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Santa Rosa Murders ////// Missing Girls
00:54:08
The Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders is a series of unsolved homicides of young women that took place in the early 1970s. Many of the victims were confirmed or believed to have been hitchhiking in or around the Santa Rosa, California area. High School girls and College students were not safe. Often times the women and girls were not found until several days later. Many discovered in rural areas. If you have any information regarding these cases please submit a tip at sheriff-coldcase@sonoma-county.org or please call the Sonoma County Sheriff’s cold case unit at 1707-565-2727
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- [00:03]
A
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- [02:04]
C
Close your eyes in 2025 and imagine, if you will, the idea of routinely relying upon a complete and total stranger to give you a ride to school, work or any other destination. Well, in a sense we already do that with the advent of rideshare services such as Uber and Lyft. But those companies at minimum have some type of guardrails built into their business model, however weak they may be in reality. In the 1970s there were no apps or cell phones or any services such as these. So cash strapped individuals, primarily students and young people, frequently relied upon another age old method to get where they needed to go hitchhiking in the United States Hitchhiking first entered the zeitgeist in the late 1920s due to the economic hardships of the Great Depression, it remained a common mode of transportation in the 30s and 40s after World War II, thumbing a ride became an economical means for soldiers to return to their loved ones, as well as an opportunity for motorists to perform a patriotic duty by giving them a lift. The youth movement in the 1960s saw a revival of this mode of transportation. The 1970s would emerge as the golden era of hitchhiking in the United States with students, workers, travelers and sometimes even miners seeking the cheapest mode of transportation by using their thumb to catch a ride. Despite warnings from parents, police and other authority figures. The hitchhiking is not always safe and in fact can be very dangerous. Folks, especially young ones, were regularly getting into a vehicle that they may have never seen before, driven by someone that they have never met. This included young women and girls who felt the risk of hitching a ride to be very low, and they were willing to take that chance. It could never happen to me, however, Faces on Milk Cartons and the Stranger Danger years of the 1980s resulted in a sharp decline in hitchhiking. Increased media spread of legitimate information and statistics had fully opened our eyes to the dangers and high risk status of hitchhiking. Thankfully, the availability of affordable alternatives such as buses, trains and more recently rideshare services. Today the need for this very risky mode of transportation is almost non existent. Hitchhiking, thumbing or hitching, it's not just getting a ride, but places one in the company of another, usually a stranger, and it is their home field advantage and you are well within striking distance. The ride is usually, but not always free. Some, in fact far too many and perhaps many more than we may ever know, have paid the ultimate price for a ride. Between 1972 and 1973 in Santa Rosa, California, a predator who had earned the name the Hitchhiker Killer or the Sonoma Co ed Killer claimed the lives of at least seven female victims, with many more suspected. Six of the bodies were recovered and identified and one remains missing still. Additionally, an eighth presumed victim, unidentified and known only as Jane Doe, is thought to be related to the case. Law enforcement and media to this day refer to the series of homicides as the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders. This is true. Crime Garage in the early 1970s in Sonoma County, California, young women and girls were turning up dead homicide victims discarded by the killer or killers, as detectives put it, like trash. Many of the crimes were similar in both nature and victimology. Among the victims, all of the women were last seen hitchhiking in and around Santa Rosa and Sonoma County. Sonoma county, located in the Bay Area of Northern California, is situated on the coastline about 55 miles north of San Francisco. The prosperous and vibrant city of Santa Rosa serves as as the county seat and it is the largest city with 25% of the county's population residing there. But back in the early and mid-70s, think medium to large suburb, 50 to 55,000 people. The city of Santa Rosa was undergoing transformative changes thanks to urban redevelopment and was surrounded by classic small town America. The county was comprised of rural municipalities, picturesque hills, coastal towns and ocean views to the west and vineyards to the east, but also remote and quiet wooded areas. The 1970s saw a significant rise in violent crimes such as assault, rape and murder. The decade also has the dubious distinction of being at the forefront of the, quote, golden age of serial killers. December 28, 1972. Two teenage boys out on a hiking adventure on a Thursday afternoon made a gruesome discovery, finding the remains of at least two bodies. Bones and two skulls were found about 60ft off of a narrow two lane county road, down a steep embankment in a heavy brush area. The teens promptly went to the home of the oldest boy and his father called the coroner's office. The teens were hiking Franz Valley, so they parked their vehicle, went for the hike. It was on the return to the parked vehicle