Reginald "Reggie" Frisby (born 1956) was a man whose remains were found in 1985 by police investigating a cabin near Wilseyville, California, used by serial killers Leonard Lake and Charles Ng. He was buried next to Maurice Rock, another victim who also went missing from San Francisco and is thought to have been killed around July 1984.
He was identified with the assistance of Intermountain Forensics, the Calaveras Cold Case Taskforce, and Identifinders International in January 2025.
Case[]
Charles Ng and Leonard Lake tortured, sexually assaulted and murdered numerous men, women and children at a cabin near Wilseyville, California, in the early 1980s. Their total number of victims is unknown, but possibly as high as 25.
On June 2, 1985, Ng and Lake were at a hardware store in San Francisco when Ng was caught shoplifting. Ng fled, but Lake was arrested after being found to have a firearm with a prohibited silencer in his car and showing police officers a stolen driver's license from missing person Robin Stapley. In addition, the license plates on his car were found to have been stolen from a vehicle registered to the missing person, Lonnie Bond.
Lake committed suicide with cyanide pills in a police cell while awaiting interrogation. Further investigation of the car yielded a utility bill, which led police to the cabin in Wilseyville, which Lake's parents-in-law owned. At the cabin, they found the vehicles belonging to Stapley and Bond, teeth and bone fragments from a minimum of eleven bodies, and video cassettes documenting their torture and murder of victims.
Ng was arrested in Canada in July 1985 on robbery and weapons charges. He was later extradited to the United States to face trial for murder charges from his time with Lake. He was convicted of eleven counts of murder and remains on death row in prison in California as of 2025.
Frisby's remains were submitted for genetic testing by Intermountain Forensics in 2024, which successfully provided a DNA profile. Forensic genealogy by Indentifinders International located living family members of Frisby. They reported that they had not had contact with him since 1984 when he lived in San Francisco. He was never reported missing and was never linked to the police investigation of Lake and Ng in any way before his identification.
Characteristics[]
- May have suffered with a severe illness during childhood or sometime prior to his death.
Gallery[]
Sources[]
- NamUs (archive)
- The Sacramento Bee
- Union Democrat
- The Modesto Bee
- AOL
- Calaveras Cold Case Task Force
- KCRA
- Intermountain Forensics
- CSLEA
- Leonard Lake on Wikipedia
- Charles Ng on Wikipedia