CA CA - Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders, 7 girls/young women, 1972-1973

[Claireishere]

Also worth noting is he apparently took her clothing and arms with him. Which again could match this but also that earlier general profile of the subject it said they thought neatness mattered. When the police showed up at his house he had a wet carpet from his van hung over his clothes line. He had just washed it.

 

[Claireishere]

Searching stuff this AM and found this case. Could this be possible later victims? Found with no clothing,both known to Hitchiker and disappeared in the general area.https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.com/news/amp/magazine-35452690

 

[DebbS]

Edmund Kemper was definitely looked at for the SRHM. One thing that would rule him out is that the third victim, Caroline Davis, found at the Franz Valley Road site was killed after Kemper's arrest.

Another suspect that was looked at the same time as Kemper was John Bunyard. Both are mentioned in this article.



Then in 1981 Stephen Peter Morin was investigated as a suspect.

 

[Claireishere]

I saw it mentioned that they suspected a Jr. College professor but he was killed in 1976. Does anyone know if he was ruled out?

 

[DebbS]

On another note, I wonder if the places that the fires are occurring in Calistoga and Willits include (or began in) the same ravines that the killer dumped the women down all those years ago. Seems like the fires and dump sites were not far from one another. Could be nothing, but I thought it worth mentioning in case anyone has an idea if the crime scenes are now destroyed by the fires.

I know that the Franz Valley Road site was burned. The home on that property was lost as well as the homes across the street and other neighboring properties. This is where Yvonne Weber, Maureen Sterling and Caroline Davis were found.

Theresa Walsh was thought to have been dumped along Mark West Springs Road near the Mark West Springs Lodge where the creek runs parallel to the road. The Lodge did not burn but the fire was all around it. Theresa was found downstream about a half mile from the intersection of Michelle and Lorraine roads. Michelle is off of Mark West Springs Road. That entire area was burned and many homes lost.

Lori Kursa and Jane Doe were found on Calistoga Road. I know that Calistoga Road was closed due to the Tubbs fire and that the site where they were found was within the fire zone but I'm not sure if that exact spot was burned.

Kim Allen was found on Enterprise Road. That area of Santa Rosa was affected by the Nuns fire but as near as I can tell by looking at the Structure Status map, Enterprise Road was surrounded by fire on the south end but no homes were lost on that particular road.

 

[DebbS]

I saw it mentioned that they suspected a Jr. College professor but he was killed in 1976. Does anyone know if he was ruled out?

That was Fred Manalli and he has not been ruled out for committing at least one of the murders, that of Kim Allen.

It is not universally accepted that all of the SRHM victims were killed by the same killer. There may have been two or more separate killers.

 

[burblestein]

I just googled Singleton. Wow, it's like Singleton just suddenly burst into notoriety with his fiendish mutilation of Mary Vincent. A vicious slimeball like him seems like he must have a past criminal record. It is probably littered with offenses against girls and women.

However, as serial murderers generally progress in nastiness throughout their careers, and Singleton wasn't convicted of murder until after he raped and mutilated Mary Vincent, I am dubious of previous murders. Dubious, but not altogether convinced. A crud like this is never innocent; it''s just a question as to what he has done.

Now if we could find out that Singleton lived in the Santa Rosa area at some time, so that he could have known about these obscure body drop sites, the case against him would be that much stronger.

 

[burblestein]

I can name one difficulty in attributing the Hitchhiker Murders to Edmund Kemper. He was locked up from 25 April 1973 onwards, making it impossible for him to have murdered Carolyn Davis, Theresa Walsh, and Calistoga Jane Doe. Thus he is excluded for at least some of these murders. If they must be considered as a series, he is excluded for all.

 

[kemo]

The Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders have captured the interests of many True Crime aficionados. The possibility that a serial killer was responsible for the murder of 7 or more young girls near the small town of Santa Rosa during a period of less than two years creates quite an opportunity for sleuthing. The enigma of this case is that these murders could all be unrelated and were just some of many young women who died at the hands of sexual predators while hitchhiking in the greater SF Bay Area in the 1970’s.

