Terry Childs (September 22, 1955 – February 11, 2023) was an American serial killer serving several life sentences for the murders of at least five people in Nevada and California spanning from 1979 to 1985.

[4] As a preventative measure, their bail was secured at $250,000, and while they were awaiting trial, they became the prime suspects in the murder of 17-year-old Lois 'Jeanine' Sigala, whose body was found twelve days earlier in the small town of Scotts Valley.

[3] Ultimately, Childs shot and killed Sigala and ordered his girlfriend to cover-up any evidence that could be traced back to him, including some cigarette butts left behind, before the pair fled in his car.

[6] In early April 1986, under the terms of the plea deal, some of the charges against Childs' girlfriend were dropped, and she was given a sentence of 5 years in the women's correction system.

The Santa Cruz County Attorney's Office insisted that the defendant was a sadist who had committed the murder with extreme cruelty, taking pleasure in torturing his victim.

At one of the court sessions, a forensic expert brought by the prosecution stated that nine out of the fifteen bullets had hit the victim, most of them in the areas of the arms, thighs and abdomen.

In the fall of 1996, he admitted that the murder committed in Sparks was that of 32-year-old Rulan McGill, who had been kidnapped, raped and stabbed to death while en route to a shopping trip in Reno on July 10, 1979.

[16][17] Childs provided details known only to the investigators and pointed to the corpse location with high accuracy after presented with a map, and with this information, the Washoe County Prosecutor's Office charged him with McGill's murder.

[18] He was extradited to the Sparks County Jail, where he would later be convicted and given another life term following a short trial, then returned to the Salinas Valley State Prison.

[19] Jozovich went missing from the parking lot of Mervyn's Department Store, where she worked as a cashier, and her fate remained unclear until 1995, when her lower jaw-bone and several ribs were discovered by a hiker in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

[19] He later met Jozovich at the parking lot, grabbing her and putting her into his car before driving to the Lexington Reservoir, where he beat, tortured, strangled and stabbed her to death.