The Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders

Part Two

Throughout 1973, detectives from California's Sonoma County would continue to investigate a bizarre string of deaths that had started the year prior. That year, the discovery of four additional bodies would be reported, all of whom appeared to have been targeted by the same killer…

Listen to "The Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders (Part Two)" on Spreaker.

On Thursday - December 28th, 1972 - the bodies of two children were found on an embankment, just off of Franz Valley Road. This was in an area about two-and-a-quarter miles north of the Porter Creek Road intersection, just north of Santa Rosa, California. The two heavily-decomposed bodies were discovered by a pair of teenage boys that were hiking through the region known as the "Devil's Kitchen," due to the large number of caves nearby. They would later inform authorities about their grisly discovery, showing police where they had discovered the bodies, about 66 feet off of the roadway.

While police had been plagued with a rash of similar discoveries that same year, the identities of these two were pretty easy to determine. The only double-disappearance in their records that year belonged to 13-year-old Yvonne Weber and 12-year-old Maureen Sterling, who had disappeared back in February, months before police began to learn about the proposed killer that was preying upon young hitchhikers. In the time since their disappearance, police had not done much to search for the missing girls - labeling them runaways, based on rumors that they had last been seen hitchhiking. But now, investigators believed that they had discovered their bodies ten months later; ten miles away from where they had last been seen. Dental records would later confirm that the skeletonized remains were theirs.

This discovery, made in the waning days of 1972, seemed to share a lot of similarities to the other discoveries made throughout the year. The bodies of the two girls were found completely nude, with no trace of any clothing nearby, nor most of the belongings that the two had with them at the time. The only relevant items that police would find near this location were a few pieces of jewelry, recovered from the top of the road, overlooking the embankment where the bodies had remained hidden for months.

These items of jewelry were a single earring (which was missing its mate), some orange beads, and a 14-carat gold necklace with a crucifix at the end. While police were initially unable to identify the belongings, Maureen's mother Arleen would later confirm that the necklace and the earring had belonged to her daughter, who had been wearing both at the time of her disappearance (as well as the missing earring, which police would never find).

Because of the time that had passed since the girls' disappearance, authorities would be unable to determine a cause of death - let alone an unofficial date of death (instead, surmising that the girls had been murdered shortly after they went missing). Even then, pathologists would struggle to determine if they had been murdered at all, simply because of the decomposed state of the remains. Simple assumptions - like the victims' sex or whether or not they were related - were nigh but impossible to make. Despite this, though, Sonoma County District Attorney John Hawkes would pledge:

"... although there is no direct evidence of homicide... it will be handled as if it were a homicide case."

The loved ones of the two girls criticized authorities for failing to properly investigate their initial disappearance, and labeling them runaways without so much as a second thought. Police had repeated rumors that the two girls had last been seen hitchhiking outside of the skating rink, potentially headed to a bowling alley nearby, but District Attorney Hawkes would later admit that this lead:

"... has turned up no positive information to show they went someplace else..."

Speaking to the press, David Herrington, Yvonne Weber's stepfather, would state that "it is obvious that they weren't" runaways, and hoped that "other girls will learn by this and not hitchhike." Unfortunately, at this point, at least four other young hitchhikers from the region had gone missing or been killed, and sadly, the bodies would continue to pile up.

This is part two of the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders.

It would begin to become apparent to authorities that - even outside of the murders plaguing the region surrounding Santa Rosa - there was a significant rise in violence being perpetrated against female hitchhikers throughout Sonoma County. Most of this was sexual violence and was by no means limited to the victims named in this series.

A January 1973 article from Santa Rosa's Press Democrat would detail how sexual assaults of female hitchhikers were becoming increasingly prevalent, to the tune of approximately one a week. But this was probably just a small fraction of the total number, due to a large number of unreported rapes that police weren't even aware of. Several assault survivors would later report their trauma after learning about the murdered women from the region, having ignored the problem for weeks or months because of the social stigma placed on survivors of rape or sexual assault; with many on the outside of the situation thinking that they'd somehow "had it coming" (an unfortunate stigma that clings to sexual assault survivors to this day).

