Serial Child Killer Dead
Child killer Joseph Kondro dies at state prison
Notorious murderer Joseph Kondro, who was serving a life sentence for raping and killing two Longview girls, died in the state prison at Walla Walla on Thursday of natural causes, state corrections officials reported Friday. He was 52.
In 1999, Kondro was convicted of kidnapping, sexually assaulting and strangling 8-year-old Rima Traxler in 1985 and 12-year-old Kara Rudd in 1996. Authorities also suspected Kondro killed 8-year-old Chila Silvernails of Kalama, who disappeared in April 1982 and was later found dead. But they never developed enough evidence to prove it.
Friday, Kara Rudd’s grandfather said he was “happy” to learn of Kondro’s death, adding that the years since Kara’s murder have been tough on the family.
I am glad that he has closure now.
“He’s burning in hell right now,” said Dennis Rheaume of Longview. “I hope he’s suffered.”
I agree. Serial killers make me hope there is a Hell. They are even my be proof that real evil exists, especially child raping killers.
Police have said they don’t believe an admitted child serial killer could go from 1985 to 1996 without killing, but attempts to connect Kondro with other missing children’s cases have been fruitless.
He actually could go that long, life happens, jobs, relationships, family issues. I agree though, I doubt that he did. I fear that there are more missing babies that he killed.
“I still want to see that death certificate … just to lock up that little bit of fear in my heart that he could do this again,” said Cowlitz County Prosecutor Sue Baur, who participated in the legal proceedings against Kondro.
“I have only twice in 25 years felt the presence of true evil,” Baur continued Friday. “When he and I would look at each other in the courtroom, it was a feeling that there was nothing there in those eyes. … I just never got any shred of humanity from him.”
On Jan. 4, 1997, a search team found 12-year-old Kara Rudd’s body beneath an abandoned car in the woods on Mount Solo, six weeks after her mother reported her missing.
Kondro, then 37, was the prime suspect in her disappearance. He was already in jail, facing charges of witness tampering and first-degree child rape and molestation of three girls, ages 7, 9 and 10.
For two years, Kondro had refused to cooperate with investigators, even though his DNA linked him to Kara’s body. Then, in a bombshell courtroom announcement, Kondro pled guilty to raping and strangling her — and confessed to killing Rima Traxler 14 years earlier. Rima’s remains never have been found.
Kondro, a drug addict and petty thief, had been longtime friends with both victims’ parents and had no trouble luring the girls into his car.
In answering to both crimes, Kondro dodged the death penalty. Superior Court Judge Jim Warme sentenced him to 55 years with no chance of parole at the Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. Kondro never expressed any remorse for his deeds and vowed to kill again, even behind prison walls. He hinted there have been other victims but saw nothing to gain by confessing.
“If you hook up a meter to my emotions, they’re flatline,” he said in a 1999 prison interview with a Daily News reporter. “I don’t know where my emotions are. … I couldn’t give a damn what anybody thinks.”
Friday, Kara’s mother said Kondro’s death was “a big weight lifted off.”
“I know Rima’s mom and us, we lived in horror and terror for a long time. Now it’s finally over,” said Janet Holden, 50, of Longview. “Now we just live our lives as best we can. Not much else we can do.”
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If you look (I will not give direct links) there appears to be quite a few online murderabilia sales for him. He obviously liked the attention he received for being a baby murderer / rapist.
There is an interview with this POS that reveals much about him.
WALLA WALLA — He tells his story casually, between yawns, revealing unspeakable horrors the way most people talk about the weather.
Joe Kondro, shackled at the wrists, rests a chin on his big hands as he tells how he used them to rape and kill a little girl, and get away with it for a dozen years.
Get away with it long enough to do it again.
And if he had a second chance, he says, he wouldn’t be in this small room being watched so intently by armed guards.
If he could change just one thing, Kondro says, he would’ve been more careful in hiding his final victim’s body. Then, he’d be free now to rape and kill again.
No tears shed and I hope he felt himself die, painfully.
I hope the families find some kind of peace from his death.
Real Life Monsters 
Good god, never heard of this beast. Hope he’s rotting away.
I just created an account, to comment specifically on this post. I don’t know if you’re connected to this man in any way. I don’t know how much you really, truly know about him, or the girls and the families he hurt.
A lot of the time when I read anything about Rima, everyone focuses on Joe Kondro. I think that’s awful.
I want people to know about Rima, about Kara, about any and everyone else he hurt. Because that man doesn’t deserve to be remembered, but those little girls do.
