By GREG FOX: Did a military stint in south-east Asia lead Fernando Cota into becoming a demented “spree killer” … and how many more psychotic murderers did the war in Vietnam produce?
Anecdotally there’s enough information to suggest that some servicemen returned from the Asian conflict with bad intentions. In my research, specifically serial or spree murders from the 1970s and 1980s in the US (i.e. the poorly named “Golden Era of Serial Killing”), a smattering of these offenders are tabbed as “Vietnam veterans”. I wouldn’t call it a trend but there’s enough of these individuals, in my opinion, to warrant a deeper dive.
One of these service personnel Fernando Velazco Cota stands out above most – notably for his murderous intentions and intense dislike of women. So, what do we know of this malevolent individual would go onto to terrorize San Jose, CA in 1984 …
Cota was born in Chihuahua, Mexico in 1946. The Vietnam draft saw him enter the army at 19 years of age in 1967. He then re-enlisted in 1970 for a second tour. Online records show Cota discharged from the military service on 5th April 1974.
Thereafter he landed or returned to El Paso (I was unable to locate anything about Cota’s childhood or where he attended school in the US) and was soon employed as a data processor at William Beaumont Army Hospital. Therein he quickly got into serious legal difficulties.
“An Intelligent Amateur Psychologist”
On 13th December 1974, a nurse from the army hospital shockingly told police that Cota had raped her. The details went like this: The offender had gained entry to the victim’s residence by claiming he was attending to reported gas leak. Cota had forced his way into the home with a gun then bound her hands and feet with rope. Bizarrely the former soldier proceeded to mix her a cocktail and bath her, before beginning the sexually assault.
Post-offence Cota sent the victim a “apology” letter, that stated:
“Sorry for the argument we had. Still love you”.
According to the defences’ psychiatrist at trial, Cota suffered from paranoid psychosis and could not be held accountable for his actions. Conversely state appointed psychiatrist Dr Ben Hill Passmore outlined Cota believed he was in a relationship with his victims. The doctor viewed Cota as having a “Casanova” type persona who had a “high capability of violence toward women”.
He (Cota), in a way, convinced himself “he was making love to the woman he raped,” said Dr Passmore.
“Cota is delusional, but he is not incapable of seeing what is right and wrong” affirmed the psychiatrist on the stand.
Passmore testified that just because a person maybe suffering from a psychotic episode does not mean they are suffering from “insanity”, as defined by the Texas Penal Code. Much later, the doctor acknowledged to the media that Cota was “an intelligent amateur psychologist who liked to observe people”.
Prosecutor and Assistant District Attorney Duane Baker in summing up of the state’s case reiterated that Cota was aware of his actions whilst committing crime.
“The objective facts show that Cota knew his actions were wrong. Cota produced an alibi for the afternoon the rape occurred, he had in his possession a pistol with the serial number scratched off, he had a rope to tie and gag his victim, he did not answer the nurse’s phone when it rang, and he used napkins and gloves to obliterate fingerprints”.
Cota was found guilty of aggravated rape and therein served only eight years of a 20-year prison sentence within the Texas Department of Correction, before being paroled early (for good behaviour). Ultimately a decision by the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles that would have devastating consequences – and one that would leave Californian law enforcement and future victims’ families scratching their heads for decades to come.
“If you don’t kill me, I’ll kill myself“
Arriving on the west coast by bus in October 1983, the convicted rapist secured employment as a computer operator, on the night shift, with Aydin Microwave Inc, within Silicon Valley. Now residing in California, Cota then 38, was required to register as a sex offender with the San Jose Police Department, in observance with the state’s law. He never did.
A female worker at Aydin would later say of Cota:
“I felt he was a creep, a weirdo, and a pervert, but I wasn’t afraid of him.”
She should have been.
On the evening of Sunday 14th October 1984, California Highway Patrol noticed a white and blue Chevrolet van driving erratically on Highway 101, north of San Jose – near to the town of San Carlos.
The police indicated for the driver to pull over. The driver complied. A patrol officer approached the vehicle and asked the Hispanic male driver for his driver’s license and registration documents. With that simple request the driver (Fernando Cota) became agitated and produced a gun – a .22 caliber revolver. Reports state Cota commenced screaming at the officers:
“I’m a very sick man, kill me. If you don’t kill me, I’ll kill myself.”
He then proceeded to place the gun in his mouth and shoot himself in the head – through his palate or roof of his mouth to be precise. Whilst Cota lay dying by the side of the busy road the officers entered the rear of the van. Nothing could have prepared them for what they would discover when searching the mortally wounded man’s vehicle.
