The Original Night Stalker

Part One: East Area Rapist

In the mid-1970s, a mysterious intruder known as the Ransacker began to terrorize families in Visalia, California. Shortly thereafter, a criminal known as the East Area Rapist would surface in Sacramento, creating a terrifying legacy that persists to this day…

It's 2:30 in the morning, on a Sunday. Imagine where you are. Most people would be at home, sleeping.

It's the middle of October, in Sacramento, California. It was a hot summer during America's bicentennial of 1976, leading to the biggest drought on-record, and now it's beginning to cool down for the fall. The sun is setting earlier and earlier with each passing day, kids are beginning to get excited for Halloween, and families must be thinking about plans for the upcoming holiday rush. The leaves have started to change colors, and even in the mainland of California, it's beginning to get a bit chillier in the evenings.

So, at 2:30 on a Sunday morning, where are you? This particular evening - October 18th, 1976 - took place several years before I was even born, but I can imagine where I would be on most Sundays like it: at home, deep asleep, without a worry in the world.

However, for one mother and the rest of her family, this normally relaxing time would become a nightmarish hell of which there would be little escape.

It all starts with a dog barking. A ten year-old boy wakes up to the sound of the family dog barking in his bedroom, where it has been locked up for the night. The boy, whose father is away for work, is home with his mother and four-year old sister. The other two are long asleep, and not wanting to wake them, the boy gets up to put the dog outside. He climbs out of bed, likely groggy with his eyes covered in sleep, and makes his way to the back door.

As soon as he puts the dog outside, the boy turns on the outside lights, illuminating the back patio and the surrounding area. In the corner of his sleepy eye he sees a dark figure near the kitchen window, and it shocks him. It's a man, wearing what looks like a dark hood and a dark T-shirt, but whom is absolutely naked from the waist down. Next to the man, laying in the dirt and the grass, is the window screen separating the family kitchen from the outside world.

The dog begins chirping at the dark, half-naked figure, but it's much too small to pose a real threat. The dark figure runs, the sound of any dog surely an imposing one, but quickly jumps on top of the fence, showing off at least some athletic prowess. The boy, in his shocked horror and confusion, closes and locks the kitchen door, and begins running towards the back of his house.

Towards his mother. Towards comfort. Towards what he has always known as safety.

During his mad dash, the boy catches a glimpse of the terror haunting him: the dark figure, beginning to climb through the kitchen window.

The boy reaches his mother's room in a panic, closing the door behind him. Just behind him, he hears a plate smash into pieces on the kitchen floor. The boy's heart is racing, and he isn't able to tell his mother much of what's happening.

"A man in the kitchen window," he repeats, likely out-of-breath and largely unintelligible. The mother reaches for her nearby phone, calling for the operator, only to get no reply. She tries the neighbor immediately afterwards, only to get the same response. Or, rather, the absence of one.

During these rushed, panicked, unsuccessful phone calls, the two can hear an audible thump from the kitchen, just down the hallway. Then, the racing thudding of footsteps down the hallway, just as the two begin to lose all hope of a happy ending.

The door swings open, revealing the intruder in all of his horrifying glory. He wore a black mask with a black T-shirt, with what is believed to be a black glove on one hand and a white glove on another. He carried with him a large knife, which he brandished threateningly as he ordered the screaming mother and child to "shut up." He begins to threaten, numerous times, to kill and/or butcher the entire family if they do not cooperate to his satisfaction. The mother pleads to spare the lives of her children, the ten-year-old son crying for comfort in her arms, and the four-year-old daughter in another room.

The dark figure demands to know if anybody else is home. The mother, in a panicked state, confirms that her husband is away at work. However, based on this intruder's M.O., he likely already knew that. He knew more about this family than they could have ever imagined.

During the chaos of the intruder's entrance, the dog continued to bark up at storm outside. The intruder commanded the dog to be brought inside and placed in an adjacent room, where it would be quiet. It's life was safe, for the time being.