For investigators, this meant that the reports of creeps and perverts in the region - those that had preyed upon young women for their own carnal desires - were now murder suspects. Any one of them could be the sadistic individual that was discarding bodies off of rural roads, and police would soon find themselves inundated with reports of suspicious individuals giving rides to female hitchhikers.

Another debate that police were having at the time was whether or not these crimes were the work of a single individual.

At a press conference held in January of 1973, Sonoma County Sheriff Don Striepeke would state that the circumstances surrounding the four linked cases so far - those in which the victims' bodies had been recovered (Yvonne Weber, Maureen Sterling, Kim Allen, and Lori Kursa) - indicated that they had indeed been linked.

In all four cases, their nude bodies had been dumped on embankments off of rural, narrow roads outside of Santa Rosa (which, if you had drawn a line between the dumpsites, basically created a straight path through the county). All had last been seen hitchhiking, and all had been missing their clothing and personal belongings, with the crime scenes being unusually bereft of physical evidence. While their causes of death varied, it was theorized that this might have been a conscious choice by the killer to obscure his involvement.

Sheriff Striepeke would also announce that he believed the April 1972 disappearance of Jeannette Kamahele to be linked to the same spree. But until authorities found her or her body, it would be impossible to make that determination.

A small-but-vocal faction of law enforcement officers in the region believed that these crimes might have been unrelated, with their deaths being the work of varying killers who shared similar M.O.'s. Because of the lack of any physical evidence, it was hard to determine whether or not the victims were linked in any tangible way.

Because of the breadth of this ongoing investigation, the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office would task more than a half-dozen investigators to spearhead this case, who would soon begin corresponding with authorities from outside counties and states. This included nearby Mendocino County, which was investigating the death of 18-year-old Barbara Stroud from Willits, a small town about 90 miles northwest of Santa Rosa. Stroud had been run off of the road and brutally raped and murdered by what appeared to be a group of young men, and was later found in similar conditions as the Santa Rosa hitchhiking victims. This is a story I'll talk about more in an upcoming episode, but as of this episode's recording, is not believed to be linked.

This was just one of many leads investigators would explore throughout 1973, including a series of possibly-related murders from that year, which took place outside of the local area - expanding to regions as far away as San Francisco and beyond. But that's something I'll explore more in the next episode (part three of this series).

As the months waned without another body turning up, the sense of urgency in Sonoma County would begin to wane. But right in the dog days of summer, that sense of dread would begin to creep back in, when yet another body was discovered... bearing many of the same characteristics as the prior killings.

On Tuesday, July 31st, 1973, a motorcyclist was driving along Sonoma County's Franz Valley Road, about two miles north of where it intersected Porter Creek Road. This was a rural, winding lane in a somewhat-forested area, which was just wide enough to allow two car widths - but little else.

After taking his motorcycle offroad for a moment, this young man would begin to smell an unmistakable odor, which was foul enough to warrant suspicion. After investigating what this might have been, the motorcyclist would end up driving away and calling police dispatchers at about 8:35 PM.

Police would arrive at the scene that evening and were struck with an incredibly uneasy sense of deja vu. The location they arrived at was one they had already seen before: just northeast of Santa Rosa, this was the same place where authorities had responded months prior.

On the west side of the road - in a narrow stretch that wasn't large enough for a vehicle to stop without obstructing others - police would be led to the body of another nude young woman. And according to Sheriff Don Striepeke, "She was lying face down, not four feet from the exact, same spot" where the bodies of Maureen Sterling and Yvonne Weber had been found in December of 1972. Like them, her body had been found nude, with no clothing or personal belongings found nearby.

This young woman's body was found approximately twenty feet down a steep embankment, but the flora along the side of the road appeared undisturbed. To authorities, this indicated that the killer had been either a large, strong male - capable of tossing the victim's body several feet into the shrubbery - or a group of two or more. They were able to find where the victim had been thrown and how far she had rolled, and this was approximately twenty feet away from the road itself.