My name is Megan Traxler. I married Rima’s little brother, she would have been my sister-in-law. She has a beautiful nephew, Kenneth Blaine, and though not by me, a beautiful niece (Summer) that she never got to even imagine. I don’t particularly have the right to speak about her, because I never met her. She died 6 years before I was even born.
When Rima died, my husband was 5 years old. His big sister, his only sibling, was ripped away from him, and he spent 14 years not knowing where she was. He didn’t understand why she was gone, and for several years afterwards, he would ask strangers to kidnap him, so he could be with his sister. He thought (and desperately hoped) that if someone would kidnap him, he would go to the same place she was. She was his whole world, and he was lost without her.
I can’t imagine the pain he went through, I can’t imagine the pain his mom and dad went through trying to help him cope. I don’t know what I would do, for my son, if his Vannah Jo went missing. (She is my niece, and my son’s best friend in the whole world. They spend every moment they can together, every weekend they’re connected at the hip. She holds his hand and drags him around everywhere she can. Just like Rima did.) My husband wasn’t momma’s boy. He wasn’t daddy’s boy. He was Rima’s little brother, and she would tell anyone that asked. He felt the same way about her. Her birthday was 11/9/76 and his was 11/8/79. He was born, and from that moment on, they shared everything.
That breaks my heart.
My father-in-law was blamed for her disappearance. For almost 14 years, people were convinced that he did something to her. He ended up homeless, living out of his van until that was towed. He couldn’t get a job, lost all of his friends, because who wants to be friends with someone who could hurt a child? Who wants to hire someone like that? He was thrown away like trash, because of a rumor that said it was his fault. Even after Kondro confessed, the rumors remained, the stigma remained. He lived with that hanging over his head for almost 30 years. When my husband and I got together, we moved him across the country so that he could find a job, and get a place to live. 25 years he abandoned and hated – by EVERYONE except for his son. For something he had no part in. Rima called him Daddy, she wasn’t his blood but she was his little girl. He was devastated, and still is. Just about every time anyone sits and talks to him, if you talk for more than, oh, 20 minutes, he will wind up telling you a story about Rima. His little girl.
That breaks my heart.
My mother-in-law… She still will not accept that Rima is gone. Rima’s body was never found, and that haunts her. It gives her hope, yes. Terrible, terrible hope… And I never thought I would say that about hope. It has torn her apart, in a way that I hope and pray that one day, no mother will ever have to experience again. Rima has been gone for 29 years, 1 week, and 6 days. Danelle has felt every, single, day of it. I’m not exaggerating, either. 3-4 times a month, she posts the original picture of Rima along with the age-progression picture, and she begs people to share it with everyone they can. Her daughter was taken on May 15th, not even a week after Mother’s Day. It completely ruined that day for her. Can you imagine that? Happy Mother’s Day. The anniversary of when your only daughter, your 1st child was taken from you is in just a couple days.
I have watched that woman fall apart. There is not a single part of me that doesn’t fall apart with her.
That breaks my heart.
I don’t know the families of his other victims. I would imagine that their stories are similar.
Those are the stories that I think we should know. Not the stories of the monsters that rip apart families. Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad he’s dead. But… why are we talking about it? It doesn’t bring the girls back. It doesn’t ease the pain of having your daughter, sister, granddaughter, niece, cousin, etc taken from you.
My husband and his dad took a shot of whiskey together, when we found out Kondro was dead. They said something to the effect of, “Burn in hell!” And then? They spent the rest of the night, quietly talking about Rima. I got to hear some beautiful stories about a wonderful little girl. I would give just about anything for a chance to meet her, but I can’t. Joe Kondro took her from the world, he made it so my son and step-daughter won’t ever get to meet their Aunt Rima. He made it so my husband never got to wish his sister another happy birthday in person, or follow her around while they played. Rima didn’t get to chase him through the house again, or give her mom or dad another goodnight kiss.
So I can’t really celebrate that he’s dead, because what I just wrote breaks my heart, and him being dead doesn’t change what he broke.
I’m sorry, because I’ve had this bottled up for a long time now. I’m just tired of seeing article after article about him, when they should all be about the girls. They shouldn’t be a footnote. He should be.
Thank you for sharing this. I have always believed that the ‘victims’ of criminals far passes those that they phyically touch. They destroy so many, they harm so many, we forget the far reaching consequenses of the killer’s actions.
Thank you for reminding me and anyone who reads this.
I am so sorry for your loss and for the losses of those around you.