chaos makes traditional
investigative work incredibly difficult. You
are relying on identifying subtle behavioral
signatures rather than a fixed MO. So St. John
had to analyze these sprawling chaotic crime
scenes and find the hidden thread? Whether it
was a specific type of knot used for ligatures,
a unique shoe print, or a subtle geographic pattern
in the attacks. Which perfectly sets the stage
for the most defining capture of his career.
The hunt for William Bonin. known as the Freeway
Killer. This was a sprawling, brutal eight -year
investigation. Bonin used the massive interconnected
Southern California freeway system as his hunting
ground, targeting young men and boys. An eight
year hunt means hitting dead end after dead end,
dealing with false leads and watching the body
count rise while the public panics. The toll
of an eight year investigation cannot be overstated.
It requires an extraordinary level of sustained
focus. Most cases would go cold. A serial case
that remains unsolved for that long often goes
cold simply because resources are diverted to
newer active cases. Ron's dogged determination
kept the Bonin investigation alive. He understood
that the freeway system offered the killer anonymity
and rapid mobility, making traditional choke
point policing impossible. They had to rely on
a combination of painstaking victimology, tracking
missing persons reports across numerous jurisdictions,
and basically waiting for the killer to make
a microscopic error. And that error eventually
led to a tip. Which led St. John to track down
a downy California truck driver. The climax of
this investigation is incredibly intense. It
really is. On June 11th, 1980, St. John and his
team didn't just arrest William Bonin at his
house. No, they tailed him. They tailed him and
they captured him literally in the act of assaulting
a victim in his van. And when they breached the
vehicle, they found Bonin's murder kit inside.
Just imagine the relief, but also the horror,
of opening that van and finding the murder kit.
You know you've caught the monster, but you're
staring right at his tools? It is the rarest
and most critical outcome in this serial investigation.
an active intervention. By catching him in the
act, they unequivocally saved that specific victim's
life and brought an immediate halt to the killings.
But from an investigative standpoint, breaching
that van and finding the murder kit provides
a completely unfiltered look into the killer's
pathology. You are looking at the instruments
of his compulsion. It solidifies the abstract
profile into a terrifying physical reality. It's
a phenomenal physical triumph for law enforcement.
And in 1982, St. John received the LAPD's Distinguished
Service Medal. specifically for his work on this
case. A well -deserved honor after eight years.
And just to close the loop on Bonin's timeline,
he was eventually executed by lethal injection
in 1996, a year after St. John passed away. But
capturing Bonin physically in the van was only
the first half of the battle. Right. Here is
where it gets really interesting, because this
is where the story pivots from. physical pursuit
to intense psychological warfare. And where we
see St. John operating in a very gray, controversial
space. So what does this all mean? We often assume
that catching a serial killer in the act with
the tools of the crime guarantees a swift, all
-encompassing conviction. But the legal reality
is much more complex. Even though Bonin was in
custody, the district attorney's office was struggling
to build a solid, expansive case that would definitively
tie him to the long string of previous murders.
They had him for the immediate crime in the van.
Yes. But proving the massive historical body
count beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of
law was proving incredibly difficult. Because
the evidence for the older murders was fragmented.
The burden of proof in a capital murder case
is immense. If the DA cannot definitively link
the physical evidence from the older, colder
crime scenes to the suspect in custody. There
is a very real risk that the killer only faces
charges for the most recent undeniable offenses.
Exactly. That could mean a prolific serial killer
evades justice for dozens of victims. So, with
the legal system faltering, Bonin is sitting
in custody, and suddenly he receives a letter.
A letter purportedly written by the agonizing,
grieving mother of one of his earlier victims.
The letter begs him, pleads with him on a deeply
emotional level to simply tell her what happened
to her son so she can finally have some peace.
And Bonin reads this letter. And something inside
him shifts. He is moved by it. He confesses to
that specific murder. And once the floodgates
open, he proceeds to confess to the entire string
of murders. The DA finally has the airtight case
they need. It appears at first glance to be a
breakthrough driven by a rare moment of human
empathy or remorse from a psychopath. Await.
Just before the trial date arrives, St. John
approaches the deputy DA and drops a bombshell.
He says, I've got to tell you something. It wasn't
the mother who wrote that letter. St. John had
orchestrated the entire thing. He forged a fake
letter from a grieving mother to exploit the
killer's psychology and force a confession. When
I read that, my immediate thought was, how does
a defense attorney not immediately tear that
apart in court? That's a great question. How
is that even legal? Well, this raises an important
question, and it requires us to look at the legal
framework surrounding police interrogation and
deception, specifically in the 1980s. Let's look
at the ethics versus the results here. Historically,
the courts, including the Supreme Court in cases
like Frasier v. Cupp in 1969, have established
that police are legally permitted to use deceptive
tactics during an interrogation. They can lie
to a suspect. Yes. They can claim they have a
witness who doesn't exist, or that a co -conspirator
has already confessed. So the police are allowed
to lie, but forging a physical document from
a civilian, that feels like crossing a massive
line. It pushes the boundary right to the absolute
edge. The legal threshold is whether the deception
overbeared the will of the suspect, rendering
the confession legally involuntary. So if the
police use physical coercion or threaten a suspect's
family, the confession is tossed out. Correct.
