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Originally from Stratford, Canada, Lynne Knight was a 28-year-old neonatal nurse working in Torrance, California, when she was found stabbed to death in a bloody crime scene at her apartment in August 1979. Reports state that authorities found her strangled with a make-shift garrote and stabbed at least 15 times, with her throat nearly severed, in the early morning hours while responding to a 911 call.
While investigating Knight's murder, her ex-boyfriend Douglas Bradford, whom she dated for a few months earlier that year, became a primary suspect. However, the case went cold for decades and was reopened in 2000. Seven years later, authorities found the same wire used to strangle the victim at the house of Bradford's mother. He was arrested in 2009 and found guilty another five years later.
Dateline: Secrets Uncovered chronicles the decades-old murder of Lynne Knight in an episode titled The Wire, the synopsis of which states:
"Lynne Knight was a vibrant young nurse whose love of adventure made her stand out; her murder haunted detectives for decades."
The upcoming episode will air on Oxygen this Tuesday, May 9, at 9:00 pm ET.
Lynne Knight was first strangled using a homemade garrote and then stabbed at least 15 times
Lynne Knight, a 28-year-old neonatal nurse who resided in a bungalow behind a bigger home in Torrance, California, was planning to return to her family in Stratford, Canada, and attend her sister's wedding as the maid of honor in 1979, but she never made it. Two weeks before the wedding, she was found dead in her Torrance apartment in the early morning hours of August 30.
Police officers were dispatched to Knight's home after neighbors heard screams coming from her apartment and called 911. At her house, two offcers noticed a chair overturned near the entrance and a trail of bloody footsteps leading back to the bedroom, where they witnessed a grisly crime scene. The nurse was found naked, lying in bed, with her throat is deeply severed.
She was repeatedly stabbed over a dozen times and under her body was an 18-inch-long wire tied between two small pieces of wood that were broken off from an old broomstick - a homemade garrote used to strangle someone to death quietly. The officers believed the killer tried to murder Knight using the garrote, but failed and stabbed her to death to complete the act of violence.
A jealous ex-boyfriend was initially identified as a person of interest in the murder case of Lynne Knight
Initially, there were multiple suspects in the case, but Lynne Knight's ex-boyfriend Douglas Bradford, a student of engineering at Cal State Long Beach, had the perfect motive to commit such a heinous act. The two met on a skiing trip and dated for almost two months before Knight ended their relationship. He reportedly faced a hard time coping with the break-up.
Witnesses claimed that he frequently drove by her apartment after they broke up, and once barged into the house under the pretense of returning a lamp while she was with another man. He called her a wh*re and tossed a lamp at her in anger.
On the night of the murder, one of Knight's neighbors reported seeing Bradford's orange 280Z speeding away from the victim's apartment and was again spotted driving down her neighborhood in what seemed like a stalking incident prior to the killing.
Lynne Knight's ex-boyfriend killer, Douglas Bradford, was brought to justice over three decades later
At first, authorities identified Douglas Bradford as the killer. However, he denied involvement, claiming that he was sailing in Long Beach at the time of the killing. The case went cold for over 30 years due to a lack of evidence, and during that time Bradford rose to the top as an engineer in Costa Mesa, got married, divorced his wife, and then had a 13-year relationship with another woman.
The case was reopened in 1997 by Los Angeles County Deputy District Attorney John Lewin and Torrance detectives, with little-to-no physical evidence. It wasn't until 2007 that they finally made progress when they found the identical kind of wire that had been used to strangle Lynne Knight in the garage of the suspect's elderly mother. Bradford was arrested two years later.
In August 2014, Douglas Bradford was found guilty of first-degree murder in Lynne Knight's decades-old case and was sentenced to 26 years to life in prison in December.
Oxygen's Dateline: Secrets Uncovered is expected to delve deeper into the case this Tuesday.