that one of them spotted the remains. This is near the bottom of a steep embankment at a spot just off of Franz Valley road that is 2.2 miles north of Porter Creek Road. There are houses there now, but still very spread out. Even looking at a map today, one can see why. This is a great location for hiking and a good spot for placing something that you don't want to be found. Or at least not for some time. According to a report from the Sonoma County Sheriff's office, at around 4pm on December 28, the two young men named Glenn Frost and David Broner stumbled upon the skeletal remains of at least two victims. The bodies were located down a steep embankment. The furthest one down is approximately 66ft off of the east side of that road. So to paint this picture a little bit more, we have one skull and ribcage found together at least 50ft from the road, and a second skull further down the embankment and to the right near that we have another rib cage just under some brush. Who they were was anyone's guess. By the time the sheriff's office was at the site and due to the time of year, it was getting dark and getting dark fast. The terrain is steep in many places, especially at this location, so the area was roped off and guarded till morning time. There were bones and teeth scattered in this general area as well, plus some portions of remains belonging to deer, ultimately finding three deer skulls in this area. So as of that night, they were not sure how many sets of human remains that they would recover. The next day at dawn, we have a full on search of this area. This means grid collection and even digging in some spots. On this day of searching, of course, they will be fielding questions about this discovery, but unable to answer them due to the obvious. We are finding skulls, rib cages, teeth and bones, not complete bodies. So they have been there a considerable amount of time that allowed for full decomposition. It's far too early to be able to say with any real confidence who the victims may be. It is suspected immediately that they are homicide victims. Placed there, tossed there. They could not say the victim's ages, gender or ethnicity because they did not know and would not know until the identification process is successful and complete. They could not say with any level of certainty how long the bodies had been there and if they were placed there at the same time, resting there for the same amount of time. But there is good reasoning for the questions that the reporters from the local news outlets are peppering the sheriff's office with. Questions like were the victims men or women or one of each, or kids? And so on. Because we have two missing girls from that area. In fact, these girls had vanished late one Friday night months ago, but only about 10 to 15 miles away. And that is where and when many believe that this true crime story starts. So, Captain, we're going to go back to February 4, 1972, more than 10 months prior to finding the skulls and bones. Down that ravine in the hills of Franz Valley Road, we have Yvonne Weber, age 13, and Maureen Sterling, age 12. These two are spending a Friday evening at the Redwood Empire Ice Arena. This ice skating and recreational arena was built by Charles M. Scholes, the creator of Peanuts, you know, Snoopy, Charlie Brown, and don't forget about my boy Linus. Linus Van Pelt. The rink, built in 1969, is a popular spot for many folks, but especially for teenagers. Maureen's mother Arlene dropped them off between 7 and 7:30 that evening. The plan, she would be returning to pick them up at 11pm Around 9pm the two tell a friend that they are going off to smoke some pot with a man that they had met earlier that night. They. According to this friend, this witness, they say they met this man earlier that night in the lobby of that arena. The witness described the man who had been watching the skaters as tall and slender, Caucasian, but someone that the witness had never seen before. Reports from other witnesses indicated that the girls had gone off to meet someone at a bowling alley, presumably hitchhiking to get there. The pair. It's reported time and time again, Captain, that the pair were last seen getting into a vehicle on Guernville Road, which is right outside of the arena. So when the mother returns to pick the girls up at 11pm she's watching people filter out of the arena. I'm guessing that's closing time for them. Looking for the faces of her daughter and daughter's friend in the crowd doesn't see him. And sadly, she never is able to collect the girls and return them home that night. And shortly after the girls were reported missing.
- [14:59]
D
It's really scary to think as a child we grew up in the 80s. So places like bowling alleys or, or Skate America, they don't have security video. So how many creeps Were just going there on the weekend, watching kids and looking for opportunities.
- [15:21]
C
So the girls are reported missing here, and there are several different reports on this that they were reported missing by their parents on Sunday. Some reports say that it was Saturday. I do want to point out here, though, the pickup time was 11pm on Friday. So 12:01am on Saturday would technically be Saturday. Less than, you know, less than an hour after mom gives up hope, hoping to find the girls at the arena. These were good kids, so it was completely out of character for them to not be where they said they would be or at least as far as their parents knew. After the girls were reported missing, police questioned classmates and friends, but they were not able to develop any really good leads. The police believed that the girls were runaways and stated so publicly, and the police's investigation stalled.
