This article includes graphic references to mutilation and sexualized injuries.
The disturbing trail that would eventually lead investigators to serial killer Phillip Jablonski started with a horrifying find in the barren desert near Indio, California.
On April 23, 1991, authorities discovered the naked body of a woman lying face down. Carved into her back was a chilling message: “I (heart symbol) Jesus.”
“When I saw that, I didn’t know what to think,” retired Riverside Sheriff’s Department investigator Mark Barfknecht told Oxygen’s Unknown Serial Killers of America. “It was possibly a signature. It was just a phenomenon that none of us had ever witnessed personally.”
When investigators rolled the victim over, they found she had also suffered a gunshot wound to the head.
“She was also missing her eyeballs. She had been stabbed in the throat, her ears had been cut off and her nipples had been removed,” he added. “These appeared to be trophies that were taken from the victim. It was elevated to a different level of horror.”
Yet it was only the beginning. In the days that followed, investigators uncovered more bodies—including Jablonski’s prison penpal turned wife—as they raced to stop the sadistic killer. When he was finally captured in Kansas, investigators discovered Jablonski had been keeping a macabre audio diary reliving all his dark crimes.
Victim Fathyma Vann is Identified
As the investigation in Indio got underway, Riverside County investigators were able to match the desert victim to a missing person’s report for 38-year-old mom Fathyma Vann, who vanished one day earlier after attending night classes at College of the Desert.
“When I found out my mother was gone, I tore up everything I could because now life is gone,” her daughter Yolanda Robinson- Vann recalled. “I’m crying. I can’t do anything. Now it’s just me and my sister.”
Yolanda, then 20, also attended the college and remembered her mother introducing her to a older, white male classmate that occasionally gave her mom rides home from class. According to Yolanda, the man’s “vibe was not good at all.”
Bodies of Eva Peterson, Carol Spadoni Are Found Inside Home
As investigators tried to track the man down, they learned that detectives hundreds of miles away were looking for a parolee matching the same description after the bodies of a mother and daughter had been discovered murdered in their Burlingame home.
Much like in Vann’s case, Eva Peterson, 72, and Carol Spadoni, 46, had been shot with a .22 and had their breasts mutilated.
The bodies were discovered after a friend requested a welfare check. Peterson’s half-naked body was found in the garage near the entryway of the house. She had a towel stuffed in her mouth and a bullet fired straight through the towel.
As retired Burlingame Police Det. Sgt. Eric Haseleu said, “We knew we had a monster on our hands.”
Inside, the body of Spadoni was discovered in the cluttered living room, with duct tape wrapped around her head and stab wounds to her neck, stomach and genitals.
According to Haseleu, “It must have been a horrific, horrific death.”
Victim Carol Spadoni Was Prison Penpals With Phillip Jablonski
The mother and daughter had lived a very secluded life, but investigators discovered a clue to their killer after finding correspondence between Spadoni and Jablonski, then an inmate at San Quentin prison with a violent past.
Spadoni began writing to Jablonski as part of a religious program and the letters began “sweet and nice” but later turned sexual, Haseleu said.
“Carol was sort of a lonely heart of sorts,” San Mateo County District Attorney Stephen Wagstaffe added. “She had not been married before, she was clearly not a strong personality, easy to manipulate.”
In 1982, she married Jablonski while he was still serving time for beating and strangling his common law wife Linda Kimball to death.
Over time, Barkfnecht said Spadoni started to fear her husband, especially after he was paroled in 1990 to Riverside county.
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Investigators Link Jablonski to Both Murder Scenes
Detectives were able to find a moving citation given to Jablonski on April 23, putting him in Burlingame around the time of the murders. They also learned that Spadoni had repeatedly denied his requests for conjugal visits behind bars as his letters to her had gotten increasingly sexually violent. Eventually, he even began writing sexually explicit letters to her mother, terrifying both mother and daughter.
“He didn’t like rejection, especially from a woman,” Haseleu explained. “It made him furious.”
Investigators also learned that Jablonski had been enrolled in the same auto repair course at College of the Desert as Vann and was seen leaving with her the night of her death, linking him to both crime scenes. Classmates also told investigators that Vann had turned down Jablonski’s request for a date before her death.
Convinced they had their killer, investigators went to Jablonski’s home and found bloody clothes, letters and an address book with the names of other penpals, but no sign of the missing parolee himself.
“He was on the run,” Haseleu explained, “had a three day head start, and we had no idea where he was going.”
How Was Phillip Jablonski Caught?
Authorities put out a national alert for Jablonski’s 1965 Ford Fairlane. It would prove to be the key to catching the killer.
On April 28, 1991, a Kansas State Trooper noticed a vehicle with its hood up and ran its plates, quickly learning the driver of the vehicle was wanted for murder.
Jablonski was taken into custody in McPherson, Kansas, finally putting an end to his reign. But investigators would soon learn another woman had lost her life during his cross-country trek.
Just one day earlier, Margie Rogers—the 59-year-old owner of a small, remote convenience store in Thompson Springs, Utah—was discovered dead inside the shop after she’d been shot with a small caliber weapon. There was also evidence to suggest the killer also fondled her breast.
Phillip Jablonski Describes Kills, Stalking Women on Audio Tape
Though Jablonski refused to discuss the killings with investigators, authorities found a treasure trove of chilling evidence inside his car.
Along with a .22 caliber handgun hidden under the front seat, detectives also found a handmade leather belt that had the names and dates of his victims and blood stains later matched to Vann on the seat of the car.
But perhaps the most disturbing discovery was a tape recorder and tapes that he had used to create a morbid record of his dark deeds.
In them, he described killing Vann in the car.
“I pulled a gun on her. She said, ‘Please, don’t.’ She sat there with a tear in her eyes,” he said. “Looked at her. I said, ‘Sorry, sweet thing. Can’t have no witnesses.’”
He also recorded himself describing how he’d attacked Spadoni and Petersen, shot Rogers and hunted for potential new victims as he made his way across the country.
“Hopefully, this woman ahead of me is my next victim,” he said at one point in the recording, later adding, “God, what I’d give for this woman. Come on you guys, leave the [expletive] restroom so I can have her.”
Though the victim got away, forensic psychologist Paige Wilcoxson said the recording spoke to Jablonski’s predatory nature, while also providing him with a way to relive his gruesome crimes.
“When I heard that tape,” Haseleu added, “it sent chills up my spine.”
What Happened to Phillip Jablonski?
Jablonski was found guilty in San Mateo of the first-degree murder of Spadoni and Petersen and sentenced to death.
He later also pled guilty to killing Vann and received a sentence of life without the possibility of parole in that case. Authorities never formally charged him with Rogers murder.
Jablonski died in December 2019 of natural causes while on death row at the San Quentin prison.