Carroll Cole Victims: The 5 Convictions and the 14 Confessions
Carroll Cole was convicted of murdering 5 women. He confessed to at least 14 killings between 1971 and 1980, and this page records the women whose names are known.
Case record · Verified against court records and 1985 press archives · Updated July 2026
The victims of Carroll Cole were women he met in bars in San Diego, Las Vegas, and Dallas, most of them killed by strangulation within hours of meeting him. Courts in Texas and Nevada convicted Cole of 5 murders between 1981 and 1984. His confessions added at least 9 more deaths that were never tried, several involving women whose names investigators never established. This page lists each named victim and the legal outcome of her case.
The 5 Murders Carroll Cole Was Convicted Of
Cole's 5 murder convictions covered 3 women killed in Dallas in November 1980 and 2 women killed in Las Vegas in 1977 and 1979.
| Victim | Place | Year | Conviction |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kathlyn Blum | Las Vegas, Nevada | 1977 | First-degree murder, Nevada, 1984 |
| Marie Cushman | Las Vegas, Nevada | 1979 | First-degree murder, Nevada, 1984 |
| Dorothy King | Dallas, Texas | 1980 | Murder, Texas, April 9, 1981 |
| Wanda Roberts | Dallas, Texas | 1980 | Murder, Texas, April 9, 1981 |
| Sally Thompson | Dallas, Texas | 1980 | Murder, Texas, April 9, 1981 |
The Texas convictions carried life imprisonment without parole. The Nevada convictions carried the death sentence imposed on October 12, 1984, and carried out on December 6, 1985, as recorded on Carroll Cole Execution: Nevada's First Lethal Injection.
The Confessed Victims Never Brought to Trial
Cole's confessions named or described at least 9 further victims whose cases never reached a courtroom. Three are documented by name or circumstance in court records and press reports:
- Essie Louise Buck, strangled in Cole's car on May 7, 1971, after meeting him in a San Diego tavern. Buck was the first adult victim Cole confessed to, and her death marks the start of the 9-year span of the Carroll Cole murders.
- An unidentified woman, killed roughly 2 weeks after Essie Buck in May 1971 and buried in a wooded area near San Diego. Her identity remains unknown.
- Diana Faye Pashal, Cole's second wife, strangled in their San Diego home in September 1979. Police found her body 8 days later but attributed her death to heavy drinking and released Cole without charge. His confession in Dallas reopened the record 14 months later.
Cole also described killings in California and other states between 1971 and 1980 that investigators were unable to match to identified remains. He said he was drunk during most of the murders and put his own count between 14 and 35.
Duane Eugene Owen: The First Death
Duane Eugene Owen was an 8-year-old classmate Cole drowned in a lake near Richmond, California, in 1947. Authorities ruled the drowning an accident, and the truth stayed hidden for almost 4 decades until Cole admitted the killing in his death row autobiography. The admission is examined in detail on Carroll Cole Confessions: Why He Confessed to 14 Murders.
How Carroll Cole Chose His Victims
Cole selected women he met in bars, many of them living with alcoholism, poverty, or unstable housing. He told detectives he fixated on women he believed were being unfaithful to their partners, connecting them to his mother's wartime affairs. That choice of victims had a documented investigative consequence: several deaths were recorded as natural, accidental, or alcohol-related, and no agency linked the cases across state lines until Cole himself confessed on November 30, 1980.
Why the Full Number of Carroll Cole Victims Is Uncertain
The verified number of Carroll Cole victims is 5 convictions and at least 14 confessed killings; the true figure is unknowable. Cole's heavy drinking blurred his own memory, several bodies were never found or never identified, and prosecutors in 3 states stopped filing charges once the Nevada death sentence was secured. The full sequence of every verified date sits on the Carroll Cole Timeline: 1938 to 1985, Every Verified Date.