The victim appeared to be between 14 and 16 years old and stood about 5'7" with long, blondish-brown hair. Her remains were covered in dirt and blemishes, which indicated her body being thrown and then rolling down the embankment, where she hit some trees before coming to a stop. Police theorized that she was likely one of the young women missing from the region - a teenage runaway or hitchhiker - and were already making connections to the prior crimes.

The body of this young woman was found approximately three feet away from where the bodies of Maureen Sterling and Yvonne Weber had been found roughly eight months prior, and Sheriff Striepeke would tell the press that the killer was "playing games" with them - toying with them by abandoning these remains in the same place, stating:

"It looks like we've got a guy here who likes young girls."

The young woman's body would be sent off for an examination and autopsy, to determine her identity and potential cause-of-death.

An initial examination would reveal that the murdered woman had been in that location for anywhere between 72 hours and one week, although a cause of death wasn't readily evident. A more detailed examination would expand that timeframe somewhat, amending it to anywhere between 10 and 14 days.

It was unknown if the victim had been sexually assaulted before her death, but pathologists would discover a strange wound in her right ear, which appeared to be a small hole, similar to an ear-piercing, but did not seem to have been done correctly. It was unknown if this had been performed by the killer or someone else, possibly made before the victim was tossed by her killer, but since she didn't have a similar hole in her left ear, it was noted as an aberration. Authorities would later state that this hole was made in the decomposition process - but would choose to release close to no additional information about it.

Frustratingly, attempts to determine this victim's cause-of-death would be unsuccessful for the time being. Pathologists were unable to find any physical injuries in the victim, including signs of strangulation or trauma, so they would have to hold out on determining how she had died until testing of her blood and tissue samples was performed. In the meantime, they would focus on finding out the victim's name, which would aid investigators by giving them a timeline to work within.

Unfortunately, the young woman's facial features were too deteriorated to make a successful identification, due to the decomposition that had already set in. Fingerprints seemed like a similarly hopeless avenue for the same reason. Authorities hoped that dental records would ultimately give this young woman her name back - due to the unique crossbite positioning of her bottom right molar - but would struggle to identify her for a couple of weeks.

The details released by police to the press would eventually encourage a young woman nearby to reach out to them, fearing that the description of this victim matched her younger sister, who had been missing for several months. In the hopes of finding out what had happened to her, this young woman would forward her sister's dental charts to investigators... which were, sadly, a match.

Carolyn Nadine Davis was born on December 3rd, 1957, and would end up spending most of her life in northern California. Unfortunately, not much about Carolyn's early life is known, although we do know that she attending Anderson High School in Shasta County up until February of 1973.

At around 7:00 AM on February 6th, 1973, 15-year-old Carolyn would leave her parents' home, never to return. She was last seen wearing a dark brown jacket with a fur collar and blue jeans, and was supposed to be heading to school, but appears to have intentionally run away. A missing persons report would be filed later that day, at around 8:00 PM, and Carolyn's parents' feared that she may have been heading south towards San Diego.

Sadly, as you're probably aware by now, runaways were not considered a high priority for law enforcement at the time. Oftentimes, missing persons reports would be filed, but police wouldn't do much to help find them; instead, insisting upon a laissez-faire policy of policing, which merely hoped that the kids would return home eventually.

This isn't where Carolyn's trail would go cold, however. Over the next few months, she would reportedly travel throughout the western United States, rumored to have hitchhiked as far away as New Mexico and Illinois. Weeks after running away, in fact, she had mailed a letter to her parents from Soledad, California, confirming that she had run away from home of her own accord, and wasn't planning to return home.

While searching for details of Carolyn's travels, investigators were able to learn that she had been alive as recently as July 15th - just two weeks before her body was found outside of Santa Rosa. Earlier in July, she had stopped by to visit with her grandmother in Garberville, more than 100 miles west of her family's home in Anderson and about 150 miles northwest of Santa Rosa. At this point, she had been hitchhiking for several months and seemed to just want a place to hang out for a bit with a familiar face, which her grandmother allowed her to do.