Inside the van police found a bag of blood stained clothes – and a timber “coffin”, with scuff marks inside it as if someone had been attempting to kick their way out of the box. Even more horrifying, the beaten and strangled body of 21-year-old woman Kim Marie Dunham from Milpitas, CA. – dress only in socks and panties. Fiendishly the van’s backseat had been removed and its rear windows were blacked out with plastic. The victim Dunham had been a missing person and was last sighted the previous Friday evening in her hometown – waiting for a bus near to she worked.
A Torture Closet Of Sorts
Cota’s roadside suicide came after a series of five unsolved murders in six weeks within the south bay area. Detectives immediately ventured to his apartment near to San Jose State University. What they uncovered shocked the seasoned investigators.
According to San Jose Police Detective Don Trujillo:
“Crime scene technicians discovered a closet that was apparently used to hold kidnap victims”.
“There were metal brackets secured to the floor that were used with chains and manacles”, added the Lieutenant in a prepared statement to local media outlets.
The torture closet of sorts or bondage cell measured 2ft by 3ft by 6ft and had a makeshift peephole bored through its door. Several unidentified fingerprints remained within the closet space. Within Cota’s remodeled apartment, inside a one-time Victorian style residence at 405 North 3rd Street, police found some chilling paperwork – a circular of sorts. An advertisement for a room to let close to the San Jose State, available to either a man or woman, with Cota’s work phone number displayed. It was signed “Ferni”.
Source: Google Maps
Also uncovered were numerous fake identifications including a phoney police badge as well as six pairs of women’s shoes.
Lt. Trujillo pondered on the find at the North Street address.
“He (Cota) was weird in that he designed his living environment to accommodate kidnap victims”.
Investigators quickly zeroed in on the fact that two of the recent homicide victims in San Jose had close geographic ties to Cota’s residence.
Other Cota victims – Teresa Sunder & Lori Miller?
Law enforcement immediately liked Fernando Cota for two other unsolved murders in San Jose – Teresa Linda Sunder, 29 and Lori Leigh Miller,19. Strong evidence was at hand that the former soldier was involved in their murders.
Sunders body was discovered on the 30th September in an abandoned two-story house, only one block from Cota’s apartment. The medical examiner believed the brutally beaten woman had been deceased at least two weeks. Sunder had been a vulnerable person after a recent relationship breakdown. A drug addiction saw her living on the street and working as a prostitute.
A week later Miller’s body was discovered in the south-eastern foothills bordering the city. The teenager had been missing for ten days but the coroner reported she had only deceased for just 24 hours when found. Her cause of death was strangulation. The victim’s legs appeared freshly shaved. Had Cota been keeping her captive for over a week at his residence before killing and dumping her?
More telling, Miller had lived in a unit that backed onto the rear of Cota’s North Street rental. She had been last seen at residence on the 26th September. The exact details of Millers abduction resonate against Cota’s rape of the nurse in Texas – as outlined at a true crime blog “I Did It For Jodie Archive”:
“The day she (Miller) went missing she called her boyfriend and said there was a Hispanic man at the door. She said she wasn’t going to let him in, but when the boyfriend came home, she was nowhere to be found, eggs were burning on the stove, and the fire alarm was going off”.
Source: Find A Grave
Investigators would interview Cota’s recent “girlfriend”. She told the Napa Valley Register that “the closet could only have been used as a bondage cell since the 19th September, the night she moved out of their apartment because “she used to keep her clothes in the closet”. Sgt Peter Graves added that former live-in partner stated that Cota had been a gentleman at the start of the relationship but over time things started getting weird sexually.
Cota’s homicidal compulsion had been escalating toward that fateful evening on the interstate. Today it appears he was engaged in a Richard Ramirez-styled spree killing. Its worth noting both Cota and Ramirez eerily several things in common:
-Both were of Hispanic descent;
-Both had a connection to El Paso, TX. Cota lived and worked there when returning from Vietnam before being imprisoned for rape. Ramirez grew up in West Texas border town and formulated his evil fantasies till he 22, before moving to California.
-Both had a Vietnam connection – Cota as soldier in the general army although records about his time in the service are scarce. Ramirez as a child, famously fell under a sick psychological spell of his older cousin, the mentally unhinged veteran Mike Valles.
-And regards to spree murders, the “Night Stalker” – with a total victim count being 13 documented killings over an 18 month period – is perhaps the most infamous spree-type killer US history.
The murder sprees of both men occurred in the mid-1980s period in California – Ramirez predominantly in the greater Los Angeles area although he had ventured to the bay area to murder on at least two occasions. We now know Ramirez’ first killing actually occurred in the Tenderloin District of San Francisco in April 1984. The truly demonic “Night Stalker” murdered nine-year-old girl Mei Leung in the basement of her apartment building. After he raped, strangled and stabbed the child to death, he hung her partially nude body from a downpipe by her blouse.
