Leonard Lake
Leonard Lake, born in 1946, had a tumultuous early life marked by family abandonment and economic hardship, eventually living with his strict grandmother. After serving in the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam War, Lake struggled with personal relationships, leading to two divorces. His criminal activities escalated in the early 1980s when he partnered with Charles Ng, leading to a series of heinous crimes motivated by Lake's disturbing fantasies of female subjugation, influenced by the novel "The Collector." Together, they are believed to have kidnapped and killed multiple victims, with the evidence of their crimes recorded on videotapes and in Lake's diary. In 1985, Lake was arrested but died by suicide while in police custody, leaving many of his crimes unresolved. Authorities estimate that he may have killed around twenty-five individuals, including family members, motivated by a desire for financial gain and control. Lake's actions and ideology reflect a troubling intersection of misogyny and survivalist paranoia, leaving a lasting impact on societal perceptions of violence and gender dynamics.
Subject Terms
Leonard Lake
American abductor, torturer, and murderer
- Born: July 20, 1946
- Birthplace: San Francisco, California
- Died: June 6, 1985
- Place of death: San Francisco, California
Major offenses: Drug dealing, voyeurism, pornography, burglary, and murders.
Active: 1982-1985
Locale: San Francisco and Wilseyville, California
Early Life
Leonard Lake (layk) was born in 1946, just after World War II had ended and the United States was struggling to get back on its economic feet. Lake’s family also struggled economically, for a time occupying public housing. When Lake was of kindergarten age, his father left the family, and some months later his mother also abandoned him. Lake lived with his grandmother, a strict disciplinarian. His life was now materially better, and he no longer suffered hunger and poverty. He even enjoyed attending summer nature camps. However, he resented his mentally impaired brother, Donald. As a youth, Lake took nude photographs of women, including sisters and cousins.
Lake was a United States Marine from January, 1964, to January, 1971. In March, 1969, he married Karen Lee Mainersman. He served in the Vietnam War as a radar technician. Although he bragged about killing during the Vietnam War, he in fact never saw battle. His second tour in Vietnam ended with his spending two months in a mental ward back in California. His wife divorced him in 1972.
In 1974, Lake moved in with Venus Salem at The Ranch, a counterculture enclave north of Ukiah, California. At The Ranch, Lake met Sir Lancelot, a goat surgically altered to have one horn. Traveling with the “unicorn,” Lake met women, including his second wife, Claralyn “Cricket” Balazs, whom he married in September, 1981. However, their marriage would last for little more than a year.
Criminal Career
The number of Lake’s crimes is unknown. In late 1981, he met Charles Ng, age twenty, with whom he committed his worst. Together they managed a youth camp, but in 1982 both had to flee: Ng was a fugitive from a court-martial, and Lake had been charged with seventeen felony counts for guns stolen in burglaries. Lake finally settled on Blue Mountain Road in Wilseyville, Calaveras County, California, in an isolated one-floor house that Cricket’s family owned. Cricket had divorced him in November, 1982, but the two were still close. Like Ng, Cricket collaborated with Lake, though how much is disputable.
With Ng’s help, Lake became serious about “Operation Miranda”: a dream, inspired by John Fowles’s novel The Collector (1963), to imprison female sex slaves. Their most infamous crime was recorded on videotapes of Lake and Ng stripping, verbally tormenting, and hitting victims Kathy Allen and Brenda O’Connor. The women were kept in a partly underground bunker; Lake had built the bunker in 1983, for crime and for survival after a nuclear holocaust. Ng and Lake’s videotapes did not show their victims’ deaths.
However, death did follow. Allen’s boyfriend and O’Connor’s husband and son were also killed. The murders all had financial rewards for Lake and Ng, who sold or used the victims’ belongings. Often, Lake found his victims by answering classified ads, such as Paul Cosner’s ad to sell an automobile. Lake also killed his brother Donald and former best friend Charles Gunnar. He used their assets, identities, and disability checks. From remains in Wilseyville, police estimate that Lake killed twenty-five people, two or three of them children.
Legal Action and Outcome
In June of 1985, police interrupted Ng while he was shoplifting a vise. Ng put the vise in the Honda automobile that Lake had stolen from Cosner; Ng escaped, but police arrested Lake. Lake took cyanide while in police custody, becoming fully comatose and dying four days later.
Thus, Lake was never convicted of the abductions and murders. However, the videotapes, photographs, and Lake’s diary provided damning evidence. Ng’s 1999 trial established many of the crimes and Lake’s role in them.
Impact
Leonard Lake’s misogyny, his desire for female sex slaves, and his paranoid, paramilitary survivalism both reflected and exemplified a sense during the 1980’s that society was crumbling and a holocaust was near. Lake might have felt victimized by women, starting with his mother, responding with an extreme subjugation of them instead. He stalked women, seduced them, photographed them, and resented them. His entire life was dominated by sex and by fantasies of power that compensated for his unsuccessful life, supported primarily by crime. The videotapes, and their transcripts, are incomparably shocking.
Bibliography
Lasseter, Don. Die for Me! New York: Pinnacle Books, 2000. Large book on Lake and Ng, overflowing with details, including those about the trial and victims’ lives.
Newton, Michael. The Encyclopedia of Serial Killers. New York: Checkmark Books, 2000. Excellent summary of events and insights into Lake’s mind.
Norris, Joel. Serial Killers. New York: Doubleday Anchor, 1989. Valuable insights into Lake’s upbringing and psychology, despite minor errors.