Carolyn would stay with her grandmother for approximately two weeks -before the teenager decided to head out again on her travels. Her grandmother would last see her at around 1:00 PM on July 15th, 1973, after dropping her off nearby the Garberville Post Office. She would last be seen heading to the nearby Highway 101 on-ramp, where she was supposedly planning to hitch a ride south, towards Modesto, where she planned to visit with some friends.

Weeks after the body of Carolyn Davis was discovered northeast of Santa Rosa, authorities would finally figure out what had caused her death: strychnine poisoning.

Strychnine is a highly toxic compound that is primarily used as a pesticide, which is incredibly fatal to humans when inhaled, swallowed, or absorbed. Symptoms include painful spasms, seizures, cramping, stiffness, respiratory issues, asphyxia, organ failure, and eventually death (if untreated immediately). Strychnine poisoning isn't seen very often, but has been seen in some high profile criminal cases, and has been a favorite of murder mystery writers for over a century now.

It was unknown how the teenager had been poisoned - whether she had been given strychnine orally, perhaps mixed in with a beverage, or administered intravenously - simply because her remains were too decomposed at the time of her discovery. Regardless, it was believed that this was another sadistic, torturous form of death, because strychnine poisoning is extremely painful, and causes the victim to undergo about an hour or more of painful muscle spasms before their body begins shutting down. Most victims of strychnine poisoning end up asphyxiating to death because their lungs are among the first organs to fail.

Pathologists would later settle upon an estimated date of death for Carolyn Davis, which was July 20th, 1973. This was eleven days before her body was found outside of Santa Rosa, and five days after she was last seen alive by her grandmother in Garberville. It wasn't lost on investigators that Carolyn was last known to be headed south, towards Modesto. Santa Rosa is approximately halfway between Garberville and Modesto, so it's believed that her path had led her through the region - where she was eventually picked up there by her killer. Regardless, this left a four or five-day window for investigators to attempt to fill, which they would prove unsuccessful at in the weeks and months to come.

Nearly two years later, in April of 1975, authorities would reveal that a small symbol was found nearby Carolyn Davis's body. This symbol was comprised of two rectangles attached by a stick, which was theorized to have been connected to witchcraft... at least, according to some police officials. Sheriff Don Striepeke, who spoke to the press about this discovery, claimed that this was a symbol meant to "speed the deceased to the afterlife," which was just one of several items related to medieval English witchcraft found near the bodies. He would never clarify what other symbols had been found nearby bodies - or which victims this may have been - but would publicly spitball about possible connections to the Zodiac Killer (something I'll discuss later more in-depth later in this series).

Investigators would continue to assert publicly that Carolyn Davis's death was related to the other murdered and missing hitchhikers from the region, despite her cause-of-death (strychnine poisoning) being such an outlier from the others. Sonoma County Undersheriff Robert Hayes would later state when speaking to the Los Angeles Times:

"There is a common denominator, it seems... They were all fairly young, probably all hitchhiking, they weren't shot or stabbed, they were all nude, and drugs were found in at least four of them... Because three of the girls were dumped on the exact same spot, we would tend to think the same person or persons were involved in at least three of the cases."

Months would continue to pass; during which time, authorities would continue to ponder possible connections between Carolyn Davis and the other murder victims from the past year-and-a-half. Despite their investigating, however, they were unable to find any connections between her and the others... that is, beyond the eerie circumstances of how and where their bodies were abandoned, which seemed to be more than a simple coincidence.

While police officials waited to receive a phone call alerting them to another similar crime scene from the surrounding area, that phone call wouldn't come for months. It wasn't until the waning days of 1973 that police would be called out to yet another crime scene... which revealed this potential serial killer's most sadistic death yet.

On Friday, December 28th, 1973, another body was discovered in rural Sonoma County. This time, the body was found north of Santa Rosa, in the Mark West Creek, where a couple of youngsters had spent the afternoon kayaking.

Police arrived at the scene later that day, which was not too far away from the intersection of Mark West Springs Road and Michele Way. There, they found the nude body of another young woman, which was half-submerged in the water, underneath a log. Getting the body out of the water would prove to be an issue in its own right, but the circumstances of the crime scene were already troubling enough.