- [16:21]
D
The old brilliant runaway theory.
- [16:24]
C
Yes. You see this throughout the decade of the 70s and a lot really with teenagers up until this started to change sometime in the 80s, and then really morphed into something different in the 90s, especially after the genesis of the Amber Alert.
- [16:44]
D
Yeah, it makes maybe some sense if the individuals were in their late teens, early 20s, but we have a 13 and 14 year old, not individuals that normally run away to start a new life.
- [16:57]
C
Yeah, 13 and 12 years old here, Captain, but what we have here is the witness that was talking with the girls that night at the arena did say that they dressed and carried themselves to be. To appear older. So whatever happened to them, we might want to factor that into the equation.
- [17:21]
D
Yeah, when you're 12 and 13, especially young girls, you want to appear older, more mature. You like it when somebody says, oh, what are you, 15, 16? You almost get a kick out of it. Yeah, yeah, I appear older than I am.
- [17:40]
C
There were rumors that the girls might have previously been in contact with a man who lived along the Russian river, but police could not confirm that connection either. A lot of suspicion here. I want to talk about where some of these details come from, the suspicions or the, the leads that ultimately didn't go anywhere, but they should be discussed and examined, and they were examined by the police at the time. So while they're saying that we believe that the girls are runaways early in this investigation, that's the conversations that they're having with the parents behind closed doors. But they clearly were doing some investigating because it was after. So they take the missing person's report, regardless of whether it was Saturday or Sunday. The police, the detectives are at the girls school. They go to the same middle school. So they're at the girls school that week talking to everybody that knew them, teachers and such, trying to figure out, did the girls tell anybody where they might be going, whether it was that they planned to run away, planned to go somewhere just to hang out, or talked about somebody they had been hanging out with that was not a classmate or someone of their age. Of course police are going to want to talk to that individual or those individuals. Based off of that, it appears to me that some of this information is coming from talking to those other children at that middle school. This, they were in contact with a man who lived along the Russian River. Again, police could not confirm or make a real connection there. I. What I'm guessing here with that lead, Captain, is that that lead didn't come, didn't provide a name or identity for the man who lived along the Russian River.
- [19:32]
D
And do we know if this contact was outside of the skating rink or was it just they made contact with this man at the skating rink? But do we have any evidence that they were in communication with this individual before attending the skating rink?
- [19:49]
C
No. So I, we, we need to try to separate these different leads here. So the Russian Riverman is one lead. The bowling alley, we're going to a bowling alley is another lead. And then the man that was going to be smoking pot with them is another lead. So these are all separate and these are all leads that police are going to get from different individuals at different times. The bowling alley lead, I can't confirm where it came from. The man on the Russian River I believe came from talking to somebody after the fact the following week when school was back in and police are at that school interviewing people looking for leads. What I think that we should probably discuss here is look, I think you can easily discredit, but also at the same time add validity to some of these leads, the three that we've discussed. And I don't have any proof of this. I'm just going off of reasonable thinking, thinking about how teenagers act and their movements. If they were going to the ice skating rink simply as a disguise to the parents of, hey, drop us off here at this friendly place that, you know that we like to go, that you feel comfortable, mom and dad with us going off to. And then we will go off to where we really want to go, someplace that we are not comfortable asking mom and dad that we can go to, hanging out with people that we are not comfortable asking, getting permission to hang out with. That is a very teenage like behavior. Think about the timing, what is not in question Is their friend telling police, you know, around 9pm the two came up to me, asked me if I wanted to go with them. They're going with this guy to go smoke some pot. She didn't seem to think it was a big deal. I think she thought they were coming back. We don't know the exact discussion that they had. But the friend says, no, I'm. I don't want to go off with you guys. I'm going to stay right here. I'm going to go skating.
- [21:57]
D
Yeah, it's reasonable to. It's reasonable that this individual just assumed they're going to the parking lot, smoke some pot and in this guy's car and they're coming right back. They don't have a vehicle. So it's. If they leave, they're going to be dependent on this individual to take them away and then bring them back.