But an emotional appeal, even a manufactured
one, is often deemed legally admissible if the
suspect still freely chose to speak. And St.
John intimately understood Bonin's psychological
vulnerabilities. He knew a hard line, aggressive
interrogation wouldn't break him. But a manufactured
emotional plea tapped into a specific narcissistic
desire. Bonin had to be seen as merciful or powerful
in that moment. It is tactical brilliance, but
it is incredibly audacious. He essentially looked
at the failing machinery of the district attorney's
office, realized the monster might slip through
the cracks on a technicality, and decided to
engineer his own psychological trap. He built
a jigsaw puzzle piece out of thin air that fit
perfectly into Bonin's mind. It speaks to the
extreme measures that detectives of his era utilized.
He was operating in a transitional period. Today,
a defense team might heavily litigate a tactic
like that, arguing it crosses the line from deception
into psychological coercion. But in the context
of the freeway killer investigation, St. John
prioritized securing the confession and ensuring
a predator was permanently removed from society.
He utilized every legal gray area available to
him. And it worked. He secured the confessions.
This blend of gritty old school tactics and psychological
manipulation is what made him so effective. But
the sources make a very clear point that St.
John was not just a relic of the 1940s relying
solely on tricks. He survived 51 years because
he constantly adapted to the modernizing world
of forensics. He solved over two thirds of the
more than one thousand homicides he worked on.
That statistic is worth dwelling on. A closer
rate of over 66 percent on a volume of more than
a thousand cases is staggering, especially considering
the robbery homicide division does not handle
straightforward open and shut cases. Right. They
are assigned the complex hood units, gangland
assassinations, complex murders for hire. drive
-by shootings where witnesses are actively intimidated.
How did he physically manage that transition,
going from carbon copies in the 40s to the high
-tech 1990s? He embraced the technological revolution
in criminal science. During his tenure, he saw
the introduction of AFI, the Automated Fingerprint
Identification System, which revolutionized how
latent prints were matched. He also saw the creation
of ViaCap, the violent criminal apprehension
program, which finally allowed agencies across
the country to link serial killer M .O .s digitally.
And toward the end of his career, he witnessed
the dawn of DNA profiling. What made Singh Chan
uniquely powerful was that he layered these new
scientific tools over his foundational old school
investigative instincts. If we connect this to
the bigger picture, he didn't replace his memory
with a computer? No, he used the computer to
verify what his memory was already telling him.
He is the bridge between the noir era gumshoe
policing of the 1940s and the modern DNA driven
CSI era. And that kind of track record, combined
with his larger -than -life tactics, made fame
absolutely inevitable. You can't forge confession
letters to catch serial killers without Hollywood
noticing. Los Angeles Times writer Al Martinez
wrote a book about him called Jigsaw John in
1975. And that book was adapted into a 1976 NBC
television series starring veteran character
actor Jack Warden. Imagine the cognitive dissonance
of investigating horrific, bloody crime scenes
during the day and then going home to watch a
dramatized version of yourself on network television
at night. The media attention is a double -edged
sword in law enforcement. When a detective becomes
a public figure, it can easily breed resentment
within the ranks. Colleagues might feel the detective
has gone Hollywood. Prioritizing media soundbites
over meticulous casework. But the most telling
aspect of St. John's career is that the fame
never eroded the LAPD's internal trust in him.
That is abundantly clear when you look at the
non -serial cases he was assigned. When things
went wrong inside the department, they called
Jigsaw John. Cases like the Onion Fields murder
and the William Leisure case. We need to unpack
these because they represent a completely different
kind of pressure. The Onion Fields case is a
foundational trauma in the history of the LAPD.
In March 1963, Two LAPD officers, Ian Campbell
and Carl Hedinger, were kidnapped during a routine
traffic stop by two criminals, Jimmy Lee Smith
and Gregory Powell. The officers were driven
to an onion field near Bakersfield where Campbell
was executed and Hedinger barely escaped. The
psychological devastation that case inflicted
on the department was profound. Assigning St.
John to assist in the aftermath indicates that
departmental leadership viewed him as a steady
analytical anchor in a time of extreme emotional
volatility. But the William Leisure case is almost
the exact opposite. Right. In onion fields, cops
were the victims. In the Leisure case, the cop
was the monster. William Leisure was a mild -mannered
LAPD traffic officer who, in the 1980s, was revealed
to be running a massive criminal enterprise involving
stolen luxury yachts, fraud, and acting as a
contract hitman. Investigating a fellow police
officer for murder for hire is arguably the most
sensitive assignment a detective can receive.
