Convicted pedophile sentenced to life for kidnapping, raping, killing 4 women while on GPS monitoring

SANTA ANA, Calif. (TCD) -- A 36-year-old convicted pedophile was recently sentenced to life in prison for kidnapping, raping, and killing four women while he was on GPS monitoring.

According to a news release from the Orange County District Attorney’s Office, Franc Cano and Steven Dean Gordon, 53, were registered sex offenders and transients who "camped in the back of a paint and body shop in Anaheim." However, they were prohibited from being associated with each other because of their sex offender status. The two reportedly roamed the streets of Orange County looking for sex workers to kidnap.

On Oct. 6, 2013, Gordon and Cano reportedly kidnapped 20-year-old Kianna Jackson and raped and killed her at the paint and body shop where they were living.

That same month, on Oct. 24, 2013, the District Attorney’s Office said the suspects abducted 34-year-old Josephine Vargas and brought her to the same paint and body shop, where they raped and killed her.

Gordon and Cano reportedly abducted, raped, and killed 28-year-old Martha Anaya on Nov. 12, 2013, and kidnapped, raped, and killed 21-year-old Jarrae Nykkole Estepp on March 13, 2014.

Estepp’s body was later found on a conveyor belt at a recycling facility on March 14, 2014, according to the District Attorney’s Office. Authorities were reportedly able to link Cano to Estepp’s murder by running a sex offender GPS check, and DNA from Cano and Gordon was found on her body. The District Attorney’s Office said Gordon was "identified as a co-defendant in all four murders through cellphone and GPS technology."

The other victims’ bodies have reportedly not been found.

Cano was indicted by a grand jury on Oct. 2, 2014, on four felony counts of special circumstances murder, four felony counts of forcible rape, and special circumstances of murder during the commission of rape, multiple murders, lying in wait, and kidnapping, the District Attorney’s Office said.

Nearly eight years later, on Thursday, Dec. 15, Cano pleaded guilty and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. His co-defendant, Gordon, was sentenced to death in 2017.

Before the sentencing, Cano was facing the death penalty as well, but Orange County District Attorney Todd Spitzer decided life in prison without parole was the "appropriate punishment."

In a statement, Spitzer said, "There are some people in this world whom society cannot allow to roam this earth among the rest of us."

Spitzer continued, "The acts they have committed are so heinous that they do not deserve to take another breath. Franc Cano and Steven Gordon are the things of nightmares."

MORE:

• Convicted Pedophile Sentenced to Life in Prison without the Possibility of Parole After Pleading Guilty to Kidnapping, Raping and Murdering Four Young Women while on GPS Monitoring — Orange County District Attorney’s Office