- [22:18]
C
And she says she had seen the man earlier. He was a guy that was watching the skaters. Just somebody that was kind of hanging out in the lobby area of the arena, which wouldn't be terribly uncommon. You would see a. Probably a good amount of people hanging out between skate sessions or people, parents there that are just with their kids and so on. But what I'm. Where I think that we might be able to take away from some of the credibility of these leads is again, just back to simple teenager behavior. Right. If. If mom and dad are dropping us off and our plan is to go off someplace else to the Russian river or to a bowling alley.
- [23:05]
D
Right.
- [23:06]
C
We would do that pretty quickly in the evening, knowing that our ride is coming back to retrieve us at 11pm and we got to go there, have as much fun as we can, and get our asses back to get picked up at 11pm so with this conversation taking place at 9pm I feel like your best lead, if you have to prioritize them, is probably this one of the man that they are spotted with before they are no longer seen. This may tie in with the sighting of them on Guernville Road, presumably hitchhiking because there is that statement of they were last seen getting into a vehicle on Guernville Road, which is very nearby. Regardless, December 28, 1972, over 10 months later, skeletal remains are discovered. We talked about how they were discovered. This turns out to be the site of where Yvonne and Marine's remains were ultimately found. It was eventually confirmed that the two missing were the two deceased. They confirmed this via dental records. The victim's bodies were too decomposed for the coroner to determine their cause of Death. The evidence found at that scene is just like the evidence from where they were last seen. It's minimal.
- [24:30]
D
Right.
- [24:31]
C
So besides the bones, the only evidence at the scene was a gold chain necklace with a cross, a single gold earring and some orange beads. No clothing, no personal belongings other than this jewelry confirmed by one of the mothers as belonging to her daughter. Nearby bushes contain some materials that could have been used to bind the victims before their deaths. The two middle school friends, Yvonne Lisa Weber and Maureen Louise Sterling are considered to be the very first confirmed victims of of the Santa Rosa hitchhiker murders case. Yvonne's stepfather was very blunt with the media and for folks paying attention to the news, his name is David Harrington. When interviewed after the positive identification, he said that all along the Santa Rosa police insisted the two girls were runaways. It is obvious that they weren't. He said the girls may have been hitchhiking and added, I hope other girls will learn by this and not hitchhike.
- [25:44]
D
Yeah. This idea by law enforcement to me is either lazy or stupid.
- [25:48]
C
It's also a sign of the times. Yvonne had three siblings and Maureen had a sister. As for some crime trends and crime statistics, of course the deaths were determined to be a foul play. This marked the 20th and 21st homicide victims of 1972. Of the 1972 calendar year. And that was unfortunately a new high for Sonoma County. The previous record was 9, so more than double. Yes, this is determined in December, near the end of the year. But also. Yes, it also needs to be determined that we have a problem here. Most people think that home security is just an alarm that goes off after a break in happens. Scaring off the intruder, getting neighbors attention if you're lucky. But that's a reactive approach. By the time an intruder is in your home, it is way too late. That's why you should trust Simplisafe. Their system is designed to be proactive. They use smart AI powered cameras to identify threats lurking outside of your home and immediately alert Simplisafe's professional monitoring agents. They access two way audio to confront the person, letting them know that they are being recorded. Trigger sirens, spotlights to scare them off and request rapid police dispatch when needed. All helping to stop the break in, stop the intruder while they are still outside of your home. That's the key. I love Simplisafe. I've been telling you about them for years. They're a fantastic security system for your home, for your business, for your office, whatever property that you want to secure and know that it's Simply Safe. You want to use the power of SimpliSafe. They're a better system at a better price. Visit simply safe.com garage to claim 50% off a new system. That's SimpliSafe.com garage. There's no safe like SimpliSafe.
- [28:02]
B
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- [28:32]
C
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- [31:43]
D
All right, we are back talk. Hands in the air. Cheers to you and cheers to you, Colonel.
