B (2:43)

Tap on the window. And I just pulled just a thin cotton curtain on the window and I pulled it back and he was pointing a gun at my face.

A (2:55)

She buried the memory of that night for 49 years. Until the day she got a call. Her ex fiance, the man at her window that night had just been accused of being one of the worst serial killers in California history. The Golden State Killer from the Los Angeles Times and wondery. I'm Paige St. John and this is man in the Window. This is episode one, Phantom in the Fog. Between 1973 and 1986, a Phantom roamed California. He burglarized hundreds of homes, sexually assaulted 50 women and children, and murdered 13 people. At first he went unnoticed, and then he became unstoppable. He was known by many names. The Visalia Ransacker, the East Area Rapist, the Creek Killer, the original Night Stalker, and finally the Golden State Killer. In 2018, police for the first time connected those names and horrific crimes to one man. As an investigative reporter, I wanted to know how someone could rape and kill so freely and then go for decades without being caught. The search for answers took me to a small town, Rancho Cordova, in the early 70s. It's a tangle of looping roads and cul de sacs clustered around an Air Force base. Residents here are largely transitory, young military families on the move. And their tract homes are cheap, nearly identical, with sliding patio doors in the back and in front, large windows that face the street. At night, the illuminated windows present a display of the private lives within. At first glance, it seems like a middle class suburb, but there are no street lights and the homes are a little too close together. It has the appearance of being middle class, but without the security. Sergeant Richard Shelby is the sheriff's night watch commander for Sacramento County.

C (5:37)

American Building, we call the dividing line.

A (5:39)

Everything south of the American river is.

C (5:42)

His and south is from Master Cordova. Anything below that?

A (5:46)

Right. He's a tall, lanky man missing a finger from a gun that once misfired. And he's known for his stubborn independence. There are a spate of break ins in his patrol area. What did you make of the burglaries?

C (6:00)

I don't remember anything about it. I would have seen it and just thought I just knew the burglary and just wrote it off.

A (6:05)

Only later, in retrospect, will the theft strike Shelby as unusual. This burglar doesn't touch expensive items like televisions or stereo systems.

C (6:16)

He took silver coins, he took cash. He took jewelry. Sometimes he'd take one set, one piece of my set.

A (6:26)

Single earrings, coins, class rings, fraternal tokens, trophies from the lives of his victims. Sometimes, weeks later, residents will realize he's taken a picture from the photo album. And in every case, the photo he removes is of a woman or a girl. There are other unusual features, like the long periods of time he spends in the home, or the fact that he leaves behind burnt matches and half eaten food, moves women's underwear around and stacks it on the beds. He's unusually careful about the way he operates, too. He Goes to great lengths to make escape from the targeted house easy. At a moment's notice, and to prevent himself from being surprised, he would block the front entry.

C (7:13)

Any entryway into the house in the front, he'd block it. He opened multi escape routes out back. He turned off anything that would make noise.

A (7:21)

And he's prolific.

C (7:23)

We're talking like, I don't know, burgers every day almost for a couple months.

A (7:29)

At first he strikes only when people are away. But in 1973, that changes. He begins creeping into homes while the residents sleep. It's what cops call a hot prowl. And he's now a full fledged cat burglar. A fairly rare and dangerous sort of thief. Cat burglars are not so interested in what they steal as the risk they take. They're drawn by the sexual thrill, the danger of being caught.

C (8:01)

He started out prowling, probably exposing himself in the burglaries, his textbook.

A (8:08)

The sexual motive of these crimes becomes more obvious as the break ins go on. One woman opens her eyes and sees him standing at her dresser. Another woman wakes up when she feels him touching her breast. And lots of women report hearing a rap at the window, looking out and seeing a man naked from the waist down. They say his face has an empty expression, but sometimes he's smirking. There are enough of these crimes that cops give him a nickname, the Cordova cat burglar. But he's also something else, Something that's all too common in the 1970s. A peeping Tom. And your odds of catching a peeping tom?

C (8:52)

Oh, they're. You'd be surprised how many are out there.

A (8:56)

There are a lot of peeping toms in the 1970s. This kind of crime isn't exactly a police priority.

C (9:04)

There's two nuisance type calls, peeping toms and weenie waivers the indecent exposure.