The intruder tears the phone from the wall in a rage. He covers the boy's head with a blanket, and then binds the mother with strips of a towel from a nearby room. He begins to demand money, of which the family has very little on-hand. She offers up an envelope of cash headed for the American Heart Association, but it isn't enough. With her children left in other rooms, the mother is taken to the family room, where she is further bound, blindfolded, and gagged. During all of this, the intruder is rummaging the house, looking. Searching for something. He finds several things of value, but takes nearly none of them.

One of the few things of value he decides to take is the mother's wedding ring. She has other jewelry in the house, but the intruder isn't interested in that. This intruder becomes intent upon getting this woman's wedding ring, going as far as to threaten chopping off her finger to get it. She is lucky in that she's able to pry it off with some soap, but that isn't the end of her troubles.

For the next few hours, the mother's life is a living hell. She is raped repeatedly. The intruder, now the rapist in this situation, continues to get up every few minutes to look around. To rummage. To search. To check on things in other rooms. He is methodical, but seems to lack attention for much longer than a minute or two. He doesn't keep still for long.

He continues to threaten her, accusing her of lying to him when he finds money in a nearby desk. He threatens to kill her and the children, trying to break her into complying. But in-between his threats, in-between the hours of rape, in-between instilling terror in this chosen family, this intruder tries to compliment this terrified, traumatized mother of two.

"Your body is beautiful," he said, admiring it with his intense, steely blue eyes while keeping a knife close to her throat. He tells her this on more than one occasion, usually between threats.

The mother, perhaps in a desperate attempt to keep her children alive from this unknown, violent attacker, compliments this shadowy enigma.

"You're such a good lover," she tells him. This takes him aback, and his blue eyes look back at her in shock of their own. Nobody had ever told him that before, he tells her.

"They usually just laugh at me," he says.

"Do you like to get complimented?" she asks, perhaps trying to buy time or leeway for the lives of herself and her children.

His response is one of the biggest clues to his identity that we have. Or, perhaps, it was just another way for him to throw off the police to his true identity.

"Yes, people make fun of me, especially since something happened to my face," before continuing with his violent, despicable act.

That was one night for one victim of the Original Night Stalker, also known as the East Area Rapist and the Golden State Killer. But the terror wouldn't end there, on that night. Not by a long shot.

The Original Night Stalker would go on to rape over 50 women, and murdered upwards of twelve people. That is, of course, if those are all the victims that we know of. The thing that is so terrifying about the Original Night Stalker is that he was never caught, or even identified.

His identity, just like his whereabouts, are completely unknown.

This is the first episode of Unresolved, a podcast that hopes to dive into stories that have no ending... questions that have no answers. I'm your host, Micheal Whelan, and on this first introductory episode of Unresolved, I will of course be diving into the story of the Original Night Stalker, a notorious criminal known not only for the numerous violent acts he committed, but for his calculated, methodical approach to those crimes.

You heard what is believed to be the Original Night Stalker in the intro to the show. He was calling one of his victims, the mother from the story I just told you. But what's terrifying is that he didn't call her a month later. Nor a year later. That phone call was made in 1991, fifteen years after the Original Night Stalker had terrorized and assaulted this family. They had moved, and likely done their best to hide from his terrorizing ways, but the Original Night Stalker was well-known for his intelligence.

Not only did he know how to commit the perfect crimes, but the Original Night Stalker knew more about his victims than their friends or family did. By the time this unknown criminal committed his crimes, he had already been inside your house multiple times, and had witnessed your habits. He knew when you'd be home, when you'd be at work, when you'd be picking up the kids, and even when you'd be sleeping.

When it comes to figuring out the identity of the Original Night Stalker, all we can do is guess. But we can try to learn more about him and his motives by starting at the beginning of this story... or, at least, what we assume the beginning is.