- [31:50]
C
Cheers to you, Captain. Cheers to all the people in the back. We are going to start getting into a series of events all taking place after Yvonne and Maureen went missing and most taking place before they are found and eventually identified. So please listen, identify and make note of the similarities regarding things like victimology, evidence methodology and in some cases perhaps signature. As we go the next part of the story. Captain, it's another girl gone missing. We have Kim Wendy Allen. She was born on July 22, 1956. Kim was studying art at Santa Rosa Junior College at the time of her disappearance. She has been described by friends as a unique soul, very principled, but also private and somewhat difficult to get close to. Regardless, Kim was open and enthusiastic about sharing her interest with others, especially those close to her. An eager learner, she was receptive to teaching of all kinds and one teacher described her as having an aura of innocence about her. In high school she had served as a spirit leader for her senior class. Kim was a genuine person who believed people were inherently good and she trusted in people's kindness and decency. Kim Kim's usual mode of transportation, however, was her thumb. And she truly did not believe that she was at risk of any danger. While hitchhiking, her mother as well as several of her teachers tried to warn her about the dangers of catching rides with strangers. On March 4, 1972, 19 year old Kim Allen thumbed a ride from her job. This is in Larkspur, California where she worked at the natural food store. So she caught a ride with two men who agreed to take her part of the way back to her school in Santa Rosa. They were unable to take her all of the way to her destination. They dropped her off down the road at the Bella Avenue Entrance to Highway 101, this is northbound in San Rafael, about 15 miles from where they had picked her up. So they give her a short ride, 15 miles or so. The men said they had dropped her off around 5:20pm that evening and that the young woman had planned to hitchhike the rest of the way back to her school. The art student had been carrying a large wooden soy sauce barrel, 2ft high and a foot wide across the top and open on one end. Imprinted on the barrel were red Chinese characters. So this is a very unique and descriptive item that she had in her possession at this time.
- [35:06]
D
Absolutely.
- [35:07]
C
And as we mentioned, she's an art student, very creative. She was planning on creating a drum with it. But of course we know that she vanished.
- [35:18]
D
One of hitchhiking seems bizarre to you or seems like something that you. I mean, for the longest time when we started covering cases like this, I had a hard time wrapping my head around, like hitchhiking was a normal thing. Talk to anybody that grew up in the the 60s and the 70s and they'll tell you just how common it was. Not not only it might have been common in their life to actually hitchhike, but the amount of individuals I've talked to where they're like, oh yeah, you know, I used to pick up people all the time was just a thing that we did.
- [35:55]
C
Yeah. And we've talked about that in many cases that we've covered from this era and also talked about hitchhiking at length in the trailer at today, at the top of today's show, the afternoon of the following day. So now we're at Sunday, March 5th. The nude body of a woman was found at the base of a steep 20 foot embankment on the north side of Enterprise Road, 8/10 of a mile from the intersection with Bennett Valley Road. The victim was found by two high school students taking a shortcut through the woods. Marks on her wrists and ankles indicated that she had been bound at the hands and feet as if she had been spread eagled or perhaps even hogtied. There was also a wound on her left collarbone, but it was not considered to be a fatal wound. She had been strangled with some type of cord or possibly wire. And the only evidence remaining at the scene was a single gold hoop earring. The pathologist's report confirmed that the young woman had died around midnight on Saturday. This hours before, just hours before the body was discovered. Sonoma county coroner Andrew Johansen said she had been tortured to death and she was slowly and deliberately strangled, taking at least a half an Hour to die. The cause of death was listed as asphyxiation, and the autopsy revealed she had been raped. The medical examiner was able to collect semen from her body, and she also had an oily substance on the right side of her body that authorities said was similar to the oil used in a machine shop to assist in cutting metal. If you have large saws, even. Even a chainsaw that you would use outside to take down a tree, to fell some trees requires oil to keep it going.
- [38:03]
D
So at this scene, they don't find any clothes either, correct?
- [38:08]
C
Yeah, no clothes. According to at least one source, police speculated that the single gold hoop earring that was found at the scene could possibly have belonged to the killer. I'm guessing here that when they show this to people that knew her, nobody was able to confirm that it belonged to her. So detectives are taking a guess here. Like she's found with it. Could it be that it was placed there by somebody else, or. Or did it belong to her? Difficult to say. Investigators also discovered an impression, possibly that of a leg, in the soil at the top of the embankment. About a foot long and 14 inches deep. So at first I thought, you know, this is probably a whole lot of nothing. But then what? When I found sources saying 14 inches deep, this is probably something here. So law enforcement, looking at this, they theorized, and they publicly talked about finding this. They theorized that this hole possibly could have been made by the killer, somebody that was getting rid of the body. The killer slipping and falling as he attempted to dump the body. Moreover, the angle of the impression led them to believe he may have actually seriously injured himself and may have even required medical treatment. That's why they're openly, publicly talking about this very specific, detailed item found at the crime scene. Because if he did, if this person did require medical treatment, they want to talk to a medical facility or medical facility personnel and find out, hey, did you treat anybody recently that came in with this type of injury? I don't know how quickly they were releasing this to the public, because this is. This is one of those items, right, that I have to believe that if you got a whole bunch of good detectives working together on this, Whose call is this? Because I could see one side of the argument being, we got to get this out to the public, because if somebody sought medical treatment, that's our lead. That's probably our guy. Now we know who we need to talk to. But remember, the between abduction and when the body is found is like 24 hours, right? If you put this out too early, maybe the person that is responsible or person's responsible hears this and says, no, no, no, no, not so fast, Mr. We can't go get medical attention. Now, I can. I can wrap it up here and try to walk it off, or I can drive a great or good distance away and seek medical attention there and hope that the dots are not connected. So this is one of those details. It's like you need to get it out. But what is the perfect timing of getting that detail out?