Hitchhiking was very common in the area at the time but it created opportunities for predators and the Hwy 101 corridor, that went right through Santa Rosa, was a particularly good area for hitchhiking. The region was considered very tolerant of the “hippy” lifestyle. While the number of murdered young women who fit this pattern was clearly higher in the Santa Rosa area than other parts of the Bay Area, the availability of young women hitchhiking in that area was also much higher. In the days before DNA, the bodies of young women dumped off of isolated roads usually lacked any clear markers or signature. Law Enforcement could never be sure which ones were connected. There were plenty of known SK’s who operated in that part of the state at the time as well as a few unknown ones. There were certainly some predators who did it once or twice and stopped.

Fred Manalli lived in Sebastopol, a few miles west of Santa Rosa at the time and taught at Santa Rosa City College. On August 26 1976, he died in a head-on crash on a local highway. Apparently, in the wreckage were some drawings of sadomasochistic activity including some that appeared to represent Manalli, dressed as a woman, engaging in bondage/torture activity with a girl who bore a resemblance to Kim Allen.

Debra Silva, who created the web site “The Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders” http://www.santarosahitchhikermurders.com/, got hold of a letter he wrote to his literary agent saying that he had been questioned by the police about the Kim Allen murder and he was thinking of using the experience for a writing project. This is all very interesting and it has generated in a lot of speculation that Manalli may have been the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murderer, or at least the killer of Kim Allen. His name has also been bandied about as the Zodiac Killer. From what I can tell however, the Sonoma County Sheriff Dept has not considered him a serious suspect.

It seems to me that the Greater Bay Area in California like the Houston-Galveston Tx Area had a high number of young girls who were missing or murdered in the 1970’s and many of the cases were never solved. The difficulty in solving the cases was that many if not most of the victims engaged in hitchhiking and bodies usually turned up, highly decomposed over a wide geographic area.


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[burblestein]

kemo's observations on hitchhiking and the professor are an enlightening post. However, the claim that every Santa Rosa hitchhike victim fell prey to a different killer cannot stand close observation.

To begin with, two teen girls disappeared together. There's no evidence they were each killed by a different murderer, therefore it is logical to assume a single killer for them. They were dropped on an obscure spot on Franz Valley Road. It is such an out-of-the-way location that it beggars belief in coincidence that a second killer would drop another body there, but it happened. Thus, Maureen Sterling, Yvonne Weber, and Carolyn Davis seem logically to be victims of Killer #1.

Another clump of three victims was on Calistoga Road. Although it may argued that Lori Lee Kursa bailed out of a moving car there, and that Terry Walsh floated down to the site, the counter is that there is over 16 miles of Calistoga Road available for disposing of bodies, so why there? Therefore, Killer #2.

I don't have to present a case for Kim Allen's separate killer; kemo has already done that. And I fail to see Jeannette Kamahele as part of the series. Killers # 3 and #4.

The geographic outliers are the pair of girls found near Willits. I have my own suspect for that one. Jackie Ray Hovarter.

So, I have made the case here for five killers. Personally, I believe the two clumps of three girls were all murdered by the same man.

 

[burblestein]

I realize I have failed to mention my decision table that was responsible for Post #18, as well as the above.

I listed all the SR victims down the left edge of 18" x 22" graph paper. I added the Willits pair, and murders for which Hovarter was convicted.

Across the top I listed items to be checked for commonalities: The list included:
Date/location where victim was last seen
Victim's physical statistics
Direction of travel
Location of body drop
Condition of the remains
Cause of death
Whether they had been sexually assaulted
Whether earrings were found
Remarks column

 

[kemo]

kemo's observations on hitchhiking and the professor are an enlightening post. However, the claim that every Santa Rosa hitchhike victim fell prey to a different killer cannot stand close observation.

To begin with, two teen girls disappeared together. There's no evidence they were each killed by a different murderer, therefore it is logical to assume a single killer for them. They were dropped on an obscure spot on Franz Valley Road. It is such an out-of-the-way location that it beggars belief in coincidence that a second killer would drop another body there, but it happened. Thus, Maureen Sterling, Yvonne Weber, and Carolyn Davis seem logically to be victims of Killer #1.

