Gordon Stoddard (d. May 2005) was the principal at the Hillside Preparatory School in Porter Ranch, and a former science teacher and dean of the science department at the School. He lived on Chase Street near Winnetka in Northridge.
In the late 1980s, he began a relationship with Hillside student Rebecca Verloren, who became pregnant in the Spring of 1988. When Rebecca broke off their relationship in July of 1988, Gordon stalked and murdered her with a gun he obtained from GED student Roland Mackey, and left her body off a hiking trail on Oat Mountain.
The Verloren murder was not solved in the late-1980s, but was reopened by detectives Kizmin Rider and Harry Bosch in early 2005 when DNA from the murder weapon was matched to Mackey. Stoddard knew this could lead to him and that Mackey would have to be eliminated. He used the cell phone of Kaitlyn Sobek to call various tow companies until he located Mackey. He then lured Mackey to an onramp of Highway 118 where he rammed him with his car. After Rider and Bosch determined that Stoddard was, in fact, the killer of both Rebecca and Mackey, Gordon rushed to the Verloren house and attempted to commit suicide in Rebecca's old bedroom, but was stopped by Bosch and Rider. He confessed to Bosch in the patrol car on the way to Devonshire station.
While being held in Van Nuys jail prior to entering his plea, Stoddard was stabbed to death by a fellow inmate who turned out to be Robert Verloren under an alias.