Marcus Grabs was a 17-year-old West German student who was hitchhiking along the Pacific Coast Highway during a backpacking tour when he was abducted and murdered on August 5, 1979, in Los Angeles County, California. His body was found the next day in Malibu Creek near Las Virgenes Canyon Road; he had been sodomized, beaten, and stabbed 77 times.

Investigators say William Bonin, known as the Freeway Killer, and his accomplice Vernon Butts carried out the abduction and murder. Bonin has been tied to at least 14 deaths of teenage boys and young men between 1979 and 1980; those crimes involved sexual assault, torture, and murder of young male hitchhikers.

Marcus’s killing was one of the cases included in Bonin’s prosecution. Anyone who knew Marcus, saw him on the Pacific Coast Highway in early August 1979, or has information about his final movements is asked to come forward.