A True Crime Story: What It Was Like To Stand Face To Face With Serial Killer Andrew Urdiales Before His 2018 Suicide At San Quentin Prison

Background On The Serial Killing Ex-Marine

Andrew Urdiales was a Marine at Camp Pendleton. Between the late 1980s and September 1992 Urdiales was more than a Marine. He had become a serial killer, having raped one and killed four others in California. Urdiales had only one of his victims escape, Jennifer Asbenson.

Urdiales left Asbenson in his car in the desert for hours, hands bound, locked in the trunk. After a prolonged struggle to get herself free she was able to free her hands and unlock the truck of the care. From there, she ran for her life. Five years after her heroic escape from the monster, Urdiales was captured. he would subsequently confess to murdering the eight women he was suspected of killing and admitted that Asbenson was the one that got away.

After the killings in California, in the mid-1990s, Urdiales relocated to Illinois. He was quiet for a while until he killed a 25yr old woman from Hammond Indiana and dumped her body in Wolf Lake along the border between Indiana and Illinois. Just a couple of months later, in July of 196, a 21-year-old woman of Hammond was found in the Vermillion River in Livingston County. Then, on August 2nd, 1996, a 22-year-old Lynn Huber of Chicago was found dead in Wolf Lake. All three had been shot, the final victim shot and stabbed.

Meeting The Monster

Urdiales was doing life in prison in Illinois when California obtained a warrant to have him extradited to face justice for his crimes there. That was when I had a chance encounter that I’ll never forget. As an officer, this was my first verified serial killer. I’d met others that I’m sure were, just not verified or identified as such. They called one, Nicholas T. Sheley, a spree killer.

Urdiales was to be held in the jail I worked at, for the US Marshalls Service, over the weekend. He was then to be taken to the transfer and extradited by the Marshalls out to California. They were the ones for the job.

Coming into work, at shift briefing, I was informed of the special circumstances in one of our detention areas. Admittedly, I was intrigued. There’s a certain type of guy, or gal to be fair and inclusive, that just sends a shrill feeling down your spine. They’re the demons, the monsters, the animals that roam and hunt in the world of men. They are the wretched creatures so far gone, there’s nothing left worth saving or redeeming.

Urdiales sat quietly, every time I passed his cell, other than to occasionally ask what time it was. I’d politely answer, as I was varying my times coming to check on him enough that he wasn’t going to have an easy time gauging when I would or wouldn’t be back. For a small, podunk jail, this guy was the real deal horror story. He was a monster who preyed on the weak. A predator.

Urdiales didn’t have that thing behind his eyes that identifies us as humans. Looking into his eyes as he would gaze upon his jailers, he was a dark and soulless thing. Serial killers are not without intelligence, and he proved as much, as what little he said was either deliberate or just off-putting. During one of the every 25 or so minute exchanges, he asked me what time it was and I replied, “It’s early, try to get some sleep.”

“I’ll get all the sleep I need when they execute me,” he replied.

Urdiales left later that morning. As a shift Sargent, I went with the transport deputy to get him chained up and ready for the trip to the “airbus.” I remember thinking, I’m not a slightly built nurse, I’ll be alright. But, he was Marine trained.

In 2018, after being found guilty of the murders in California, Urdiales did what evil little monsters do. He took the cowards’ way out and executed himself. Some people might say he did the public a favor. No appeals, no long-term care for the aging prisoner, just a quick death. Urdiales perhaps robbed the families of his victims of getting the opportunity to watch his execution.

Conclusion

There is a reason that the darkness we encounter in life sticks with us. Urdiales’s existence was wrong. He was a pure example of the evil that men do. I’ve met some popular people along my way in this world, from Brett Michaels of Poison To 80s Pop Star Tiffany to a cabinet secretary under a certain former president to leaders of organized crime groups. Each in one way, shape, or form, left an impression. Andrew Urdiales is the one that convinced me that there is really an evil in this world that is hard for us to fathom. It’s in the soulless, the ones whose souls have been so damaged by life, that their souls are as black as their nearly-empty, dangerous eyes.