Spring of 1974 was a historic time for not only the United States, but the world. Richard Nixon was fast on his way to becoming the first president to resign after being impeached. The United States and Russia were still knee-deep in the Cold War, and a global recession was starting to take hold. The MRI was developed by scientists. Muhammed Ali was circling a boxing match with George Foreman, in what would later be known as the "Rumble in the Jungle." Bands like Queen, Abba, and Deep Purple dominated the Billboard Charts.

But in the burgeoning town of Visalia, California, a criminal was beginning to gain prominence. Known to Visalia locals as the "Ransacker," this criminal gained notoriety for his actions. He would break into houses, but not with the sole intention of stealing. He would canvass houses, presumably looking for something, but would just end up vandalizing the house.

Many of the people involved had items of value, but the Ransacker refused to take them. He seemed to enjoy being in these people's homes, to simply mess with their things. Perhaps to make them feel violated. Maybe they might notice objects out-of-place, or notice some leftover food had been eaten from their fridge. We don't know.

But what we do know is that this criminal, the Ransacker, broke in and burglarized over 80 homes in the Visalia area between April 1874 and the end of the following year. You might hope that the criminal simply lost interest and moved on, but the answers is much more tragic.

On September 11th, 1975, Claude Snelling, a journalism professor, woke up to strange sounds in his home. He left his bedroom, looking for the culprit of the sound, and what he found must have been an absolute nightmare.

According to all reports, Claude Snelling found his teenage daughter, Beth, being tied up by an unknown, masked assailant. This assailant had led this terrified daughter to the backyard, where he was attempting to kidnap her.

Claude Snelling, being the father that he was, jumped into action and tried to save the life of his daughter. He went for the masked figure, but wasn't fast enough... he was shot twice. Beth began to scream, which awoke her mother inside, and the masked assailant made a dash for it. Claude Snelling gave pursuit, but succumbed to his injuries just moments afterwards.

Mrs. Snelling, Claude's wife, called the police, but it was too late. The Ransacker got away, but the damage had been done. Claude Snelling had died, becoming this attacker's first official victim.

As you can imagine, this left the town of Visalia in quite a terror. The escalation of the Ransacker, in such a horrifying fashion, left the citizens reeling. The Visalia police force, in an effort to combat the Ransacker, began doing nightly stakeouts in the neighborhood that he had been active in.

They were successful, for a time. It wasn't until December 12th that the police staking out the neighborhood found a suspect, likely back for round two.

A man was walking through the neighborhood rather late, and Detective William McGowen was on-duty that night. He decided to try and apprehend this mysterious individual, so he tried to approach the man.

His efforts were in vain. The unknown suspect immediately turned on him, and began firing with a handgun. One of the shots hit Detective McGowen's flashlight, but the police officer was able to make it out alive.

However, the suspect was never apprehended. And just like that, after a single run in with a cop, the Visalia Ransacker was gone forever, never to be found.

To this day, investigators haven't been able to confirm that the Visalia Ransacker was the same person as the Original Night Stalker, due to the lack of evidence the Ransacker left behind. He stole nothing of value, just seemingly innocuous things like family photographs or sentimental heirlooms. But the two criminals are unanimously linked together, with most people who look into the case coming to the belief that the two are the one in the same.

The perpetrators operated under similar courses of action, and the escalation near the end of the Visalia Ransacker's reign of terror can be correlated with the origins of the East Area Rapist. Just months after the Ransacker had left Visalia, a string of rapes began to be reported in Sacramento, leading to the birth of the East Area Rapist, who would later be known by the monikkers of the Original Night Stalker and the Golden State Killer.

July 18th, 1976 - Our first victim is a young, 23-year old woman working as an insurance adjuster. She lives in a house in Rancho Cordova, a suburb of the Sacramento area, with her father, a retired service member of the United States Air Force. However, her father is away for the time being, having been gone for about two months. He's set to return home in just a matter of days.