Another clump of three victims was on Calistoga Road. Although it may argued that Lori Lee Kursa bailed out of a moving car there, and that Terry Walsh floated down to the site, the counter is that there is over 16 miles of Calistoga Road available for disposing of bodies, so why there? Therefore, Killer #2.

I don't have to present a case for Kim Allen's separate killer; kemo has already done that. And I fail to see Jeannette Kamahele as part of the series. Killers # 3 and #4.

The geographic outliers are the pair of girls found near Willits. I have my own suspect for that one. Jackie Ray Hovarter.

So, I have made the case here for five killers. Personally, I believe the two clumps of three girls were all murdered by the same man.

Not to split hairs, but I didn’t mean to claim that all of the women had fallen victim to different killers, I only meant to make the case that we can not be certain which were related and which weren’t. Obviously Weber and Sterling were part of the same crime. One perpetrator killed both of them. Davis was dumped at almost the same spot but her manner of death, Strychnine poisoning, is very strange. Probably related.

Kurdsa was possibly seen being forced into a van with three men in it on Calistoga Rd. It has been speculated that she died jumping from the moving vehicle. We know little about Jane Doe except that she was found about 100 yards from where Kursk was found. They may be related but it is by no means certain. I don’t think Walsh was found anywhere near them. She was in Mark West Creek, a few miles to the north.

It’s possible these are all related or just about any combination could be. Without a clear pattern, LE must investigate each case separately. It makes it much harder to solve.

By the Willits girls, you mean Graham and Trimble? That was 1978 and further north of Santa Rosa. I never considered them related to SRHM. I believe Hovarter is only known to have committed one murder but there may be more. What info on him do you have?

There were two other Santa Rosa murders that could be related. Eva Blau was found dead in a field off Petaluma Hill rd in Santa Rosa on 3/12/70. Cause of death was undetermined but the presentation of her body suggest sexually related murder. Susan Dye was found strangled under an overpass near Cloverdale on 10/16/75. She had been hitchhiking from Humboldt County. It is unclear why both of these cases are not linked to the SRHM.

As far as I know, the Sonoma County Sheriff Dept and the Santa Rosa PD have not released much information about any of these cases. 45 years have elapsed so it is doubtful any will be solved.


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[burblestein]

kemo, it's my understanding that Terry Walsh was found floating just below the spot where Lori Lee Kursa's remains were found. The question for Walsh is, Was she tumbled all the way down the bank, or was she dropped upstream to float down?

As long as one of the Willits bodies remained misidentified as a boy, there was no reason to connect these deaths into the Santa Rosa series.

 

[burblestein]

Jackie Ray Hovarter was a trucker, an independent owner/operator. He made late night runs along Hwy 101 from the Bay Area to the sawmill at Samoa near Eureka. On 11 December 1984, while southbound on Hwy 101, he picked up a hitchhiking 15-year-old girl. He kidnapped her. At Squaw rock in southern Mendocino County, he raped her and shot her twice in the head and left her for dead. Incredibly, she survived, and her testimony led to his arrest. After his arrest, he admitted to four murders.

On 24 August 1984, he kidnapped teenager Danna Walsh from a convenience store two blocks from my home in Willits. When he was done with her, he dropped her body off the Rio Dell Bridge near Scotia. Hovarter would be convicted of this murder, as well as the attempted homicide.

He admitted to three other murders. In 1980, a girl in her early teens knocked on Hovarter's door looking for her lost dog. Hovarter murdered her in his own house and disposed of the body at a local dump. In 1981 or 1982, he murdered a young woman while visiting his father in Oklahoma. In 1983, he picked up a southbound hitchhiker from a Eureka truck stop. He claimed he murdered her after pulling over between Miranda and Redway, but LE couldn't find a body. There's a lot more detail on this in Gray George's "Lost Coast Highway", pages 306 - 363.

To me the cogent info about Hovarter is that he was set up to haul lumber. Investigators found out he had a long history of hauling from the Samoa mill. However, In 1978, there was also a mill in Fort Bragg. If Hovarter were hauling from that mill, he would be driving right past the turnoff where Kerry and Francine were found. He would pass it in the lonely wee morning hours.

