Murder in California: Serial Killers and Unsolved Murders

By Marques Vickers

Murder in California: Serial Killers and Unsolved Murders profiles some of California’s most infamous murder cases. The edition photographically transports you to actual murder sites along with images related to the case and perpetrator(s).

The images and accompanying profiles offer a descriptive account and follow-up aftermath providing an important understanding into the far-reaching effects of each crime. Convicted killers and their confirmed victims are identified. For criminals still living, their current incarceration location is provided. A directory of precise crime site locations is included.

The captured snapshots portray visual testimonies of extinguished lives removed by acts of violence. Crime scenes often revert back into unremarkable landscape or unassuming buildings over the ensuing years and decades. Several have altered little since their moment of infamy. Many are passed daily by pedestrian and vehicular traffic unaware of a location’s unique significance.

California has been the site for many notorious serial killers. The following are portrayed in this edition:

Zodiac Serial Killer: Public and media taunting
Charles Manson’s serial killing clan
Dorothea Puente: The elderly and frail targeted and eliminated for profit
Efren Saldivar: Caregiving medical homicide
The Unabomber: His UC Berkeley experience
Zebra Killings: San Francisco’s racially targeted genocide
Heaven’s Gate Cult mass suicide
Edmund Kemper III: Monstrous hitchhiking murders
Bittaker and Norris: Torture van murders
Juan Corona: Migrant workers serial killer
Richard Trenton Chase: The vampire killer
The Speed Freak Killers and their burial bone yards
Herbert Mullin: Killing for earthquake preventiveness
David Carpenter: The devil behind bifocals and a stutter
Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple Massacre: Lost in a jungle mass suicide
The Hillside Strangler Duo: Killing Cousins
Rodney Alcala: A beastly killing machine slaying beauty
Richard Ramirez: Satan’s ambassador
Golden State Killer: The triumph of forensic tracking
A Black Hand of Death and Inhumanity (Jose Manuel Martinez)
A Killing Rampage Preying On Society’s Most Vulnerable Population (Jon David Guerrero)
The Santa Rosa Hitchhiking Murders: preying on the innocent
David Nadel: The death of a man and rebirth of a performance icon
Torrey Pines Beach: Sands, Secrets and A Butterfly Dancer
The continued fascination with the Black Dahlia Murder
Fatty Arbuckle’s sex and homicide scandal
A Classic Mob Contract Killing Of An Unwanted Distraction
Was a 1963 beachfront slaying a prelude to future Zodiac terror?
Geneva Ellroy: The transference of tragedy into literary expression
A Double Tragedy Complicated By Mysterious Scenarios (Spreckels Mansion Death)
Kym Morgan: Death by classified advertisement
Kevin Collins: A solitary bus bench memorial to every parent’s nightmare
Unauthorized Celebrity Biography Comics and A Founder’s Murder (Todd Lawrence)
Ted Healy: The suspected homicide of the fourth Stooge
The Resolute Will to keep William Desmond Taylor’s murder unsolved
A Contract Killer Terminated By His Own Profession (Frank Bompensiero)
Ramona Irene Price strolls innocently into a vanished past
Raymond Washington: A cycle of senseless violence devours the Crips gang founder
The Senseless Murder of a Catholic Priest on Holiday (Monsignor Louis Gutierrez)

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marques Vickers
• Release date: Jul 15, 2020
• ISBN: 9781005552855

Marques Vickers

Visual Artist, Writer and Photographer Marques Vickers is a California native presently living in the San Francisco Bay Area and Seattle, Washington regions. He was born in 1957 and raised in Vallejo, California. He is a 1979 Business Administration graduate from Azusa Pacific University in the Los Angeles area. Following graduation, he became the Public Relations and ultimately Executive Director of the Burbank Chamber of Commerce between 1979-84. He subsequently became the Vice President of Sales for AsTRA Tours and Travel in Westwood between 1984-86. Following a one-year residence in Dijon, France where he studied at the University of Bourgogne, he began Marquis Enterprises in 1987. His company operations have included sports apparel exporting, travel and tour operations, wine brokering, publishing, rare book and collectibles reselling. He has established numerous e-commerce, barter exchange and art websites including MarquesV.com, ArtsInAmerica.com, InsiderSeriesBooks.com, DiscountVintages.com and WineScalper.com. Between 2005-2009, he relocated to the Languedoc region of southern France. He concentrated on his painting and sculptural work while restoring two 19th century stone village residences. His figurative painting, photography and sculptural works have been sold and exhibited internationally since 1986. He re-established his Pacific Coast residence in 2009 and has focused his creative productivity on writing and photography. His published works span a diverse variety of subjects including true crime, international travel, California wines, architecture, history, Southern France, Pacific Coast attractions, fiction, auctions, fine art marketing, poetry, fiction and photojournalism. He has two daughters, Charline and Caroline who presently reside in Europe.