A (9:10)

But soon, peering in windows or hovering over women while they sleep isn't enough. It's September 1973. A 28 year old woman is home alone with her toddler when she hears a knock at the door. She ignores it, figuring it's some salesman or other. And then she hears a noise at the back of the house. She sees a man at the window. He's old, already removed the screen to pry the window open. But he takes off around the house. When he realizes he's been seen, she hurries to get her gun and frantically locks the doors and windows and puts the chain on the kitchen door. Next thing she knows, he's on the other side of that door trying to Break the chain. She's a few feet away, her gun raised. She shouts, if you come any further, I'm going to shoot you. He backs off and she calls police. She thinks the worst is over, but that's when he makes a second push, breaking through the kitchen door. He rushes her, closing the distance so fast she can't move. And he grabs her hands, taking control of the gun. When police arrive, they find her on the floor, the gun fired high and the bullet missed her. She's alive but passed out. And the prowler is gone. By the summer of 1974, Richard Shelby is back to spending much of his time sitting in a car. He's been promoted to supervising the night patrol. One night, the police radio crackles to life. The dispatcher reports a call in Rancho Cordova. Someone's seen a prowler. Normally, Shelby would let his deputies handle this kind of small time stuff. When he gets to the house, he joins the other officers who responded to the call. They walk the grounds, check the doors. There are no signs of a prowler, so the police leave. Shelby has barely gone a block when the dispatcher reports neighbors have seen the man again. Shelby is the first back on the scene. The neighbors tell him the man must have been in hiding.

C (11:26)

They tell him he jumped off the roof of the house, hit the ground, running back over the fence into a ditch. The ditch is not that shallow. Over here.

A (11:34)

Shelby stands at the edge of the concrete irrigation canal. It runs for miles in either direction. Behind him is the dark and silent house. When they last left, everything was locked tight. But now.

C (11:49)

And the garage doors rolled up. And this big stick.

A (11:52)

There's a bloody log on the ground.

C (11:54)

Piece of firewood, probably a foot and a half long. Maybe that. Maybe smaller. I mean, it was. I remember it was soaked in blood and flesh, stuck all over. Blood and guts all over the thing.

A (12:06)

He thinks to himself, oh, shit, here we go.

C (12:15)

And I should have called back up, but didn't. I've been told the guy was gone. Thinking back, he probably wasn't. He's probably sitting there in the bushes around the roof, watching. But I had my gun out, of course.

A (12:27)

Shelby steps into the house. He can see well enough without using his flashlight. He doesn't want to be an easy target as he moves from room to room.

C (12:40)

He was a heavy atmosphere. I remember that. Where there's a death, you'll always know it. And they got the master bedroom. And there was the dog.

A (12:48)

It's the family pet, a small poodle under their bed.

C (12:53)

They've been beaten to death.

A (12:56)

Not just beaten, but disemboweled. That dog half crawled beneath the bed, as if seeking escape, will haunt Shelby into the next century. Shelby doesn't know it, but it's a sign of what's to come.

D (13:19)

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A (14:29)

Four hours south of Rancho Cordova, there's another California foothill town called Visalia. Here the tule fog often settles in, shrouding the local tomato fields in the citrus groves. It's the kind of town where parents tell their kids go out and play and then don't expect to see them until dinner. In 1974, 16 year old Beth Snelling is one of those kids, mom would.

B (14:57)

Say, you know, be home by dark or, you know, be home at dinner time. Other than that, she didn't know what the heck we were doing.

A (15:06)

And could you, if you were to walk down the street at night, could you then basically see in everybody's houses?

B (15:11)

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Could probably even go in them. I mean, it's, you know, people just didn't worry about locking their doors and stuff.

A (15:22)

Look through her family's window, Beth says, and what you're likely to see was her dad, Claude Snelling, sitting in his favorite chair, reading the newspaper with his black rimmed glasses. She and her father are close. She joins him at his office and they walk home together from School every day, side by side.

B (15:42)

I think the two of us had a very special bond. My mom said, he would have done anything for me.

A (15:49)

Beth's a member of a Baptist youth group, and she works part time at the A W. She has a coveted spot on the Mount Whitney High School letterettes. They're the girls who march with the band and hold up placards that spell the school name. Beth is the H. The cat burglaries in Rancho Cordova have stopped. But 200 miles away in Visalia, where Beth lives, someone with a very similar MO Is raiding the bedrooms of women and teen girls.

