Richard Allen Davis

Richard Allen Davis (born June 2, 1954) is an American convicted murderer whose criminal record fueled support for the passage of California's "three-strikes law" for repeat offenders and the involuntary civil commitment act for sex offenders and predators.

On October 12, 1973, Davis went to a party at the home of 18-year-old Marlene Voris.

That night, Voris was found dead of a gunshot wound.

There were seven suicide notes at the scene.

The police concluded that she committed suicide, although friends of Voris believe Davis murdered her.

Five weeks after his release, on May 13, 1974, he was arrested for another burglary.

He was sentenced to 6 months to 15 years in prison; however, he was released on parole after serving a year of his sentence.

Davis has been diagnosed with avoidant personality disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and schizoid personality disorder.

In 1977, he told a psychiatrist that her death had deeply affected him.

He had heard her voice in his head and that, at times, another woman's voice would appear, telling him that she wanted to be assaulted, robbed, or raped.

A few weeks after Voris' death, Davis was arrested for attempting to pawn property he had stolen.

He confessed to a string of burglaries in La Honda and served six months in the county jail.

On October 1, 1993, Polly Klaas and two friends were having a slumber party at her home in Petaluma, California.

Around 10:30 pm, an intoxicated Davis entered their bedroom carrying a knife from the Klaas' kitchen.

He told the girls he was there to do no harm, and was only there for money.

Davis tied both of Klaas' friends up, pulled pillowcases over their heads, and told them to count to 1,000.

He then kidnapped Klaas.

An APB (all-points bulletin) with the suspect's information was broadcast within 30 minutes of the kidnapping.

The broadcast, however, only went out over Sonoma County Sheriff's Channel 1.

He was convicted in 1996 of first-degree murder with special circumstances (burglary, robbery, kidnapping, and an attempted lewd act upon a child under the age of 14) of 12-year-old Polly Klaas.

As of January 2024, he remains on California's death row in the Adjustment Center at San Quentin State Prison.

Davis was born to Robert Davis and Evelyn Smith in San Francisco, the third of their five children.

He has two older brothers named Donald and Ronald and two younger sisters named Darlene and Patricia (deceased).

He is of partial Northern Paiute heritage through his maternal grandmother, Norma Wasson Johnny, with whom he and his family lived for a time before his father moved them into a house in La Honda.

His early life was disadvantaged; both parents were violent alcoholics and his mother had once punished him and his brothers for smoking by burning their hands on a hot stove.

His father had also been described as "unloving and abusive."

His mother had also held his hands to a hot stove for playing with matches when he was three.

He witnessed many violent domestic disputes between his parents, who separated when he was 9, leading his mother to take him and his siblings back to their maternal grandmother.

The couple divorced when Davis was 11, and the children were given the choice of whom they would like to live with; Davis and his sisters chose their father while his brothers chose their mother, although Donald would later join his father.

Robert, a longshoreman, was frequently unable or unwilling to care for his children, so he had them shuttled among family members, hired caretakers, and women he was romantically involved with.

Robert was mentally unstable and suffered from hallucinations; he was reported to have taken a gun outside the home and shot at mirages.

He would also beat Richard, breaking his jaw on one occasion and pushing him through an interior wall on another, and was known to be harsh with the others.

Robert remarried twice, and Richard resented both of his stepmothers.

When he was 14, Richard's 10-year-old sister Patricia died of an illness.

By the time he entered his teens, Davis was already involved in criminal actions.

When he was 12, he was placed on probation for burglary and forgery, and burglary again when he was 15.

He dropped out of school in his sophomore year of high school.

He told a psychiatrist that stealing relieved whatever "tensions" were building up inside him.

At 17, when Davis was in court for a motorcycle theft, a judge told him that he could either go to the California Youth Authority or join the United States Army.

He chose the latter and received a general discharge after 13 months of service.