Book preview

MURDER IN CALIFORNIA

Serial Killer and Famous Unsolved Murders

Published by Marques Vickers at Smashwords

Copyright 2021-2023

MARQUIS PUBLISHING

TACOMA, WASHINGTON

TABLE OF CONTENTS

SERIAL KILLERS:

The Zodiac: The Taunting Killer

Charles Manson: Removing the Myths Behind an Iconic Serial Killer

Dorothea Puente: Arsenic and Old Lace: Killing for Profit

Efren Saldivar’s Definition of Assisted Medical Homicide

Ted Kaczynski: To Arms Against A Faceless Society and Enemy

The Zebra Killings: A Racially Intended Genocide?

The Heaven’s Gate Cult Shutters Operations Abruptly and Permanently

Edmund Kemper III: Constructing the Perfect Frankenstein

Lawrence Bittaker and Roy Norris: Pitch Darkened Hearts

Juan Corona: The Macabre Massacre of the Invisible

Richard Trenton Chase: The Consummation of Darkness

The Boneyards of the Dead Speak: The Speed Freak Killers

Herbert Mullin: The Blood Sacrifices of Earthquake Preventiveness

David Carpenter: The Devil Behind Bifocals and a Stutter

Jim Jones and the Peoples Temple Massacre: No Way Home

The Hillside Strangler Duo: Killing Cousins

Rodney Alcala: A Beastly Killing Machine Slaying Beauty

Richard Ramirez: The Devil’s Ambassador

Golden State Killer: The Triumph of Forensic Evidence

A Black Hand of Death and Inhumanity (Jose Manuel Martinez)

A Killing Rampage Preying On Society’s Most Vulnerable Population (Jon David Guerrero)

UNSOLVED MURDERS:

The Santa Rosa Hitchhiking Murders: Preying on the Innocent

David Nadel: The Death of a Man and Rebirth of a Performance Icon

Torrey Pines Beach: Sands, Secrets and A Butterfly Dancer

The Continued Fascination With the Black Dahlia Murder

Roscoe Fatty Arbuckle: Ten-Minute Disputed Sex Scandal

A Classic Mob Contract Killing Of An Unwanted Distraction

Was a 1963 Beachfront Slaying of a High School Couple a Prelude to Future Terror?

Geneva Ellroy: The Transference of Tragedy Into Literary Expression

A Double Tragedy Complicated By Mysterious Scenarios At The Spreckels Mansion

Kym Morgan: Death By Classified Advertisement

Kevin Collins: A Solitary Bus Bench Memorial to Every Parent’s Nightmare

Unauthorized Celebrity Biography Comics and A Founder’s Murder (Todd Lawrence)

Ted Healy: The Suspected Homicide of the Fourth Stooge

The Resolute Will To Keep William Desmond Taylor’s Murder Unsolved

A Contract Killer Terminated By His Own Profession (Frank Bompensiero)

Ramona Irene Price Strolls Innocently Into A Vanished Past

Raymond Washington: A Cycle of Senseless Violence Devours A Former Founder

The Senseless Murder of a Catholic Priest on Holiday (Monsignor Louis Gutierrez)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

SOURCES:

My appreciation to the following media outlets providing critical research details:

