Lethally Blonde is examining the murder of model Kimberly Pandelios, who was brutally murdered by David Rademaker in Los Angeles, California.
Rademaker posed as a magazine photographer to lure 21-year-old Pandelios to a fake photoshoot in the Angeles National Forest, north of Los Angeles.
The police believe Rademaker met up with his victim on a road near the national forest and that he demanded sex from her.
The killer then allegedly abducted and raped Pandelios before drowning her in a nearby creek. The victim left behind a husband and a 13-month-old son.
Pandelios disappeared on February 27, 1992, after telling her husband she was meeting a photographer named Paul.
A couple of days later, the cops recovered her vehicle, which Rademaker had set fire to using an accelerant.
Remains of Kimberly Pandelios found by hikers a year later
Investigators had no clue what had happened to Pandelios for over a year. But then, in March 1993, a couple of hikers stumbled upon her skull and pelvic bone near an isolated campground.
Watch the Latest on our YouTube ChannelThe investigators thoroughly searched the area and recovered Pandelios’s fractured jawbone along with some of her clothing, including underwear and bra, which appeared to have been cut with a knife.
Unfortunately, the case turned cold and remained unsolved for over ten years. In the meantime, Rademaker was arrested for statutory rape after he engaged in a relationship with a 15-year-old girl.
Rademaker served a six-year sentence, and as he was released in January 2004, the girl informed the police that he had bragged about killing Pandelios. She had actually told the cops at the time of his arrest, but the case was not pursued at that time for unknown reasons.
In 2004, the investigators, armed with the ex-girlfriend’s testimony and the testimony of another girl (then 14 years old) who said she was with him at the time he torched Pandelios’s car, arrested Rademaker for kidnapping and murder.
David Rademaker convicted of killing Kimberly Pandelios
In March 2006, Rademaker was convicted by a jury of first-degree murder and kidnapping. The jury spared the killer the death penalty, meaning he was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Pandelios’s mother, Magaly Spector, said after the sentencing, “My hope is that one day, Dave Rademaker [will] write me a letter of repentance. Otherwise, he is a waste of a human being. He is an animal driven by instinct, with no feelings.”
Lethally Blonde airs Mondays at 10/9c on Investigation Discovery.