Police learned at the scene that the victim had been hog-tied before her death, with a thin piece of clothesline rope binding her arms and legs against her torso. However, outside of being just bound, authorities found that the woman's killer had devised a torturous method of binding the woman that caused her to suffer in agony before her death.

While the woman had been bound at her wrists and ankles, her thumbs had been tied together incredibly tightly, causing them to become purple and swollen before her murder due to the lack of circulation. This would have been incredibly painful and caused the woman to lose the function of her hands, but seemed to pale in comparison to what came next.

A small noose had been fashioned from nylon rope, which attached from her ankles to her throat, but was several inches shorter than she was. This meant that she needed to remain flexed to keep breathing - an impossibility for anyone over a prolonged period. As the woman had struggled to keep herself alive, she had been kept in perpetual agony, ultimately succumbing to the killer's deathtrap anywhere between two days to one week prior to her body being found.

It was unknown if the woman's body had been dumped in the creek by the killer, but it was theorized that she had probably been dropped off at another location along the long and winding creek, with the current dragging her corpse to its current location. Police would find at least a half-dozen spots in the area where a killer might have pulled up alongside the creek and dumped the body into the water, including one spot about a quarter-mile downstream, near Calistoga Road (where the remains of Lori Lee Kursa had been found about one year prior) as well as a couple of locations near Franz Valley Road (where the bodies of Maureen Sterling, Yvonne Weber, and Carolyn Davis had been found over the past year). Authorities would discover that the water level in the creek had been approximately six feet higher just one week earlier, which made it possible for the body to have traveled miles after being dumped.

This victim seemed to match the same physical attributes as the other known victims of this proposed serial killer, standing about five-and-a-half feet tall, with an average build and long, dark hair. However, unlike the other victims, she appeared to be of Mexican-American descent. And while her ears had been pierced in the past, her earrings seemed to have been removed and were missing from the crime scene.

A preliminary autopsy would determine that this young woman had been strangled to death by the noose affixed around her neck, but a significant blow to the back of her head might have played a part in her death. She also had a significant bruise over her left eye, which indicated a severe beating or assault before her death.

Because there were no clothing or personal items found near the victim's body, her identity would remain unknown. But the autopsy would reveal that this young woman had a silver crown on the lower right side of her mouth and that all of her upper teeth were false. This kind of extensive dental history would hopefully make it easy for authorities to determine her identity, which they did, just days after her body's discovery.

Theresa Diane Smith Walsh - most commonly known as "Terri" - was 23 years old at the time of her disappearance in December of 1973.

A native of Miranda, California, Theresa grew up in Humboldt County, about 10 miles north of Garberville (and hours north of Santa Rosa). Her mother, Goldie, would live in Garberville itself, and while not much is known about Theresa's early life, we do know that she married young and had a two-year-old son at the time of her disappearance.

According to some newspaper reports from the time, Theresa had decided to leave her husband earlier that year, to travel a bit and find herself, you could say. She had then spent a few months traveling throughout California, hitchhiking along the way.

Theresa was last seen on December 22nd at Zuma Beach, near Malibu, all the way down in southern California (approximately 450 miles away from where her body was later found). She had been staying with some friends down there, who later told police that she had mentioned hitchhiking north to spend Christmas with her family in Garberville. Like Carolyn Davis months prior, this proposed path would have taken her directly through Santa Rosa, and it's believed that she might have attempted to find a ride north while in Sonoma County.

Unfortunately, Theresa would never arrive to see her family that Christmas and was reported missing by her mother, Goldie Smith, on December 31st, 1973 - three days after her body had been found near Santa Rosa, missing all of her clothing and belongings. This is what led to her being put on the list of potential matches, and ultimately, to her being identified days later.

The nylon rope used to bind Theresa Smith Walsh was essentially the only piece of physical evidence that investigators would find in this multi-year case, with the other crime scenes bereft of tangible leads. Unfortunately, not much would be found from the rope, which was sent for analysis by the FBI and shown to be a pretty common type of rope, which was nearly impossible to track down or differentiate.

Sadly, investigators were able to learn little about Theresa's final days, with her violent death having been sadistically planned and carried out by an unknown individual, who managed to avoid identification yet again. Police would peg her death as falling in the interim six days between her last known sighting and her body being discovered... but other than that, very little would be learned.

At this point - after the death of Theresa Smith Walsh in the waning days of 1973 - authorities were certain that they were dealing with a serial offender: someone that targeted a particular type of young woman, and seemed to enjoy watching them die in prolonged, painful ways, each different from the last. To recap:

- We have the deaths of Maureen Sterling and Yvonne Weber, who disappeared from Santa Rosa in February of 1972. Their bodies would be found miles away in December of that year, with their remains too decomposed to determine a cause-of-death.

- Kim Wendy Allen, whose body was found outside of Santa Rosa in March of 1972, less than 24 hours after she had last been seen in San Rafael. She had been asphyxiated with a rope for about half-an-hour, in a death that was described as torturous, and was sexually assaulted before her death.

- Jeannette Kamahele, who disappeared from Cotati in April of 1972 while attempting to hitchhike to class in Santa Rosa. While her body was never found, authorities believed her case was linked to the others.

- Lori Lee Kursa, who ran away from home in November of 1972, but would be spotted throughout the rest of the month. Her frozen remains were found in December, with her having died of a broken neck, but specific details about the circumstances of death remained clouded.

- Carolyn Nadine Davis, who ran away from her family's home in February of 1973, and was last seen in July of that year by her grandmother in Garberville. Her body was found outside of Santa Rosa about two weeks later, having been poisoned with strychnine.

- Theresa Diane Smith Walsh, who was last seen in southern California in December of 1973, and found hogtied in Mark West Creek less than a week later. Like Kim Allen, she had been asphyxiated to death, through a sadistic method of bindings.

All of these victims ranged in age from 12 to 23, with them all standing about five-and-a-half-feet tall, with petite or average builds and long, flowing hair that might have attracted the killer. All were noted hitchhikers, who had either hitchhiked extensively in the past or last been seen getting into strangers' vehicles. Four of the murdered girls - Theresa Smith Walsh, Jeannette Kamahele, Carolyn Davis, and Kim Allen - had last been seen hitching on Highway 101.

Those whose bodies had been found (all seven, minus Jeannette Kamahele) had been found in rural areas around Santa Rosa. There, their nude remains had been abandoned off of winding roads, which were typically dumped down steep embankments; where they would go undiscovered for days, weeks, or even months. This led many to theorize that Jeannette Kamahele had likely suffered a similarly unusual death, but her body had just not been found yet (and never would be).

As I've mentioned, the cause of death seemed to be different for each victim, with the causes spanning between strangulation, choking with a cord or rope, poisoning, and a broken neck (as well as a couple of cases where no cause-of-death could be determined). It was believed that this might have been intentional by the killer, who attempted to obscure what crimes he had committed by leaving no forensic "calling card" (so to speak).

Except for a few small items left in areas outside of the crime scene, none of the victims' clothing or personal belongings would ever be found. This included earrings and other pieces of jewelry, which seemed to have been intentionally removed by the killer before the dumping of their bodies.

Because police had been unable to catch - or even identify - the killer(s) of these young women, it was believed that they had likely gone on to kill others in the region. It was still unknown if this was a single individual or a group, but it was believed that they had likely gone on to target other female hitchhikers in the surrounding area - those whose death wouldn't be linked to this case because of the lack of an aforementioned "calling card."

Speaking to the San Francisco Examiner years later, Dave Struve - from the Criminal Identification branch of the Justice Department - stated:

"Based on the method of operation used, the way the bodies were found, I think it is probably one guy and no more than two... My feeling is that it is one man. It's been going on so long, with no word [getting] out."

Speaking to the San Rafael Independent Journal in 1977, Sonoma County Sergeant Erwin Carlstedt would state:

"There are plenty of places [here] to hide a body and I've no doubt there are some around we haven't found."

In the same interview, Carlstedt would publicly theorize about this singular individual:

"Our theory is that he considers the dead girls a conquest and keeps their clothing and possessions as a fetish. Or else why not leave it where he dumped them since he made no other attempts to prevent their being identified?"

In 1975 - more than a year after the discovery of Theresa Smith Walsh's body - officials in the Sonoma County Sheriff's Office would reach out to Dr. Edward E. Shev, a psychiatrist from San Francisco, to create a psychological profile of this proposed serial killer.

Operating under the belief that one killer was behind all seven murders (which included the still-missing Jeannette Kamahele), Dr. Shev theorized that the killer was a male in his early thirties, who had a history of mental illness and likely lived as a loner. Having tortured animals as a child, this man came from a background:

"... with a dominant mother and a passive father, with feelings of hatred and total revenge towards his mother. This gets displaced upon his victims in terms of degradation."

It was believed that this killer had chosen to kill his victims "for the necessary gratification" that it brought him. He considered his victims "garbage to be dumped along the side of the road and not even receive a proper burial," doing so because he expecting them "eventually to be found in order for the game of cat and mouse [with police] to continue."

Dr. Shev theorized that this individual likely had some outlandish religious beliefs, potentially considering himself a messianic figure ("Charles Manson-type"), who believed he "can resolve and cleanse the world of these 'fallen women.'" Despite this, however, the killer was otherwise:

"...intellectually quite cunning and probably selects his victims by picking up girls and questioning them and talking to them before he decides to act... He selects his victims quite carefully, after first interviewing them when he picks them up."

Dr. Shev's profile stated that this individual likely kept mementos from his victims "for the purposes of worship" - or, as Dr. Shev otherwise put it, for "notches on his gun" - and stated that when it came to the bizarre circumstances of the victims' deaths:

"The symbolic signs that were left behind would make one feel that he is challenging you to capture him."

After the body of Theresa Smith Walsh was discovered in December of 1973, this case would begin to quickly fade from the news headlines. This story just-so-happened to be drowned out by other breaking stories at the time: the daily updates from Washington DC, amidst Richard Nixon's Watergate scandal, or the discovery of dozens of bodies in the basement of Dean Corll, but also the drawback of troops from the Vietnam War.

While investigators would continue to work on this case, whatever leads they had developed early on would begin to quickly dry up. Attempting to learn about the final days of these missing or murdered women - who seemed to have lived rather nomadic lifestyles, or had their last days and/or hours clouded in doubt - would prove to be nearly impossible. Authorities would struggle to make any inroads in their separate cases, and other than the basic circumstances of their deaths, would struggle to find any evidence connecting them to one other (let alone other unsolved cases from the west coast).

Authorities feared that the killer would just continue to strike with regularity, preying upon other young women that hitchhiked throughout the region, despite the warnings from the public about its dangers. And while the bodies would stop piling up throughout Sonoma County, other gruesome discoveries would be made in the surrounding region... which investigators there believed bore many similarities to the cases from Santa Rosa.

That's on the next episode of Unresolved.

continue to part three

Episode Information

Writing, research, hosting, and production by Micheal Whelan

Published on on December 27th, 2020

Producers: Roberta Janson, Ben Krokum, Gabriella Bromley, Peggy Belarde, Quil Carter, Laura Hannan, Travis Scsepko, Damion Moore, Brittany Norris, Amy Hampton, Steven Wilson, Scott Meesey, Marie Vanglund, Kevin McCracken, Scott Patzold, Bryan Hall, Astrid Kneier, Aimee McGregor, Sydney Scotton, Sara Moscaritolo, Sue Kirk, Jo Wong, Thomas Ahearn, Marion Welsh, Patrick Laakso, Meadow Landry, Tatum Bautista, Teunia Elzinga, Michele Watson, Ryan Green, Stephanie Joyner, Dawn Kellar, Jacinda B., Elissa Hampton-Dutro, Sharon Manetta, Ruth Durbin, Cherish Brady, and Jennifer Henshaw