San Francisco Chronicle, Daily News, Bakersfield Californian, Oakland Tribune, Marin Independent Journal, Press Democrat, Monterey Herald, The Californian, Monterey County Weekly, Willits News, North Coast Journal, The Guardian, Fresno Bee, Times Standard, ChauceyBaileyProject.org, Wikipedia.org, MindControlBlackassassins.com, FBI.gov, KQED.org, CrimeLibrary.com, Hoodline.com, KlaasKids.org, SanJose.com, AliveEastBay.com, OAC.Cdlib.org, OCWeekly.com, SCSCourt.org, RamonaPrice.com, Kristinsmart.com, CharleyProject.com, SanLuisObispo.com. Murderpedia.com, Independent.com, KCET.org, BloodInTheFields.com, AtlasObscura.com, Zillow.com, MurderByGaslight.com. SFCityGuides.org, KTVU.org, YouTube.com, Variety.com, DiscoverTheNetworks.org, YesMagazine.org, About.com, Fdsauk.freeforums.org, California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation Inmatelocator.cdcr.ca.gov, WoodTV.com, Bermuda-Triangle.org, Santarosahitchhikermurders.com, Pinterest.com, MostWantedHoes.com, CityRating.com, KSBW.com, InsideSoCal.com, AZCentral.com, CountryHomesOfAmerica.com, Websleuths.com, CodysInvestigations.com, Edhat.com, AJC.com, CNN.com, CBSNews.com, DailyMail.co.uk, New York Daily News, Agaarchitects.com, Law.Justia.com, Brockmorris.com, SFWeekly.com, Ssristories.org, TheTribune, ExiledOnline.com, CBSNews.com, KTLA.com, Keyt.com, The Huffington Post, CNN.com, TurnTo23.com, ODMP.org, Web.Archive.org, Camemorial.org, Seattle Times, PoliceChiefMagazine.com, SourceOfTitle.com, Pineconearchive.com, Cielodrive.com, Biography.com, Berkeley.edu, The Atlantic Magazine, Britannica.com, SbSheriff,org, VCStar.com, Heretical.com, TheZebraProject.blogspot.com, Zebra by Clark Howard, FrontPageMag.com, HeavensGate.com, SacramentoPress.com, MisterSF.com, SparselySageandTimely.com, FresnoAlliance.com, Social.Stanford.edu, CountryHomesOfAmerica.com, OfficialColdCaseInvestigations.com, EvilBeings.com, LAWeekly.com, Murderfacts.com, SanDiegoUnion.com, DailyMail.co.uk, TheSunGazette.com, LosAngelesTimes.com, CBS8.com, SanDiegoYesterday.com, NBCSanDiego.com, SanDiegoReader.com, MysteryWire.com, Wikizero.com and SanDiegoUnionTribune.com.

Photography shot between 2015-2022. Some of the locations may have altered with time and ownership changes. Many of the locations are still privately inhabited. Please don’t disturb the residents.

Preface: The Spirits of Stolen Lives

This edition profiles and documents some of California’s most infamous serial killers and unsolved murders. More pointedly, in most of the chapters, you are transported to the actual killing site where the homicides occurred.

The updated editions are also important to keep the victims’ legacies fresh and significant to a society often numbed by the frequency of violence and sensationalist murders. The private trauma remains fresh to the immediate victim’s families, friends and diverse relationships. The ghosts of recollection are prevalent, searing and painful. They never recede.

For the innocent victims of homicides, their stilled voices are silenced, but their identities and legacies should never be forgotten.

My introduction into the consequences of murder began with the December 20, 1968 killings of David Faraday and Betty Lou Jensen by the Zodiac serial killer. The shocking executions were committed on an isolated stretch of Lake Herman Road near the city limits of my hometown, Vallejo, California. I was acquainted with Faraday through my involvement with Boy Scouts. My older sister knew both of the victims.

One cannot forget the trauma a random double homicide inflicts upon an intimate suburban community. Seven months later, the same killer attacked a couple in the parking lot of a local park all of us had frequented since childhood. One victim survived but the Zodiac’s death toll was mounting. He would be responsible for at least two additional deaths and another surviving victim. His evil became personal.

The cowardly murderer publicly taunted law enforcement authorities and the citizenry via the news media. He was never apprehended. Abruptly we realized that Vallejo had changed. Our illusions of invulnerability were permanently destroyed. The reputation of the city of Vallejo would continue its decline over time and acts of senseless violence would become more commonplace.

It is often difficult to feel empathy for perpetrators. Detachment remains difficult when so many have suffered. They are responsible for substantial loss and yet many offer no expression of remorse. The acknowledgement of the victims often pales in comparison with the exposure of the murderers. The California justice system rarely judges the guilty expediently. The death penalty is scarcely employed, mocking its role as a deterrent.

Some killings defy explanation and understanding. Some may not properly be defined as evil. Each is uniquely tragic.

Within the context of examining each profile, many important issues are raised for discussion without necessarily culminating in resolution. These subjects include capital punishment, American racial perceptions, parental influences, child rearing, media reporting, public bias, juvenile sentencing, self-incrimination protections and the impartiality of our judicial system. Controversial options such as voluntary euthanasia for the condemned has been suggested when examining the hopeless backlog of death row and life-term convicts.