- [41:10]
D
But already we're seeing similarities between this victim and the first two victims.
- [41:17]
C
Quite a bit of similarities. However, keep in mind, because we started with the finding of those first two victims. The finding was 10 months after they vanished. So at this time, what they have in Santa Rosa basically is we got two missing kids. We have no idea where they are. We're leaning toward runaway. And then about a month later, slightly more. Well, actually one day. More than a month, 30 days, because February is a short month. It was a leap year that year. Thirty days later, we're finding the body of this college student. It would take some time, though, so maybe that required medical treatment. Detail came out after the identification. So they didn't positively and publicly state that they had identified the body until March 9th, and the body was found on the 5th. So four days earlier, the remains were positive. Four days later. I'm sorry.
- [42:23]
D
My problem with the first case, though, is that we have eyewitnesses putting them at the skate rink, and we have really. We have people assuming that they saw two girls hitchhiking, and we have no clue if those were the same girls or not. It's just speculation. And like we said, there was. This was common practice for people to hitchhike. So it's very possible it was just two different girls hitchhiking.
- [42:59]
C
And that. That's really. I. I like that you point that out because. So that tip was a potential eyewitness tip that came in after the police had reached out to the public saying, hey, we got these two missing girls, these two missing kids from the skating rink, this arena. Did anybody see anything? And some. A man came forward saying he was driving in the area and he saw two girls matching their description getting into a vehicle. Some of the reports say presumably hitchhiking. I. I couldn't find a report that outwardly said, like, I saw them thumb in the air. And so you're hitting on something that I think is key. It could be any couple of girls hitchhiking. It could also be any couple of girls just getting into a vehicle.
- [43:51]
D
Right? We don't have a lot of details of the actual event.
- [43:55]
C
If I'm looking for one lead, if you tell me I only get one lead to anchor my investigation to. My one lead is going to be the man that approaches some kids that their friend says, I've never seen that guy before. He was older than us and he wanted to smoke pot with him. That's the one I'm anchoring my investigation to.
- [44:17]
D
Well, I think something that's interesting is you were talking about this oily substance that they find at the second crime scene and that actually makes my mind go to bowling alley.
- [44:30]
C
Well, yeah, any form of oil. And I don't know, I would like to see the particulars on, on how they narrowed that down because I've seen some other reports, Captain, that state that it would also be something that they would consider to have been found. Likely to have been found in a mechanic shop, you know, working on cars or vehicles.
- [44:53]
D
Yeah. Or maybe a young man that works at the bowling alley that fixes maybe.
- [44:58]
C
Their understanding of this. Yeah. And that would go back to the. The thought that the two girls were going to go off to a bowling alley. And unfortunately their remains, the state they were found in, were too far gone to pull such of a. Such substance off of their bodies.
- [45:16]
D
Yeah. Because anybody that has been bowling, often you come away feeling a little greasy.
- [45:23]
C
Oh yeah, you're greasy.
- [45:24]
D
You're dirty, playing with your balls and you're a little greasy.
- [45:27]
C
I also think of a couple things here because there is such a quick turnaround between the likely abduction time with Kim Wendy Allen and when her body is then found. So if she was strangled with some type of cord and marks on her wrists and ankles, indicating that she had been bound at the hands and feet, as if she had been spread eagled or perhaps hogtied. So if she were moved elsewhere, you know what kind of location you might be looking for. It could be as simple as it's oil or grease off of the garage of someone's home. But it also could be a working garage. Or it could also be as simple as she was picked up in a van. Somebody had. It was a utility van.
