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Background

Kendall Francois was born on July 26th, 1971, in Poughkeepsie, New York.

He was tall and fat, so he took up football and wrestled. He graduated from Arlington High School in 1989 and then moved on to the Army.

He served four years in the military before being discharged due to his excessive weight. He returned to New York and enrolled in junior college while working as a student monitor at Arlington Middle School.

Hygiene wasn’t important to Francois, and his horrible stench led students to call him “stinky.”

With Francois being fat, unattractive, and smelly, his only option to get laid was to pay for it.

Murders

It is unclear when he first started seeing sex workers, but we do know that on October 24th, 1996, he chose his first murder victim.

He picked up 30-year-old Wendy Meyers at Valley Rest Motel. During sex, he choked her until she passed out. He then took her to the bathroom and drowned her in the bathtub.

On November 29th, 1996, he picked up 29-year-old Gina Barone and killed her inside his vehicle.

His thirst to kill was insatiable, and days later, he killed 31-year-old Cathy Marsh, who was pregnant at the time.

All three of these bodies were placed in the attic of the home he shared with his parents and younger sister.

He took a short break, then killed 47-year-old Kathleen Hurley in January 1997 and 29-year-old Mary Healey Giaccone in February 1997.

Detectives started investigating the disappearances of the woman, and they learned from some of the street girls that Francois was being rough during sex.

Authorities started to watch Francois and even had a street girl meet him while wearing a wire, but they didn’t obtain any helpful info.

Francois must have known the police were onto him, as he didn’t kill anyone for the rest of 1997. In January 1998, detectives brought him in and questioned him about the five missing women, but they couldn’t crack him, and he walked free.

Francois was arrested weeks later for punching and choking a sex worker after a dispute over money.

On May 5th, he pleaded guilty to third-degree assault. He served 15 days in jail for the offense.

In June 1998, Francois took a risk and started killing again. He took the life of 51-year-old Sandra Jean French. She was reported missing in Dover, New York, but her car was found abandoned 40 minutes away in Poughkeepsie, New York. The car was just three blocks from Francois’s home.

The following month, 34-year-old Audrey Pugliese and 25-year-old Catina Newmaster became his 7th and 8th victims.

Capture

On September 1st, 1998, Francois took Christine Sala back to his home and pulled into the garage. When she declined his demands for sex, he got angry, then he punched her, choked her, and threatened to kill her.

Sala convinced the obese maniac to take her back to Main Street. She jumped out of the car and ran when she saw an opportunity. She told someone she was attacked, and that person relayed the info to the police.

Police quickly located Sala and brought her in to file a complaint against Francois.

The police spoke with Francious, and he agreed to go to the station. During his interview, he started to incriminate himself, and by the time he was done speaking, he was arrested and charged with murdering Newmaster.

Police quickly obtained a warrant and, just after midnight, went to his home to search for evidence.

The home was filthy. There were bottles, rotting food, old newspapers, and junk everywhere. The putrid smell of the house made it easy for Francois to hide eight dead bodies in the attic without his family noticing.

On October 13th, 1998, he was charged with eight counts of first-degree murder, eight counts of second-degree murder, and one count of attempted assault.

Legal Proceedings and Death

Francois pleaded guilty to the eight murders to avoid the death penalty. He was sentenced to life without parole.

In 2000, it was revealed that Francois learned he was HIV positive in 1995.
Since his crime spree started in 1996, this diagnosis may have been the trigger for his crimes, although we will never really know.

He died in prison on September 11th, 2014, of an AIDS-related illness at the age of 43.