US man charged in four murders lured victims with promise of buried gold
An alleged serial killer in Washington state has been hit with new murder charges after authorities revealed that he may have used the same scheme to kill all four of his victims by telling them he needed their help finding buried treasure.
Richard Bradley Jr, 40, who has been awaiting trial of murder charges in the death of 44-year-old Brandi Blake since his arrest in 2021, has now been charged in the deaths of three more people, one identified from ribs buried on Bradley’s 160-acre Game Farm Park in Auburn and matched to his mother using DNA.
According to authorities, all four were killed after they came into money and fell for Bradley’s tale that he needed their help digging up buried gold in a wooded area of his farm. He then killed his victims, stole their possessions – including their cars – which he then drove around.
The scheme came to light in murder charges filed this month in the death of Emilio Maturin, who was 36 when he was last seen alive in July 2019, and Michael Goeman, 59, and Goeman’s 31year-old son Vance Lakey, according to court documents obtained by The Seattle Times.
Bradley has also been charged with arson for allegedly offering a man $1,000 to set fire to Goeman and Vakey’s Dodge Durango after it had been impounded. Their bodies were found in the same area as Bradley’s farm.
According to prosecutors, Goeman had received a substantial inheritance just before he and his son were killed;
Blake had won $20,000 at a casino and was known to carry large amounts of drugs and cash before her death; and Maturin always took his cash and drugs with him whenever he left home.
After Maturin was reported missing by his girlfriend in August, 2019, she told detectives that she’d overhead Bradley saying “he needed help digging up some buried gold.”
Despite some skepticism, Maturin went to visit Bradley in a white BMW with a pound of heroin and $15,000 in cash. He never returned. His girlfriend tracked his phone to Bradley’s farm. Police later spotted the parked BMW and waited for the driver. Bradley was later arrested after a car and foot chase.
Bradley is scheduled to stand trial next month in the death of Brandi Blake, and now faces a total of two counts of premeditated first-degree murder, two counts of second-degree murder and second-degree arson. He has not yet entered a plea for the new charges.