- [46:24]
D
Right.
- [46:25]
C
Somebody had oil or something that had been previously spilled or was still in the vehicle at that time. So while it is helpful to the investigation, it really, the possibilities are still pretty wide open with that detail. But interesting that you point out the, the bowling alley angle. So on the afternoon of March 9, 1972, the remains of Kendi, of Kim Wendy Allen were positively identified, making her actually the first victim whose body was recovered in the Santa Rosa hitchhiker murders. Killings. In addition to the large soy barrel she had been toting, she had also been carrying an orange aluminum frame backpack which would be found several weeks after her murder. When last seen, Kim had been wearing a floral ankle length blue skirt over blue jeans, a gold barrette, and carrying a blue straw bag. She was also wearing an oval turquoise stone ring and a silver setting and had a shoulder purse. The press Democrat, the local newspaper there, reported that she had been wearing a 24 inch necklace made of seashells and other natural materials. So this young woman, this lady, she had style. I mean, you can hear it right there. The, what I find very interesting though is she's a young adult, but it's so specific on what was on her person or with her when she went missing. And it would be easy if all those items were recovered with her, but they weren't. So that's where I go back to this earring. They're not openly saying it, but if you can have someone or someones that are telling you, look, I can name 10 items that she was wearing that day. Oh, I don't recognize that earring. That's where you start to, was that planted there by the person responsible for her abduction?
- [48:37]
D
But also one of the things, because the question that we're going to have to get to are there's similarities in these cases, but there's similarities in a lot of murder cases. Are these cases actually connected? And one of the speculations that somebody might go, well, captain, you're going a little too far here. But if you did abduct these girls from the skate rink and then you hear this speculation of, oh, well, maybe they were hitchhiking, that could give this killer another option, right? Like, oh, I don't have to meet them at the bowling alley or the skating rink or wherever in this public location, because I could be identified and maybe I was identified, but I was identified by one of their peers. So law enforcement doesn't have a lot of information on me. But there's speculation that these girls were hitchhiking. Oh, well, maybe that will be my ruse.
- [49:38]
C
Each one of these cases, let's try to separate them because we got several more to get to and through. But when you separate them, I have problems with each case and I'll try to continue to go through those. My problem with the first case of the the two young girls, again, is simply the man at the arena, he stands out right in this case. So we have some more details Here. All right. Those weren't the only items that were known to be in her possession or on her person when she went missing. So she also had a two checks in her possession and a charge card from a Santa Rosa department store. Of course, these items not found as well. One of the checks was a 150 check from her father and the other in the amount of 56.28. This is from her part time job at the Larkspur Natural Food store. So that is a whole heck of a lot of personal belongings, clothing, accessories and, and such missing from the person and not found with her or around her at the scene. And she's found within 24 hours, very likely less than when she was last seen. Now this is where the story gets a little more strange and weird. So on March 24, 20 days after she goes missing, Kim's personal checkbook was deposited into a drive up mailbox across the street from a post office, this in Kent Field, California. The checkbook which had been deposited into the mailbox, they know it was dropped there between 6am and 12:05pm that day. It contained two fingerprints which police initially thought could possibly have belonged to her killer and were hoping it would lead them to such.
- [51:44]
D
Right.