B (16:24)

I'd hear my parents talk about how he would break into people's homes and not take anything of value. Go through women's underwear drawers and stuff like that.

A (16:35)

He's breaking into as many as half a dozen homes a night. Locals start to call him the Visalia Ransacker. They have no inkling of the all too similar Cordova cat burglar. To Beth, he's just the town pervert. Nothing to be afraid of because he.

B (16:53)

Hadn'T hurt anyone at that point.

A (16:56)

Until he comes to her house. In February 1975, Beth's at home when she hears a commotion outside. Her father bursts into the house. He's out of breath. He tells Beth that he come home to see a man looking into her window.

B (17:14)

And he jumped out of the car and chased him down the street. And then eventually he jumped over fences into someone's backyard or something. I don't know.

A (17:26)

Her father has chased away the Peeping Tom for now. Six months later, Beth is watching TV in her bedroom with her boyfriend. She jokes with him about the man at her window. She feels mischievous, and she says, wouldn't.

B (17:42)

It be weird if that guy was, like, watching us right now? I got up and acted like I was gonna change the channel on the tv, which was right below the curtain. And then all of a sudden, I kind of reached up and pulled the curtains apart, and there he is, just staring at me, and I screamed.

A (18:04)

Her boyfriend and father charge out of the house to catch him, but he's too quick. Beth can't shake the image of his face so close to hers, looking directly into her eyes. A month later, on a warm September night, the air conditioner goes out. The family opens the windows to let in the breeze.

B (18:27)

I woke up to someone on top of me. And then with this growly, raspy voice saying, you know, you're coming with me. Don't scream or I'll stab you to death.

A (18:42)

He has a gun you know, my.

B (18:44)

Eyes open, and here I just see this ski mask right in front of my face.

A (18:51)

He orders her to keep skipping and starts pulling her out of the house. She tries to do as he says. She's afraid if anyone else wakes up, they'll be attacked, too. But as he drags her past her brother's room, she whimpers.

B (19:06)

He was pulling me through the gate of the fence, and we were coming back up towards the street, but someone.

A (19:14)

In the house has woken.

B (19:16)

And that's when I. I heard my dad yell. And I looked up and I saw him coming through the kitchen. And he stopped just for, like, a second at the counter, just like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. And he just, like, let out this, like, this roar.

A (19:38)

Like nothing Beth has ever heard.

B (19:41)

Like going into warrior mode or something, you know, just coming for that guy.

A (19:46)

The man on the ski mat stops and turns to look Claude Snelling, as if he's waiting for him. He shoves Beth to the ground as her father charges toward him.

B (19:56)

And that's when he fired at my dad twice. And so my dad went down there, but he got back up.

A (20:06)

Claude Snelling turns and runs back into the house, toward the front. Beth realizes her father's trying to head off her kidnapper before he can get to the street. But her father doesn't make it past the front door. He collapses, mortally wounded. And the man in the ski mask turns to Beth.

B (20:27)

He had the gun pointed at me, at my head. And I thought. I just knew. And my. I knew that was it. And I just. I had my knees kind of pulled up, and I just kind of put my head down like I knew it was coming. And instead, he just started kicking me in the head, in the face.

A (20:49)

He kicks her three times, and then he runs. Beth hears the man leave and lifts her head. She runs back into her house.

B (20:58)

By that time, my mom was hovering over my dad. My brothers were up and they were crying. And my mom told me to stay with my dad while she called the police.

A (21:18)

Beth's father is still alive when the ambulance arrives. And it seems like a long time before her mother can get someone at the hospital to tell her his condition.

B (21:27)

We were in the living room, and then she got off the phone and she came in. She was kind of in shock, and she said, daddy. Daddy died.

A (21:39)

In the days and weeks after Claude Snelling's murder, his family is in a state of shock.

B (21:45)

It was just. Everyone was kind of in their own little grief bubble.

A (21:51)

For Beth, the family home is no longer a place of safety. There are too many reminders of that night.

B (21:59)

Someone had offered to take out all the, you know, the blood stained carpet through the living room and the hallway and also in my bedroom. And then they painted it because there was just like that black dust, fingerprint dust everywhere, all throughout the house. Even then I couldn't go back in my room, so I was sleeping in my mom's bed.