Hovarter would also make legal history: http://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-supreme-court/1226817.html

Hovarter remains locked up on San Quentin's death row for Danna Walsh's murder. Gray George claims the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders ceased when Hovarter was incarcerated.

 

[kemo]

kemo, it's my understanding that Terry Walsh was found floating just below the spot where Lori Lee Kursa's remains were found. The question for Walsh is, Was she tumbled all the way down the bank, or was she dropped upstream to float down?

As long as one of the Willits bodies remained misidentified as a boy, there was no reason to connect these deaths into the Santa Rosa series.

I don’t mean to be a stickler for details but Walsh’s body was found in Mark West Creek near Lorraine way in north-west Santa Rosa off Mark West Springs rd; a long way from Calistoga rd.
If I am wrong, a lot of the information out there is wrong. Do you have a reference.

Interesting about Hovarter. I assume the other victims he claims have not been identified. He was living in San Pablo in the east bay at the time he was arrested. Do we know how long he had been doing that run up to Humboldt County?

For whatever it is worth, Eva Blau was found dead off the roadway in a sexually suggestive pose but her death was ruled poisoning from some unidentified toxin related to mescaline she had ingested. Within a few days, Marie Antoinette Anstey was found nude, dumped off the roadside in nearby Lake County. She had mescaline in her blood and in her stomach and she appeared to have died from some toxin. Both women appear to have had some “consensual interaction” with one or more unidentified men before their deaths. Both deaths were considered related.

Mescaline was quite popular at the time. Sort of an LSD-lite but it was not considered dangerous. Law Enforcement ruled out the possibility that this was a “bad batch” situation since no other deaths were reported. The odd “strychnine poisoning” of Carolyn Davis sounds quite similar. Could they be related?




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[burblestein]

I appreciate your being a stickler for details, kemo. In this case, it leads us from error to truth. You are indeed correct that I was mistaken and Terry Walsh was not dropped in the immediate vicinity of other victims. However, she was dropped within a few minutes drive of five other victims.

I wish I had more clips to refer to on these cases, but I am largely dependent on "Lost Coast Highway" for info.

To your roll of possibly overlooked victims, I would add Lisa Smith, age 17. She disappeared on 17 March 1971 while hitchhiking on Hearn Avenue, which crosses under Hwy 101 in southern Santa Rosa, as can be seen here. https://www.google.com/maps/place/H...d0e146a0d949a!8m2!3d38.4142745!4d-122.7270026 That early date would make her the first SR Killer's victim.

 

[burblestein]

I found an interesting link to Eva Blau and Marie Anstey: http://zodiackillersite.com/viewtopic.php?f=37&t=376

Eva's body was found in an open field; it was not flung down an embankment. She was found with clothing in disarray instead of being naked. Although her panties and skirt had been pulled down, she had been shielded from unseemly exposure by her coat, which had been spread over her.

When a murder victim is found covered from public viewing, it is usually a sign that the murderer had some emotional connection with the victim. The SRHM showed no such signs of caring for any of his victims. Need I add I am dubious about Eva being a victim of the SRHM?

 

[Mountain Mama]

Anyone know of any links to photos of Hovarter?

Good point burblestein, Lisa Smith sounds like an early victim of the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker killer. As you mention, she was last seen hitch hiking right in Santa Rosa in 1971.

Has the name John Kelley been mentioned as a possible suspect? It is a long shot but here is a link about him. http://www.times-standard.com/article/NJ/20151230/NEWS/151239993

I believe his M.O. is too different, but he operated in Northern California so I figured why not throw it out there.

I am definitely interested in learning more about Hovarter.

 

[kemo]

https://questersite.wordpress.com/category/true-crimecold-case/sonoma-coed-killer/

Lisa Smith may have been an early victim of the SRHM but she survived. Apparently she left her foster home in Santa Rosa, perhaps returning to Livermore. The problem with any attempt to locate her is that there are so many Lisa Smiths.


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[burblestein]

That's a fascinating link, kemo.