- [51:45]
C
This is a somewhat weird location. So it's about 40 miles from her destination where she was trying to get to via hitchhiking that day. Depending on what route, this is either a 40 minute drive to about one hour drive time away. This is very close to Larkspur, which is where she worked. This is why I have a big issue with this. Okay? Now mind you, whoever dropped this in the mailbox, it could just be a concerned citizen, a nice person, right? It has the checks would have her address on them or at least the address of the bank. You, you find this, you don't just want it lying around. It's the 70s. Writing bad checks is easy peasy. Back then, baby, if I were alive in the 70s, I'd be living off of bad checks. Somebody drops it in the mailbox and it gets returned. And what's cool is they can determine exactly what day and roughly what time period that had to have been. So I don't think that it was some Good Samaritan that dropped this in the mailbox. Because you have this missing person, you have them publicly, openly asking for information about her. You would think that the person would take the time to notice that, you know, the name on the checkbook, the address on the check, something that they would even if they dropped it in and didn't Figure it out at the time that they would later call and say, hey, I was the Jane or the John that found this checkbook and I was the one that dropped it in there. That never happens. What we do know is between the time that she's abducted and later discarded of. Sorry for the terminology here. No nice way of saying it. A lot of the items that were in her possession, poof, gone. So it would stand to reason that the abductor killer was the one that dropped it in this mailbox 20 days later, 19 days after she's found. What's interesting is the killer, we know she had in her possession a check from her work. So he would also, without her telling her or anything at all, he could just simply look at that check and go, oh, I know where my victim worked, so I'll drive to a location that's near there and choose one of those mailboxes. I point that out because I also think the two men that she hitched a ride from prior to them dropping her off 15 miles north, I find their story a little problematic. Right. I mean, who's to say they didn't kill her, right? So the stories out there regarding these men, I couldn't find their names. The only thing I could find, the only details about these men were a, where they say they picked her up, we know what time she got off work that day. B, approximately where they said they dropped her off. That. That Bella Avenue near the on ramp to the 101. The stories out there, Captain, are that they passed the poly, that they were given a polygraph examination. They passed it, and they were cleared of any wrongdoing. There's a lot of other versions of that story that say that one of the two men was given a polygraph examination and he passed, and they were cleared of any wrongdoing.
- [55:13]
D
So maybe the other one didn't pass.
- [55:15]
C
Or they never gave the other guy. He didn't consent to it.
- [55:18]
D
Well, the nice thing about killing somebody with another person is you have a built in alibi.
- [55:23]
C
Yes. So what. What I'm getting at here is you're. You're knocking on the door of. What I'm getting at is alibi. I don't want to hear that you cleared them. We've talked. Anybody that's listening to the show for a year or more knows that we have discussed the. The problems with clearing somebody just using a polygraph. So we don't need to go down that road. What I want to hear is that, no, we cleared them because minutes after they said they Dropped them off. These two guys were here and there, and we have all these people to place them there. And they were there for this amount of time. That's not what we're getting. We're getting. No. After the fact that at least one of them was given a polygraph exam. And. And they passed, and so we cleared them. This could be as equally irresponsible as thinking that two girls, 12 and 13, ran away.
- [56:14]
D
Well, lazy or stupid, right? If I'm law enforcement, it's going to take a hell of a lot, a hell of a lot for me to clear anybody. I mean, even the family. They're going to go, well, have you ruled out the family yet? I go, everybody's on the table. You work for the victim. Not for the victim's family, not for the public. You work for the victim.
- [56:39]
C
I loved when we talked to the one detective, one of many, but a detective working a case that's still unsolved to this day, a New York case. I asked him, I said, you know, after walking into the scene, did you immediately have any suspects? He goes, hell, yeah, we did. He goes, when I arrived to a crime scene, and everybody but my mother is a. Is a suspect.
- [56:59]
D
Everybody but himself and his mother. Yeah.
- [57:01]
C
He only cleared his mother at that time. He only cleared his mother at that time. One thing I found interesting, though, the disappearance dates here. February 4th for the two girls, March 4th for Kim. I. At first I was thinking it wasn't just the same date, but the same day of the week. However, that year was a leap year, as I said earlier. So the days of the week differ by a day. February 4th was a Friday when the two girls were abducted. Abducted. And March 4th was a Saturday. Abduction.
- [57:40]
D
Yeah, but it makes sense because a young individual looking to do stuff, looking to get out, looking to meet up. Friends are more likely to hitchhike on the weekend.
- [57:55]
C
Something else here, Captain, that is intriguing. We mentioned that deep leg slash foot impression at this scene, with police even openly discussing with the public that, hey, the. The perpetrator or one of the perpetrators may have been injured when placing the body where we found it. Based off of this hole or the impression, 14 inches deep. When we fast forward to December of 72 at the double dump scene off of Franz Valley Road, they reported that there were holes there. Now, at no time do they ever say that they were similar in nature to the one found at the scene for Kim Allen. They just simply described them as holes. But I thought this to be quite interesting, as vague as a description as that is. It is something that is not entirely dissimilar from something found at this other scene.
- [59:11]
D
Want to thank you so much for joining us here in the garage. So much more to get to stick around for part two.
- [59:16]
C
Until then, be good, be kind, and don't litter.
- [60:01]
A
Can lighter structures really be stronger? Yes, they can.
- [60:06]
C
At least.
- [60:07]
A
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