A (22:26)

The town, too, is reeling and afraid. Other high school girls are getting threatening phone calls. And on the dust of a car outside a school, someone writes, beth, I'll get the rest. Two days after her father's funeral, Beth seeks an escape from the endless grief. It's the Tulare County Fair, the biggest event of the year in the county. And the Mount Whitney High School marching band will be in the opening day parade. The letterettes are out in front.

B (23:05)

I kind of wanted something else to think about, you know, it had been. Everything was like so sad, so sad.

A (23:13)

The police urge her not to march on the parade. They tell her, it's too dangerous. You're the only witness. Beth joins the parade. Plain clothes and uniformed police walk alongside bodyguards to the letterettes. For Beth, it's a chance to be an ordinary 16 year old again. In the days that follow, police take her out of school and bring her to the station to look at photos of suspect after suspect. They're not him. Visalia police know almost immediately who killed Claude Snelling. Even if they don't have a name. It's the man they've been calling the Visalia Ransacker. They suspect the the gun that killed Claude Snelling was stolen in a ransacking just 11 days earlier. Within hours, police are down by the river at the spot the gun owner used for target practice. They dig out scores of spent bullets. By the winter of 1975, Visalia police have laid eyes on the prowler several times. But every, every time they chase him, he disappears, sometimes into the thick white fog. But they see how he operates. And that winter, they finally get a chance to catch him. There's a surge of prowling reports in one particular neighborhood. Police believe it could be their man. So they set a trap. They asked the mother of a teenager to rake the dirt beneath her daughter's bedroom window. She calls a few days later to say she's found fresh footprints and a strange circle in the dirt. A police detective examines the marks and realizes whoever's been here has used a flower pot to stand on in order to look in through the window. That night, the same detective hides in a neighbor's garage and waits. After a few hours, he spots the prowler sneaking through the shrubbery. The detective steps out and shouts, stop. The ransacker gives a high pitched shriek, draws a gun and fires. The bullet shatters the detective's flashlight and he's knocked to the ground. The prowler escapes, but police have gotten their first visual. Round four Face short blonde hair, five foot ten thick build. The publicity from this incident brings a flood of tips. Easily another hundred suspects. None fit. The Visalia detectives are at a dead end and so they turn for help to a noted psychiatrist. He tells them their thief is a sexual voyeur with little interest in stealing. A man excited by the risk of trespassing in intimate spaces and who very well may enjoy the danger. By the end of 1975, there have been at least 125 incidents in Visalia. The psychiatrist tells the detectives there are likely hundreds more victims police don't know about. Women whose windows he has stood at, women he has secretly watched. Armed with a psychiatrist's profile, Visalia detectives turn next to the doctors at a state hospital for sexual offenders. Those doctors tell detectives their suspect is driven by a compulsion and they give police a warning. He isn't going to stop. He can't stop. Stop.

D (27:11)

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A (28:09)

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D (29:04)

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A (30:28)

By the mid-1970s, Richard Shelby has been promoted to inspector. He's returned to the detective division to find it inundated with rape cases and half a dozen serial rapists at large. Shelby's assigned to a case police call the early bird rapist. In three years, this man has raped 42 women in Sacramento with barely a mention in the town papers. Shelby studies the thick file. Detectives have a prime suspect, but nothing concrete enough to make an arrest at the time. There are so many rapists and so few get caught that California's clearance and conviction rate is just 6%.

B (31:14)

It's such a solitary crime it's not one that they brag to their buddies about, you know?

A (31:22)

Sacramento Sheriff's Lt. Ray Root says all a rapist needs to do to avoid capture is wear a mask and gloves. That way, no one sees his face or gets his fingerprints.

B (31:34)

My guess is that most serial rapes.

E (31:37)

Are solved by somebody's accident, stupidity or whatever.

A (31:42)

Like the serial rapist who was caught because he left his checkbook behind in the victim's car.

B (31:47)

So while he was in the act.

A (31:49)

Of raping her, the checkbook either fell.

E (31:52)

Out or started to fall out, and.

C (31:54)

She just slipped it underneath the seat. We solved that.

E (31:59)

It was 17 or 18 rapes.