Capturing snapshots of fatality locations is never precise. Research is done via news accounts, historical images, yet much of the precise identification becomes speculative. Visual location often adds an important perspective to a profile narrative.

Crime scenes typically revert back into unremarkable landscape or unassuming buildings over the ensuing years and decades. Several have altered little since their moment of infamy. Many are passed daily by pedestrian and vehicular traffic unaware of a location’s unique significance.

Makeshift on-site memorials often temporarily acknowledge the stain and the loss. Few remain permanently. Instead, layers of paint, building facade modifications and even address changes attempt to camouflage many crime scenes. The disguises are understandable. Those condemned to live amongst the lingering shadows of a tragedy sometimes become victims themselves in a sense. Society wishes to forget and move on. Murder is never tidy. Remembrance is inconvenient and uncomfortable for the living.

My hope is that these profiles and images will provide remembrance for the innocent who are no longer amongst us.

SERIAL KILLERS

The Zodiac: The Taunting Killer

The most notorious serial killer in Northern California operated in the late 1960s and early 1970s. His legacy began violently in my hometown of Vallejo, California.

On December 20, 1968 along an isolated stretch of Lake Herman Road, two high school acquaintances of my older sister, Betty Lou Jensen and David Faraday were viciously murdered shortly after 11 p.m. The couple was on their first date together. Lake Herman Road was a diversion from their original plans of a high school Christmas concert.

They wanted time alone. Instead, they became the victims of a cowardly execution.

For approximately 45 minutes prior to the shooting, Faraday parked his mother’s Rambler in a gravel turnout, a well-known spot for intimacy. Another vehicle pulled up beside. The killer exited and ordered the couple out of the car. Jensen exited first and when Faraday was halfway out, the killer shot him directly in the skull.

Fleeing towards the main road from the killer in the open gravel turnout instead of veering towards potentially protective shrubbery, Jensen was gunned down twenty-eight feet from the car by five shots through her back. The killer had taped a flashlight atop his gun for sighting purposes in the pitch dark. After convinced that both of his victims were dead, he drove off. The execution was completed within a ten-minute gap before a passing vehicle stopped.

This murder began the first in a series of attacks and fortuitous escapes by the Zodiac killer.

The reaction about the first killings within the community was stunned silence and disbelief. The viciousness and arbitrary nature of the murders forever destroyed a local sense of security that residents shared. Speculation initially focused on individuals who might have had a motive for killing either of the two victims. Soon it became apparent there was neither motive nor probable suspect within the couple’s circle of acquaintances.

The Zodiac struck again a half-year later less than four miles away.

Around midnight on July 4, 1969, Darlene Ferrin and Michael Mageau drove into the Blue Rock Springs Parking lot, a popular local recreational facility. As with the earlier murder, a car drove up beside the couple. Initially it didn’t linger, but immediately drove off. Returning 10 minutes later, the driver parked directly behind them and left his vehicle.

Mageau, still living today, claimed on numerous occasions that Ferrin might have been familiar with the driver. He approached the passenger side door of Ferrin’s car carrying a flashlight and 9 mm Lugar. He blinded both occupants with the flashlight beam. He fired five times. Ferrin was killed instantly. Mageau miraculously survived despite sustaining wounds in his face, neck and chest. He would become one of two Zodiac victim survivors.

Forty-five minutes later, the killer telephoned the Vallejo Police Department to claim responsibility for the attack as well as the killings six and a half months earlier. The call was placed only a few blocks from the police station. This bold taunting tactic would ultimately become an important element of the killer’s terror scheme.

For then residents of Vallejo, the mention of Lake Herman Road and Blue Rock Springs Park could stimulate foreboding and nightmares.

What distinguished these homicides from comparable multiple murderers was that the killer chose his own identifying name. In a brazen series of letters sent to San Francisco Bay Area news outlets, he called himself Zodiac. Among these letters included four cryptograms. Of the four he mailed, only one was conclusively solved. The killer boasted that within their text, he had included his identity. Investigators have always doubted the accuracy of his claim.

What made the Zodiac ultimately globally recognized was that he was never apprehended. Significant law enforcement investigators and even speculating amateur sleuths have scoured details, published evidence, and varying theories for decades to no avail. Over the years, many suspects have been suggested and researched, but irrefutable evidence has never resulted in an indictment.

On August 1, 1969, the Zodiac killer began his correspondence with two newspapers, the San Francisco Chronicle and Vallejo Times Herald by mailing out identical letters establishing him as the source of the homicidal mayhem.