Bio

Michael Dee Mattson was born on July 23, 1953, in the United States. Before the California murders, Mattson had already committed major crimes. In 1971, he was convicted in Oregon for kidnapping and raping a young girl. After serving time, he was released on parole and moved to Southern California. Instead of rebuilding his life, he continued attacking girls and young women. By 1978, his crimes escalated into multiple murders, making him one of California’s most feared killers of the time.

Murder Story

In July 1978, nine-year-old Cheryl Gutierrez disappeared near Santa Fe Springs High School after waiting for her mother. Her body was found the following day in the Whittier Narrows area. She had been abducted, sexually assaulted, and strangled.

During the same period, sixteen-year-old Deanna Musquiz was also murdered. Investigators later linked her death to Mattson’s series of attacks on teenage girls.

On September 6, 1978, sixteen-year-old Adele Jean Corradini vanished while on her way to work in Orange County. She never arrived. Her remains were discovered two months later in a wooded area, and authorities determined she had been strangled.

A surviving fifteen-year-old victim later testified that Mattson kidnapped and sexually assaulted her after picking her up while she was hitchhiking. She escaped, and her account helped strengthen the case against him.

Mattson was arrested in Nevada on September 21, 1978, after another abduction and rape. Investigators later obtained confessions connecting him to the California murders. He was first sentenced to death in 1980. After appeals overturned that judgment, he was retried and again sentenced to death on February 7, 1986.

He spent more than twenty years on death row at San Quentin. Michael Dee Mattson died of natural causes on July 17, 2009, before any execution took place.