The Vietnam Link
How many other depraved individuals returned to the US from the south-east Asian conflict deeply affected, acting out their deviant psychological impulses on an unsuspecting public? And what about premise that the Vietnam War was a causal link to the prevalence of serial killers and no-conscience murderers that emerged within US society in the 1970s?
It now seems possible that experiences in the war that promoted desensitised killing and dehumanisation of foreign peoples gave rise to individual “anti-social escalation” after being discharged. There are numerous neurodevelopmental, psychosocial and environmental factors to consider in attempting to interpret the deviant behaviour of these former soldiers after their war experience.
A not exhaustive list of notable Vietnam-linked psychopaths:
Arthur Shawcross (1945 – 2008) aka “The Rochester Strangler”
A notorious serial killer active in Rochester, NY between 1972 and 1989. Raped and murdered 11 prostitutes. A bed wetter well into his teens, Shawcross became obsessed with sex whilst at school despite being withdrawn and anti-social most of his childhood.
Shawcross was drafted into the army in 1968 as a 21-year-old and completed one tour of duty. Promoted as a dispatch operator within the 4th Supply and Transport Company of the Fourth Infantry Division based in Pleiku. Shawcross’ primary role was to organize the distribution of ammunition to outlying combat units by helicopter. Returning home he boasted about having a high “combat kill” count including mutilation and cannibalization of two young Vietcong women (although it’s confirmed he never saw any live combat situations). Later, by his own admissions, he said became an “animal” in Vietnam. Shawcross went further to say it wasn’t just the enemy that suffered at his hands but that he savaged many Asian prostitutes, one only 11 years of age. Ironically this madman was born in June 1946 at a US Naval Hospital in Kittery, Maine.
Gary Ridgeway (Born 1949 – Imprisoned at Washington State Penitentiary, Walla Walla, WA) aka “The Green River Killer”
On his capture in 2001 Ridgway was thought to be the most prolific murderer in US history. Raised in a rundown neighborhood near to the Seattle’s Pacific Highway by his domineering and abusive mother Mary. Joined the Navy in 1969 after graduating from high school. Thereafter served on a supply ship in the Vietnam War and was reported to have seen combat. While stationed overseas, Ridgway began having unprotected sex with prostitutes, contracting gonorrhea at least twice – which oddly angered him and forged a deep-seated hatred toward sex workers.
A necrophile, Ridgway would admit to 49 murders between 1982 and 1998 – mostly of prostitutes or disadvantaged woman. Many of his early victims were picked up along Pacific Highway South between Seattle and Tacoma – dumping their bodies in wooded areas around the Green River. Almost all of his victims were killed via strangulation – Ridgway confirmed he would perform this manually from behind the surprised, unfortunate female. A few later victims were asphyxiated through use of ligatures if he felt the woman was more likely to resist and fight back.
Leonard Lake (1945 -1985) aka the “The Sex Slave Killer/s” (with Charles Ng)
In 1965, San Francisco-born Lake enlisted with the Marine Corps, training as a radio operator. His second tour of duty was cut short in 1971 after a complete mental collapse in Da Nang, being diagnosed with schizoid personality disorder. Shipped back to the states, Lake was placed into two years of forced psychiatric treatment at Fort Pendleton.
A survivalist, come serial murderer and sexual sadist, Lake is believed to have raped, tortured and killed at least 11 victims, although this total could be as high as 25. Many of his killings female victims were videotaped, with the help of his Lake’s murderous offsider Charles Ng (who himself was a one-time US Marine that faced court-martial in 1980 for stealing automatic weapons).
Most of the duo’s killings occurred at Lake’s small ranch and “dungeon” near to Wilseyville, CA, about 70 miles south-east from Sacramento. When eventually arrested by police in South San Francisco in June 1985 during a botched robbery at a hardware store, Lake ingested a cyanide pill leading to a painful albeit almost immediate death.
William Bonin (1947 -1996) aka “The Freeway Killer”
Born in Connecticut, from a young age Bonin was exposed to a highly dysfunctional home life. His father a second world war veteran was a compulsive gambler and alcoholic. Bonin’s mother, also a heavy drinker, regularly left him and his brother in the care of his grandfather, a convicted paedophile. Records show Bonin was incarcerated into juvenile detention centre before his ninth birthday for stealing number plates.
What we know about Bonin’s military service? In Vietnam he spent five months of active duty as an aerial gunner with the 205th Assault Support Helicopter Unit, out of the Phu Lou Base. Bonin flew 700 hours of actual combat and patrol time. For risking his own life whilst under enemy fire he was awarded medals for gallantry. Bonin served three years before being honorably discharged in October 1968.