The first victim was deep asleep when she was assaulted. She was awoken to the sound of a knife tapping against the wooden door-frame leading into her room, and the perpetrator was in what would become his customary outfit: a mask of some type, perhaps a dark gray or stained white balaclava, with a black T-shirt, dark-looking gloves, and he was naked from the waist down.

The physical description of the perpetrator was known from the get-go: he stood about five foot, nine inches, and weighed in at approximately 160 or 170 pounds. He was athletic-looking: thin and lithe, like a swimmer. The only identifiable thing about his face which was primarily hidden behind the mask, were his piercing blue eyes, a trait that would be repeated among all of his attackers.

However, that wasn't the only identifier of our perpetrator. One of the things that all of the victims repeated was the unusually... small... nature of the perpetrator's penis. In a few of his future cases, this seemed to be a point of resentment for him, and perhaps was one of the building blocks that led him to this psychotic life of aggression. That's not to put the blame of his actions at the foot of his genetics, but a lot of investigators have pinpointed this as a thing that may have begun a sexual crisis for him, leading him to escalate his crimes in such a serious, violent way.

After the violent deed was done, the perpetrator tied up the victim's hands behind her back, and even tied up her ankles with the chord of a hair dryer. The victim recounted how she once feared that there were two suspects in the house, because when the perpetrator would leave her room to rummage or search for valuables, he would whisper quite loudly. She could hear him in the other room, telling himself (or someone else) to shut up repeatedly.

Eventually, the whispers subsided. After a period of time has passed in silence, the victim decided to get up and make a run for it, and found the back door barred open. Her hands were still bound, so she couldn't do much but close the door with her feet, but she noticed that the deadbolt was engaged, preventing her from closing the door.

Miraculously, she was able to call the police from a phone in her father's room, using her numb, still-bound fingers to do so. She was safe, but the East Area Rapist had begun his crime spree.

Investigators found that someone had tried to cut the phone lines outside the house, unsuccessfully. They assumed that whoever had done this was an amateur criminal, and hadn't truly planned ahead. However, despite being able to cut the phone lines, the investigators found two strips of rope that the victim had brought with him in preparation for the crime.

Later, the victim would report clues that would later become hallmarks of the Original Night Stalker. She had witnessed an older dark sports car drive past the house several times, and every time she looked up at the car, the driver would look away. She noticed nothing of it at the time, but just days after the car stopped driving by, she started to get phone calls at sporadic times of night. The person on the other end of the line would never say anything, but as soon as she answered with a customary "Hello?", they would hang up.

July 17th, 1976 - Nearly one month after the original assault, the perpetrator strikes again: this time at two teenage girls who are home alone. This is in a slightly more upscale development from Rancho Cordova, in the nearby area of Del Dayo. With their parents away on a Church outing for the weekend, the two girls stay up until 10 PM or so watching television, but are woken just hours later by the perpetrator, who had been watching them for an unknown amount of time.

Footprints would later be found in the dirt outside their windows, but none would be found outside the master bedroom. This perpetrator knew that the parents were away, which indicated that he had some knowledge of the two or, most likely, he had been observing them for some time.

He tied up one sister before assaulting the other, telling her that he had wanted to have sex with her since junior prom. This victim knew it was a feint, since she had a photograph of herself at junior prom with her boyfriend displayed on her nearby dresser, where the perpetrator likely got the idea from.

Throughout the assault, the perpetrator kept insisting that their father, a doctor, should have been keeping medicine in the refrigerator. This confunded both daughters, who really had no clue what he was rambling about, but they didn't say anything. The perpetrator didn't think of checking the father's medicine bag, located in the master bedroom, but odds are that this was another fake-out from the Night Stalker. He tried to misdirect people in small, odd ways like that, trying to pose his sexual assaults as robberies-gone-wrong. This becomes a common thread throughout the multiple assaults.

The perpetrator lingers around the house for much longer this time. Investigators would find two cans of Coors beer in the family trash can, beers that didn't belong to the teenage daughters or the parents that were away. The investigators would also find four separate strips of rope, which indicates that the perpetrator intended on tying up two suspects and had planned on it, cementing the idea that he had been watching the two for some time.

On August 29th, a month after the second assault, the perpetrator returns to the same neighborhood of his first victim. Just two houses down, he chooses a house where a mother is home alone with her two young daughters. Their father was gone, having started to work overnights just two days prior.

The perpetrator sneaks in the house through the window of the youngest daughter, just twelve, but she is able to run to her mother's room. From there, the perpetrator attempts to bind the two together, but the mother refuses to give in. Instead of his customary knife, the suspects brings a revolver and a handheld club with him, and when the mother fights back, he decides to hit her in the head repeatedly.

However, this mother refuses to give up. She is able to run outside, followed closely by her two daughters. They run to a neighbor's house for help, while the perpetrator, naked from the waist-down, dives into a nearby patch of bushes. He is later seen by a neighbor simply walking peacefully away, still naked from the waist-down.

The mother, a 41-year old of no real physical prowess, describes the perpetrator as rather small and weak, whose voice gets rather high-pitched when he's not whispering through gritted teeth. The mother goes on to say that, if he hadn't had brought the gun along with him, she thinks that she could have taken him in a fight. This really paints an illustrious portrait of the perpetrator, who is described by all of his victims as really young. Many have him pegged as being in his early twenties during these first assaults.

After the failure of his last attack, the East Area Rapist strikes again less than a week later, on September 4th. This attack occurs outside of a victim's house, for the first time, and is one of the most brutal of the assaults. It's easy to surmise that after his most recent failure, the perpetrator lashed out at someone rather quickly.

This was the first time that the Original Night Stalker began to use the canal system to get around. Instead of driving around and possibly getting his car identified, the perpetrator would use the canal system to travel, using the foliage and cover of darkness to get around with ease. This is a rather important fact, because the use of the canal system points out the methods by which our perpetrator would utilize.

He would attack again on October 5th, this time taking his time to terrify the family. The victim, in this case a wife of an Air Force officer and a mother of one, would make a few phone calls to the police in preceding weeks, indicating that a break-in had taken pace. She had found dirt on the floor of her son's room, and had noticed some inexpensive heirlooms had been taken or moved around, but her expensive jewelry hadn't been touched. Police told her that it was likely just neighborhood miscreants, and that it was nothing to be worried about.

Just like other victims, this one received many phone calls at odd hours of the day. It ultimately led to her husband leaving work at around 6:30 in the morning, on October 5th. A short time afterwards, she would hear clicks, sounds similar to light switches being turned on and off. Then she was attacked, pleading for the life of her son.

The rapist gave an indication that he knew her, and had seen her at "the club," an obvious hint towards the officer's club her husband frequented at the nearby Travis Air Force Base. He even mentioned her husband in his gritty voice, calling him "the captain," a true indicator of his rank.

Many clues can be ascertained from this case, as it was one of the first times the East Area Rapist made himself at home inside the victim's home. After the sexual assault had taken place, the victim went out into the kitchen and made himself something to eat with the family's frying pan.

Neighbors had identified a dark green Chevy Vega in the area weeks preceding the attack, and one neighbor had even made a note of it being in the neighborhood while the assault was taking place.

Bloodhounds were later called to try and get a hint of the perpetrator's scent, but this is when one of the most perplexing things happened. The bloodhounds began to go berserk when they found traces of the perpetrator's scent, something they only do when they come across heavy drug users or people suffering from a debilitating disease. We really can't pinpoint which one, if either, could be used to label the Original Night Stalker, but this was one of the rare occasions where such a small clue could throw off an entire investigation.

The next assault took place on October 9th, just days later. He attacked a young woman that was sleeping alone in her family home, but had been inside the house for what seemed like hours before attacking her. Despite the fact that she was home alone, the perpetrator had created an intricate tapestry of rope, tying together many bedroom and hallway doors so that none of them could be opened. No one is quite sure how or why he decided to do this ahead of time, seeing as the victim was home alone.

But this was another case where the Original Night Stalker, the East Area Rapist, used the topography to his advantage. He was able to access this house via the canal system from the earlier attack, which gave him the ability to come and go at-will. People in the area reported seeing the dark green Chevy Vega, but it wasn't spotted in the neighborhood on that night. The perpetrator made his way via the canal.

I've already told you the story of the seventh victim, the mother from the original story. That was October 18th, which shows just how quickly the East Area Rapist was willing to act on his crime. He was obviously escalating, beginning to act much more frequently, and if his actions have shown us anything, it's that he was bold. He wasn't afraid to walk around neighborhoods calmly with his pants off, or to refrain from cooking up food in the family's kitchen with them tied up and victimized in the other room.

The eighth victim of this attacker wouldn't be raped. She was a 19-year old young woman that was headed home late at night, awaiting the arrival of her father and brother. She was attacked, and the perpetrator led her to the backyard, where he bound her. But instead of assaulting her further, he simply demanded her car keys. She easily gave them, and was able to free herself. By then, the perpetrator was long-gone, and had taken her car. Not far, mind you, but just down the street where two of his earlier victims lived. It was less than a mile away, and was found just hours later. No one knows why this victim was treated differently, and was simply robbed of her car.

This is where the media blackout ended. This unknown perpetrator was given the name of the "East Area Rapist," and was heavily publicized in the local newspapers.

At this time, investigators were beginning to piece things together. The assaults had taken place in such close proximity to each other that this was obviously the work of a serial attacker.

Investigators knew the basic of the attacker, which was nearly unanimous from the victims: he stood about five-foot-nine, weighed about 160 pounds, had prominent blue eyes and either dark blonde or light brown hair. He was skinny in an athletic fashion, and was seen as very young by most of the attackers. Even his small penis was notable at this point, as a few of the victims, who had never had sex before, could still be classified as virgins.

He also left behind several calling cards: the green Chevy Vega was spotted at several of the crime scenes. He would call most of his victims in preceding weeks to learn their schedules, and planned ahead, evident by the rope he would prepare and bring with him. He even started to utilize a calling card: many of the victims had window screens with a small mark near the bottom left. Investigators thought this was his calling card, but later on, they theorized that it might have been his way of identifying houses that had a dog.

He would tear apart the victims' homes, but would rarely take anything of value. He would mess around with photographs or personal mementos, but didn't take much. He would eat their food, often after the attack had taken place. He would drink beer, often bringing cans of his own. The perpetrator would usually cut the phone lines before the attack, a skill he grew better at as time went on. However, on multiple occasions, he wouldn't do so, which led investigators to believe that those crimes were more impromptu in nature.

The East Area Rapist's most notable calling card, which I haven't really gotten into yet, was his propensity towards knots. This would help tie together many of the cases later on, but our perpetrator was an expert at tying the knots he would use in his bindings. The most distinguished of these knots was the diamond knot, a type of knot used primarily in the nautical world. Many theorized that this could point towards the East Area Rapist being a ranchhand.

However, so many things didn't make sense. He toyed with the victims, telling one victim one thing and telling one another. Investigators didn't know whether he was a member of the Air Force, whether he worked in a pharmacy, whether he was a sailor or ranchhand of types, or was just a local kid from the area. And when the bloodhounds went crazy at finding his scent, indicating a drug user or someone with a disease, the investigators most likely leaned in the direction of a drug user. It made sense, at the time. By all indications, this was an attacker that was robbing from his victims as much as he was assaulting them.

But, unfortunately, the East Area Rapist was just getting started. 1976 was coming to a close, but 1977 would be the year that he would gain the most notoriety.

1977 was the year where the East Area Rapist went from being a serial offender... to becoming an urban legend.