It requires absolute unshakable impartiality.
The investigator knows that the defense attorneys
will scrutinize every single report, every piece
of evidence looking for any sign of internal
bias, corruption or a cover -up. The department
trusted St. John with the Lizure case because
they knew his methodology was airtight. He would
follow the jigsaw pieces wherever they led, even
if they pointed to a man carrying the same badge.
It validates that his reputation wasn't just
media hype. It was built on unassailable competence.
He navigated the politics of the department,
the evolution of science, the worst killers of
the century, and the glare of Hollywood. Which
brings us to the final chapter of his life. In
May of 1993, after 51 years, Jigsar John finally
retired. His plan was actually to transition
into becoming a technical advisor for the movie
industry. It makes perfect sense. Who better
to teach Hollywood how to make a police procedural
than the guy they based a show on? It would have
been a highly lucrative and fitting denouement
to his career. He could impart his vast knowledge
in a simulated environment free from the actual
physical and psychological dangers of the streets.
But sadly, he didn't get to enjoy it. Just two
years later, on May 3rd, 1995, John P. St. John
passed away at the age of 77 due to complications
from pneumonia and pancreatic cancer. There's
a deep poignancy to that. A man survives half
a century confronting armed killers and the darkest
elements of society, only to succumb to illness
almost immediately after finally setting his
badge down. It highlights the physical toll of
the job. He effectively dedicated the entirety
of his healthy adult lifespan to the protection
of Los Angeles. And the city recognized the magnitude
of that sacrifice at his funeral. The funeral
was an incredible cultural snapshot of Los Angeles
in 1995. The attendee list was a who's who of
the justice system. You had veteran LAPD detectives
Tom Lange and Philip Van Adder. You had Judge
Lance Ito. You had former LAPD chief Daryl F.
Gates, who actually eulogized him, and the sitting
chief Willie L. Williams. That specific gathering
anchors St. John's passing firmly in the epicenter
of the O .J. Simpson criminal trial. Lange, Van
Adder, and Ito were the central figures in the
trial of the century. Occurring at a moment when
the LAPD and the broader justice system were
under unprecedented global scrutiny and intense
criticism. Yet amidst that chaos, the institution
paused to honor St. John. Daryl Gates eulogizing
him is particularly significant. Gates had worked
alongside St. John decades earlier as a young
detective. It demonstrates that St. John wasn't
just a peer. He was a foundational mentor to
the men who eventually ran the city. But the
detail that really stuck with me was the action
taken by the current chief, Willie L. Williams.
On May 6, 1995, literally the day before St.
John passed away, Chief Williams officially reinstated
him to active duty. The stated reason was so
that he make his final journey as a detective
of the Los Angeles Police Department. It is a
profoundly moving institutional gesture. By reinstating
a dying man to active duty, the department acknowledged
that his identity and his service were inseparable.
He wasn't simply a retired civilian who used
to work there. He was recognized right up to
his final breath as an active guardian of the
city. So let's pull back and look at the massive
expanse we've covered today. We started in the
analog film noir days of 1940s Los Angeles dissecting
dismemberments in Griffith Park and navigating
the frenzy of the Black Dahlia. We watched a
detective manually construct a mental database
of psychopathy, ultimately bridging the gap to
the computerized forensics of the 1990s. We saw
him hunt down the most notorious serial killers
of the 20th century, orchestrate a legally audacious
fake confession to capture the freeway killer,
investigate betrayals within his own department,
and ultimately pass away as an active detective
in the eyes of the city he protected. His career
stands as a monument to relentless, meticulous
investigative work. But as we synthesize all
of this information, I want to leave you with
a final thought to consider regarding the nature
of modern policing. Absolutely. When a figure
like John P. St. John passes away. A man who
carried the intricate, microscopic details of
over 1 ,000 homicides in his own mind, who intuitively
understood the geography of the city and the
complex psychology of his predators, a massive
volume of institutional memory vanishes with
him. Right. Today, we rely heavily on technology.
We have highly advanced algorithms, DNA databases,
and predictive behavioral models. Sure. But as
you navigate the modern true crime landscape,
ask yourself, can an algorithm ever truly replicate
the sheer human instinct, the nuanced pattern
recognition, and the unyielding dogged determination
of a detective who spent half a century looking
monsters directly in the eye. That is a phenomenal
question. Does the technology make the jigsaw
-johns of the world obsolete, or does it desperately
need them to put the final pieces together? Thank
you so much for joining us on this deep dive.
We love unpacking these complex histories with
you. Keep questioning the narrative, keep looking
for how the pieces fit together, and we will
catch you on the next deep dive.