A small team of Anaheim Police detectives quickly grew to 75 during a four-week homicide investigation involving at least five women. Detective Julissa Trapp led the investigation.

When the body of Jarrae Estepp was discovered on a recycling conveyor belt at the dump, detectives had virtually no evidence to go on.

From the time a person is killed, detectives know that they only have about 48 hours to solve the crime or else the chances of doing so are cut in half. With this victim, 14 hours had already passed by the time she was found.

Trapp has been a homicide detective for four years. Before that, she had worked in the sex crimes, domestic violence and gang units. She said that the reason she chose to become a cop was so that she could give some control back to the victims.

Since she doesn’t get to know her victims when dealing with homicides, Trapp tries to get to know who they were when they were alive and bring some closure to the families.

While still at the dump, detectives found some clues as to where the dumpster was located that the victim’s body had been placed in. They believe that this was near the intersection of Tustin and La Palma. From here, they were able to narrow down the location of where she had last been seen on the streets, working as a prostitute.

Detectives combed the area, asking anyone if they had seen Jarrae in the area. Finally, they were able to pinpoint her last location to Beach Boulevard and Ball Road. These two pieces of information will prove critical in helping the team solve the homicides.

Detectives decided to look into sex offenders in the area to see if they were in or near these two areas around the time of the victim’s disappearance. Sex offenders are required to wear GPS ankle monitors, making it easier for detectives to see where they were and when.

Detective Laura Lomeli, from the Anaheim sex crimes unit, went through the sex offender GPS signals in the area of Beach Boulevard and Ball Road during the time frame Estrepp disappeared. She then checked those names against the ones in the area of where they believed her body had been dumped. No names matched.

There was one name though that appeared within blocks of the dump area: Franc Cano. She later checked his location on the nights of the other disappearances of the other victims. He was there every time.

They then linked Cano to another sex offender who was not on the state’s registry, but was on the federal one: Steven Gordon. Both men had been friends, even removing their ankle monitors to go to Vegas in 2012.

The local detectives worked together with other area law enforcement, including the FBI. Finally, they had gathered enough evidence for the arrest warrants of Cano and Gordon.

Both men were charged with the murders of four women, all sex workers. Kianna Jackson of Las Vegas, Josephine Vargas, Martha Anaya and Jarrae Estepp. Detective Trapp says that there is evidence that there is a fifth victim who is so far unknown.