In 2020, Erskine became one of a dozen California death row inmates to die in the span of less than two months as the result of a COVID-19 outbreak at San Quentin State Prison.

When he was five years old, Erskine darted into traffic on the Pacific Coast Highway in Long Beach and was hit by a station wagon.

[5] Erskine attended Southwest Junior High School in San Diego, California and was placed in "special classes" for the emotionally disturbed.

Despite his mother's pleas to send her son to a mental institution, Erskine was sentenced to four years in prison; he was paroled in 1984.

[4] In 1993, Erskine invited a woman, who was waiting for the bus, into his home and held her hostage for several days, repeatedly raping and sodomizing her before letting her go.

[4] In March 2001, the San Diego Cold Case squad reopened the investigation of the unsolved 1993 murders of nine-year-old Jonathan Sellers and 13-year-old Charlie Keever.

The jurors were shown photos of the crime scene: Sellers was at the entrance of the makeshift fort hanging from a castor bean tree branch.

He was also naked from the waist down, legs and arms bound, his mouth gagged, and his genitals were bleeding from extensive bite marks.

[6][7] While awaiting the start of his trial, Florida investigators matched Erskine's DNA in the unsolved case of 26-year-old Renee Baker, who was murdered on June 23, 1989.

Erskine, who lived in Palm Beach County, Florida, at the time, admitted to raping and killing Baker and pleaded guilty to second degree murder.