In all Bonin murdered, with the assistance of one of his four accomplices whom he partnered with at various times, at least 14 teenage boys across Los Angeles and Orange Counties during 1979 & 1980. This homicidal maniac would cruise the maze of Los Angeles freeways hoping that young male hitchhikers would get into his “van of death”, some lured under pretense of consensual sex. Most victims were said to be kidnapped, robbed, raped and ultimately killed through strangulation or ligature.
Tellingly the prosecutor at his first murder trial in LA County, said of the accused “he (Bonin) is the most arch-evil person who ever existed.” Bonin was executed by lethal injection at San Quentin Prison in 1996.
Miguel “Mike” Valles (1949 – 1995)
A former special forces soldier who claimed to have engaged in rape and serial murder during the Vietnam conflict. Widely known as a first cousin of the Richard Ramirez. Valles was alleged to have kept polaroids of dismembered Vietnamese women in his possession – which he proudly displayed to the future “Night Stalker” in El Paso, TX during the early seventies period.
In March 1975, Ramirez then aged 15, witnessed Valles kill his wife Josefina, by shooting her in the face with a .38 caliber revolver. Valles would be found guilty of voluntary manslaughter and serve only five years in the Texas Department of Corrections. During the trial the court heard that the accused was a diagnosed schizophrenic who was only able to function when taking anti-psychotic medication.
Cota to be removed from Veterans Cemetery
In December 2025, Fernando Cota’s name appeared again in national news reporting, without any prior notice. Mostly missed by the click obsessed true crime community, a stunning announcement served to right a long-standing wrong within Veterans Affairs. As reported online at www.military.com, the US Federal Government has now taken steps to remove the remains of Cota from Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery in San Antonio after 40 years.
The impetus to make this change came after a petition was implemented by Teresa Sunder’s son, Dave McCausland (Miss Sunder was likely murdered by Cota back in September 1984 in downtown San Jose) to push Congress to intervene in this ongoing injustice. McCausland was only five years of age when his mother was killed. Last year McCausland took real steps to push the political establishment to undo this loophole by promoting his proposed “Teresa’s Law” – asking Congress to act on the issue. His work in pushing for legislative change involved reaching out to the Veteran Affairs committees in both the House and the Senate. McCausland would tell Kens5 Tv from San Antonio:
“We’re not only trying to dig Cota out of the ground. We’re trying to change history. We’re trying to make sure this never happens again for any reason”.
“We cannot allow these predators and monsters to be buried amongst our heroes”.
It was then that Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) co-sponsored a bill that would see amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act. Under a new federal law, signed off by President Trump, Cota would be disinterred from the veterans’ cemetery as soon as possible. Sen. Cornyn was firm in his view that Vietnam veteran Cota be exhumed from his current burial plot expeditiously.
“Fort Sam Houston is a sacred resting place for more than 17,000 respected veterans and their loved ones, and it would be a slap in the face to each one of them to allow Fernando Cota, convicted rapist and alleged serial murderer, to remain buried amongst such heroes,” said Cornyn.
References:
A Creep, A Weirdo And A Pervert: The Crimes Of Fernando Cota. I Did It For Jodie Archive. 9 May 2025. Web: https://ididitforjodiearchive.wordpress.com/2025/05/09/a-creep-a-weirdo-and-a-pervert-the-crimes-of-fernando-cota/
Coffin-type Box Likely Used On Slayer Victims. The Napa Register. 20 October 1984.
Convicted Rapist Gets 20 Years – Victim Wanted To See Him Hang. Elise David. The El Paso Times. 9 May 1975
Murderpedia: The Encyclopedia Of Murderers. Web: www.murderpedia.org
Police Gather Clues In Brutal Murders. Herb Michelson. Santa Cruz Sentinel. 18 October 1984.
Rapist May Have Killed Six Women. California Aggie. Vol 104, No 33. 18 October 1984
Slaying Suspect Saw Himself As A Casanova. D’Arcy Fallon. San Francisco Examiner. 19 October 1984
Six San Jose Slayings Linked To Dead Man. The New York Times. 17 October 1984.
Suicide Prompts Investigation Of Closet. Robert A. Martin. 17 October 1984. Web: https://www.upi.com/amp/Archives/1984/10/17/Suicide-prompts-investigation-of-closet/3366466833600/
The Registration Of Sex Offenders: The Pros And Cons And The Problems. Peninsula Times Tribune. Cinde Churmess. 28 October 1984.
We’re trying to change history: Senate votes to remove suspected serial killer from San Antonio. Alicia Neaves. Kens5 TV . 14 August 2025. Web: