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SERIAL KILLER: The Doodler - Crime Junkie | Wave AI Podcast Notes

SERIAL KILLER: The Doodler

Mon May 19 2025

In the 1970s, few places on earth were more queer-friendly than San Francisco. But it wasn’t all drag queens and rainbows in the City by the Bay, and when the bodies of gay men started turning up one after another, fear spread like wildfire, and it got harder and harder to distinguish rumor from fact.

Summary

Crime Junkie: SERIAL KILLER – The Doodler

Release Date: May 19, 2025
Hosts: Ashley Flowers and Brit Prawat

Introduction

In this chilling episode of Crime Junkie, host Ashley Flowers and co-host Brit Prawat delve deep into the unsettling case of "The Doodler," a serial killer who haunted San Francisco in the 1970s. The Doodler's reign of terror left a lasting impact on the community, particularly the gay community, amidst a backdrop of mistrust and animosity between law enforcement and marginalized groups.

The Initial Crimes and Mysterious Caller

January 27, 1974 – First Call:
At nearly 2 AM, a mysterious caller reports finding a body on a San Francisco beach. [03:14] Ashley Flowers narrates, “The caller found a body on the beach but didn't want to get too close or reveal his identity.” When police arrive, they discover the victim, Gerald Kavanaugh, not merely floating but with multiple stab wounds, making drowning an unlikely cause of death. The circumstances of the caller's ability to locate the body in pitch darkness remain perplexing, as no further information about the caller emerges.

Second Murder – June 25, 1974:
Five months later, Joseph "Jay" Stevens, a beloved figure in the city's drag scene, is found brutally stabbed in Golden Gate Park. [06:37] Inspector Sergeant Dan Cunningham describes the scene as one of intense violence, with five stab wounds, three of which pierced the heart. Jay's prominence in the gay community contrasted sharply with the perceived indifference of the police toward such cases.

Escalation and Community Tension

Despite recognizing patterns between the murders of Gerald, Jay, and later Klaus Christmann, a German national found in a similar manner, police efforts remained fragmented. [19:09] Britt remarks on the progressive culture of San Francisco in the 1970s, highlighting the juxtaposition of a vibrant community against inadequate law enforcement response.

July 1975 – Survivor Attack:
A European diplomat survives an attempted attack by someone he brought to his apartment. The assailant, later nicknamed "The Doodler," uses the phrase “you guys are all alike” [21:52] during the assault, mirroring the diplomat's later recounting. This event solidifies the notion of a serial killer targeting the gay community, yet fear and stigma prevent victims from fully cooperating with authorities.

Formation of a Dedicated Task Force

Recognizing the serial nature of the crimes, SFPD assembles a specialized team led by Inspectors Rotea Guilford and Earl Sanders, known as the "Soul Brothers." [22:37] Their expertise and status as SFPD's first Black homicide investigators bring new vigor to the investigation. Their approach includes engaging directly with the gay community, leading to tips about a suspicious individual known for sketching patrons at gay bars.

Breakthroughs and Dead Ends

2019 – Reopening the Case:
Decades later, Sergeant Cunningham teams up with retired Inspector Dan Dudette to revisit the cold case. They uncover a potential ninth victim, Warren Andrews, whose brutal attack adds complexity to the case. [40:47] The investigation highlights systemic issues, including fragmented case files and the absence of a consistent investigative approach.

DNA and Modern Forensics:
With advancements in forensic technology, Cunningham hopes DNA evidence might finally link the suspect to the crimes. However, initial leads prove unfruitful, and the primary person of interest continues to deny involvement, maintaining his innocence despite physical resemblance to the age-progressed composite sketch.

The Enigma of Dr. Priest and Unsolved Mysteries

A pivotal moment in the investigation revolves around a supposed confession from a psychiatrist, Dr. Priest, who allegedly treated the suspect. [44:43] However, discrepancies arise when investigators cannot locate any records of Dr. Priest at Highland Hospital in the 1970s. This dead end complicates efforts to obtain crucial information that could shed light on the case.

Legacy and Unanswered Questions

The Doodler case remains unsolved, leaving families of the victims without closure. The ripple effects extend beyond the immediate victims, affecting entire families and the community at large. [50:43] For instance, Jay's sister suffers a psychotic break, leading to further tragedy within his family.

Inspector Cunningham reflects on the persistent mystery, stating, “Whether the Doodler actually did all that much doodling, the fact remains that six men were brutally slain in 1974 and 75...” [48:51] The unresolved nature of these crimes continues to haunt the community, emphasizing the need for continued vigilance and community support in seeking justice.

Conclusion

Fifty years after the last known Doodler murder, San Francisco's police department remains determined to solve the case, now offering a substantial reward of $250,000 for information leading to the killer's arrest. The enduring mystery of The Doodler underscores the profound impact of unsolved crimes on victims' families and the broader community, highlighting both the progress and ongoing challenges in criminal investigations.

Ashley Flowers closes with a heartfelt acknowledgment of the victims, honoring their memories and the relentless pursuit of justice: “All of the victims deserve to be remembered for who they were, not just how they died.” [50:43]

Call to Action

San Francisco Police Department continues to encourage anyone with information to come forward, reinforcing that it's never too late to seek justice. Listeners are reminded to support ongoing investigations and honor the memories of those lost to The Doodler's terror.

For more detailed information and sources, visit crimejunkiepodcast.com.

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Transcript

Ashley Flowers (0:00)

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Britt (1:04)

Crime Junkie is presented by Acorn TV Murder Mystery may all month on Acorn tv, the home of thrilling crime drama and brilliant mystery. It's 31 days of nonstop suspense, featuring a new mystery series every Monday, a killer movie every Friday, and new seasons of your favorite shows every week. A month of whodunit so good it's criminal get wrapped up in Murder Mystery May only on Acorn tv, the home of thrilling crime drama and brilliant mystery. Visit Acorn TV and use promo code CRIMEJUNKIE for a 30 day free trial.

Ashley Flowers (1:38)

Hi Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

Britt (1:41)

And I'm Britt.

Ashley Flowers (1:41)

And the story I have for you today is one that has truly consumed me. In the 1970s, there was a serial killer lurking in San Francisco, one who some believe would sketch his victims as a way to lure them in and then attack them in the most brutal ways. And the wild part is that pretty early on, tons of people were pointing the finger at one man. Even survivors who escaped his clutches picked him out of a lineup. But to date, everyone has been too scared of what would happen to their lives if they cooperated with police. So this man is free, living among us. And though some believe he hasn't been a threat since 1976 when the murders stopped, the current detective thinks that we just might not know the true scope of his crimes. This is the story of the Doodler.

Dan Cunningham (3:14)

Yeah, I believe there might be a dead person on the beach at right across from your lowest sea, right down to the water. I Was like, oh, yeah, and I still have somebody lying there. But I didn't want to get too close because you know, what could happen. Okay. Did you want to give me something, sir? No, I don't think that's necessary. I just wanted to let somebody know, maybe needs help or something. But help is my duty to put. Oh, okay, fine. Let's wait. Okay, bye.

Ashley Flowers (3:57)

That call came into San Francisco dispatch in the early morning hours of January 27, 1974. And I know that might have been a little hard to make out, but the gist is that the caller found a body on the beach. He didn't want to get too close to it, and the caller would not leave his name. He just thought that maybe the guy on the beach might need some help. Now, within minutes, they had officers descending on the scene. And what they found when they got there was odd. I mean, they quickly spot the body that the caller told them about. But he's not just lying there on the beach like the caller said. He is fully in the water, about to be pulled out with the tide, so much so that officers have to wade in and drag him back to dry land. And by the way, no one is thinking that this guy could have drowned or anything. He has got wounds everywhere. He was a victim of a homicide, no doubt. But here is the even stranger part. At nearly 2am when this call came in, it is very dark out, and there isn't any lighting down by the water. So when they get this body to the shore and have a minute to, like, take it all in, they're like, wait, what was this caller even doing out here on the beach in the middle of the night? And how exactly did he spot this body in the pitch dark? Now, it is worth noting that this beach is a common hookup spot. Now, there's no one else around when they get there, but maybe that's why the caller was out there, like, tbd, who he is, who he was with. But it might be all the reason in the world not to give his name when he called this in. Who knows, right? Like, is he married? Who was he with, blah, blah, blah. But the caller's name isn't the only thing that they're missing. They don't find a wallet or anything in the victim's clothes that would tell them his name either. I mean, really, they don't find much of anything at all. We asked retired Homicide Inspector Sergeant Dan Cunningham to describe the scene for us. He still works cold cases for the department, including this one, so it was still pretty fresh. In his mind. And he was basically like, what scene? Because, duh, the guy was like on the verge of being swallowed up by the Pacific. Which doesn't leave investigators with a whole lot to work with. In the following days, they put out a couple of media requests for the caller to come forward. Maybe he could shed some more light on the circumstances around all of this. Like, were there other people on the beach? Was he with anyone when he found the body? Did he see anything? But whoever that guy is that called in, he either never gets the message that police are looking for him, which I find hard to believe, this was going far and wide at the time, or he is intentionally laying low because he never comes forward.

Ashley Flowers (9:04)

I don't know. Maybe. I mean, the caller could have been out there with someone else as well, but maybe the who doesn't even matter, and he just didn't want anyone to know that he was out there with another man or to meet a man, like, again, all just speculation. We may never know again because this caller has never come forward. And in 1974, to be truthful, I don't think anyone really wanted to know. To put it bluntly, Even in a city like San Francisco that was seen as progressive 1974, policing didn't treat everyone as equal. And it doesn't seem like they put much effort into solving Gerald's case. Like, sure, a plea or two went out to the public, but if they made any real effort to get to the bottom of things, it's never reported on. And I know from our own reporting that the gay community Was very much under the impression that not much was being done. So when a call comes in five months later About a body in golden gate park, Gerald's death, which happened just a mile and a half away, Isn't really on anyone's radar. It comes in early the morning of June 25, and from the looks of things, it's another stabbing. The victim is fully clothed, and. And he had been stabbed a total of five times, Three times in the heart. But much like with Gerald, no wallet, no ID can be located. So investigators initially suspect a mugging gone wrong, Especially because there is a scene here that tells a bit of a story. CNN reports that there is a pool of blood about 10ft from the body with visible drag marks between the two spots, Leading them to believe that the man was attacked. Where the blood is concentrated. Some kind of struggle ensued. And then the killer dragged him to the slightly more hidden spot where his body was found. And it's wild that the body wasn't found sooner because when they canvassed the area, a resident tells them that she heard a man screaming for help a little before midnight the night before. Sergeant Cunningham told us that she did call this in, although it's hard to tell if there was actually any follow up because like I said, the body isn't discovered until close to seven. Now, thankfully, investigators ID their victim quickly this time. He's 27 year old Joseph Stevens, who goes by Jay. And it turns out he's one of the most beloved performers in the city's drag scene. One of his regular gigs is at a club called Finocchio's, as the master of ceremonies, no less, which has been referred to as like, the birthplace of American drag.

Ashley Flowers (14:30)

So about two hours before Jay's body was discovered, an officer patrolling a neighborhood about 45 minutes away in a city called Hayward noticed a blue Toyota acting kind of sus. There had been a string of sexual assault in the area recently, so the cop figured he should like check this out. But when he initiated a traffic stop, the Toyota peeled off and it turned into a whole high speed chase situation. But God bless dumb criminals, right? Because the driver raced over a set of railroad tracks and not at a railroad crossing and crashed right into a house on the other side. Now the driver, a blonde, 20 something, jumped out of the car, fled on foot and got away. But when police ran the car's place and found that it was registered to J, they eventually touched base with SFPD who immediately think that they've got their killer or at least a description of their killer. They now I don't have the exact like play by play, but one way or another the blonde guy ends up getting ID'd and located and dude is shocked to learn that the car he'd crashed belonged to a homicide victim. He denies any involvement in Jay's death, swearing up and down that he just lifted the car from where it was parked at Golden Gate Park. And as unbelievable as I know that sounds, his story actually checks out. Seriously, he's literally just like the world's unluckiest car thief. Which is a bummer for investigators because it means that their promising early lead turns into a dead end real fast. And with nothing else to go on, and knowing they weren't making any connections to a larger pattern of crimes yet, it kind of feels like everyone just shrugged their shoulders and said, like, oh, well, we tried. Now, our team talked to Ron Huberman, who was the first openly gay investigator with the San Francisco DA's office in the 70s. And as you can imagine, he had unique insight into the tense dynamic between the gay community and law enforcement at the time. And he said the simplest way to put it was that there was a ton of hate crimes happening at the time. The murders, he said, were, like, next level. But what he saw from the inside is that police just did not care. He also emphasized the level of tension, animosity even, that existed between SFPD and the queer community at the time. Because you got to keep in mind that in 1970s, San Francisco morality laws were enforced. Cops pose as gay men at the time to entrap actual gay men. And queer crime victims are liable to find themselves in cuffs if they go to law enforcement for help. I mean, that same year, 1974, a gay man settled a lawsuit against SFPD for nearly a quarter of a million dollars, which would be like 1.5 million today, after police pulled him from a car and beat him to the point of having permanent brain damage.

Ashley Flowers (28:07)

Mm. He's a European diplomat, and San Francisco is where he was stationed for his job. I actually don't know his name because that's never been released, so I'm just gonna refer to him as the Diplomat. But they get his story nonetheless. I mean, again, he. I don't know how they convince him, but they do. And his story is a doozy. He says that he was by himself in a diner called the Truck stop. It's like 2am A nearby gay bar called the Rear End had just closed its doors, and he noticed a guy sitting alone sketching animals on a napkin. And these sketches were pretty impressive. By total coincidence, the Diplomat has some art training, so they, like, strike up a little Conversation about their shared hobby. And the guy doing the sketches was a young black guy, good looking, total, like, artist vibes, according to Ron Huberman. And the diplomat was intrigued when he mentioned that he was studying to be a cartoonist. So they're, like, chatting, they hit it off. And when the diplomat asks if he wanted to head back to his apartment, maybe for a nightcap, whatever, the artist accepted the invite. So, like, so far, so good, right? But when they got there, things got real weird real fast. It started when the artist asked to use the bathroom. The diplomat was like, sure, no problem. So the artist goes in, but then the guy, like, wouldn't come out. Sergeant Cunningham told us that after so long, the diplomat was, like, knocking on the door. I mean, more than once, asking if he was okay. About 30 minutes later, as the diplomat was standing with his back to the bathroom door, all of a sudden, it swings open. The artist growled something along the lines of, you guys are all alike. And then he plunged a steak knife into the diplomat's back. Now, the diplomat started fighting back, but the artist managed to stab him six times before the knife broke off in his body. And this. Thank God it did, because only then did the artist run out the front door, allowing the diplomat to barely escape with his life. And his injuries are no joke. I mean, the poor guy is hospitalized for weeks. And this, by the way, is when their killer earns the nickname the Doodler. Supposedly, Guilford and Sanders come up with it, Although it's possible they heard it from the people in the community. So the diplomat is recovering, and then fast forward two weeks later, Guilford and Sanders learned that another man has just survived an attack by someone he'd taken home. And take a wild guess where that guy lives. Same apartment building on the same floor as the diplomat.

Ashley Flowers (38:27)

Well, maybe a little former. I know the diplomat at one point at least looks at a lineup. I don't know about the other guys. And when they finally convince him to do that, he does pick their guy out as the doodler. But he still won't be caught dead in a courtroom saying that that's the man he brought back to his apartment. And that's why this case, solved in everything but name, as far as Guilford and Sanders are concerned, goes cold, ice cold for the next four decades. And it seems that their suspect, if their suspect is their guy, gets like cold feet or whatever once he knows that the cops are onto him. Because the Doodler killings in San Francisco just stop and they never resume again in all that time. It wasn't until 2018 that Sergeant Cunningham picks the investigation back up and started working it with another recently retired investigator working cold cases. This guy's name is Dan Dudette. So they have to go back and start from scratch, because in the four decades that the case sat untouched, the file, you know, got moved around, it got misplaced, things got separated and whatnot. So the records they have are fragmented, they're incomplete. And I think Sergeant Cunningham almost Views this as a blessing and a curse, like kind of thing, because, like, they're almost forced to start from square one. And I said blessing because starting from square one leads them to some surprising conclusions. Take this. The number of Doodler victims is pretty well settled by this point, right? There are five deceased victims and three survivors. Eight people total. But they decide, you know what? We should look at all of the cold case homicides of gay men from 74 and 75, eventually concluding that there was actually a ninth Doodler victim. His name was Warren Andrews. And at first glance, his case doesn't have much in common with the others. Warren was found barely clinging to life on April 27th of 1975 at this cliff overlooking the ocean called Land's End. But he wasn't stabbed like the others. He was beaten brutally with a rock and a tree branch. And even though he was found quickly, he was in terrible shape. He was in a coma for a couple of months and then eventually passed away.