A (32:02)

So that's what police are hoping for with many of these serial rapists, for them to make a mistake, to slip up and leave a clue that if they don't, they're practically unstoppable.

E (32:18)

There was this man standing over my bed, shining a flashlight in my face. And the first thing he said to me is, of course. I screamed, shut up. Shut up. Shut up or I'll kill you. So he said that once. He said it, you know, 10 times.

A (32:37)

It's early morning, still dark, when Jane Carson's husband leaves for work. Her son has snuggled into bed with her. No sooner than the garage door closes, Jane hears someone run down the hall to her bedroom. He tells her, all I want is your money. And then he blindfolds and gags Jane and her little brother. She can hear him ripping up fabric.

E (33:01)

And this is after he had gagged us and tied us up and blindfolded us. Just kept this ritual of carrying cloth. Is he gonna hang us? What? I had absolutely no idea.

A (33:18)

Then he moves her boy off the bed. And when he unties her ankles, Jane realizes this isn't a robbery.

E (33:27)

I don't remember anything about the sexual assault. My heart was beating so rapidly, just coming through my chest. All I was thinking about is, where's my son? Where's my son? What have you done with my son? And I couldn't speak because I was gagged.

A (33:45)

After the rape, he acts like he has all the time in the world.

E (33:49)

He would go in the kitchen and fool with the pots and pans, and I could hear him cooking something. And then he'd come back in to make sure that I had not moved. And again, you know, don't move or I'll kill you.

A (34:03)

After an hour, he brings Jane's son back to the bed.

E (34:07)

And what a relief. Oh, my gosh, what a relief.

A (34:12)

Jane Carson's rape case lands on Richard Shelby's desk. He's struck by the precise staging of the attack. The rape seems closely timed for the small window when Jane will be alone. And it looks like the rapist has cased her house. The home was broken into two weeks before and nothing material stolen. There were a lot of hang up calls that let the rapist gauge when someone would be home. To Shelby, this looks like the work of someone who's been doing this a while.

C (34:43)

He had a time to the minute and he knew the whole area. Prowled everywhere, had it really scoped out to me that here's a guy that's really intent on what he's doing. He's really gone into detail. He knows what time the neighbor takes out his garbage. That's where he parks his garbage. There's something else going on here.

A (35:01)

He suspects this is the work of a serial attacker and so he starts to ask questions. Shelby doesn't have a database to work from, but he has his own informal method. He calls this method investigating by gossip. He goes from desk to desk asking the other detectives got a rape and it works. He finds more cases that show signs of having been carried out by the same person. First, a home invasion involving two sisters.

C (35:34)

The key there was the first thing he said was all I want is your money.

A (35:38)

Yeah, both that. Detective hand Shelby another case, not a rape this time, but a beating. The victim in that case, a man with a teenage daughter, had heard someone prowling outside his windows. And when he went to investigate, the prowler beat him savagely. The victim had tried to crawl to safety under his car. And the description of the weapon is curious. It sounds like an old fashioned training baton used by police in the military. In all, Shelby finds a total of six similar attacks.

C (36:12)

There's no question we had a serial rapist.

A (36:16)

A serial rapist. The reports of the six attacks read to Shelby like they're pulled from the same script. But they are rehearsals for what is to come. The full performance will play out over the entire state. And this new rapist is so schooled, his timing so tightly choreographed, that no one else sees him come or go. And the attacks unfold over such a long period of time, it's obvious he's toying with his victims, taking pleasure in their terror. And this is only the beginning. This is a story about the man police now believe to be responsible for that statewide rampage of violence. But it's also about the time, the 60s and 70s, when attitudes toward rape allowed him free reign. And it's about the women who survived his attacks. And for whom the arrest of an old man decades later brought a phantom back to life. From the Los Angeles Times and Wondery this is part one of six of man in the Window. We'd like to give a special thanks to the Mount Whitney High School marching band under Mrs. Archuleta. Man in the Window was written and reported by me, Paige St. John. Senior producer is Karen Lowe. Associate producer is Casey Georgie. Original music by Alison Leighton Brown. Music coordinator is Marcelino Vilpa. Sound design by Spoke Media. Our editors at the Los Angeles Times are Steve Clow and Shelby Grad, executive produced by George Lavender, Marshall, Louie and Hernan Lopez. For Wondery.