The killer tried to claim self defense in the “horrific love triangle murder plot,” but his actions in surveillance video — said the DA — proved “otherwise.”
Damon Allen Benson, dubbed the “Tinder killer” by local police, was sentenced to 71 years to life in prison following the horrific attack on a woman he met via the dating app and the murder of another man she was seeing.
According to a release from the Placer County District Attorney’s Office, 31-year-old Benson and his two victims “met separately on Tinder,” resulting in “jealousy, the torture of a vulnerable female victim and ended in the murder of one of the men involved in the love triangle.”
Benson’s “horrific love triangle murder plot” went down in August 21, with the guilty party first holding the female victim “against her will at his apartment after being extensively tortured on multiple occasions.” The torture, said authorities, included carving a swastika into the Jewish victim’s back “while being tied to his ceiling with a rope.” Per the release, Benson reportedly tortured the female victim so he could “ultimately get the address to murder her other lover.”
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Following an investigation into the crimes, authorities came to the conclusion that Benson “ambushed” the other victim, 49-year-old Cameron Gabriel, in his home before fleeing the scene.
“While the defendant tried to claim his actions were in self-defense, surveillance footage shows otherwise,” said the DA. “Surveillance shows Benson running into the victim’s home in the middle of the night, followed by immediate gunfire and Benson running out of the home yelling ‘That’s right, [expletive].'”
The DA charged Benson with murder, aggravated mayhem, torture, felony criminal threats, false imprisonment by violence and more, with a jury finding him guilty of murder, torture and mayhem in September 2023.
On Tuesday, Benson was sentenced to 71 years to life in the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“This is a day for justice for the victim and the victim’s family,” said Supervising Deputy District Attorney Jeffery Moore in a statement. “We recognize this verdict will not bring [the victim] back and that we cannot undo what this defendant has done to their family. We are humbled to provide justice for this horrific crime to the greatest extent our laws allow. The defendant shows a clear danger to the public and a callous disregard for human life. Removing Benson from society is the only way to ensure he doesn’t victimize anyone again.”
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According to the Sacramento News & Review, the female victim said she and Benson “matched” on Tinder back in February 2021, sharing an interest in paganism and hiking. She claimed it wasn’t long until he began hitting her, saying she wasn’t “allowed to leave” him. She also began seeing Gabriel — who she previously matched with in 2020 and who had just moved closer — at the same time by that summer.
Benson, she said, became suspicious after noticing a mark on the victim’s back, as she claimed she had slept with another woman because she “thought it would be less enraging to him.” They stopped talking for a week, she said, before he asked to meet up. That’s when he bound her with rope and left her hanging from the ceiling, naked, on a hook. Other alleged torture included a stun gun, pliers and cigarette burns.
After eventually giving up Gabriel’s name, the victim said she was in the car while Benson ran into his home and killed him.
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