Casefile True Crime - Case 53: The East Area Rapist 1976 (Part 1)

Episode Date: May 13, 2017

[Part 1 of 5] In the summer of 1976, a serial offender began terrorising several quiet, suburban communities throughout Northern California’s Sacramento County. He would stalk his victims before breaking into their homes under the cover of darkness, binding them and raping them repeatedly. By the end of the year, he’d committed a total of ten attacks.  --- Researched and written by Anna Priestland Download the map of the attacks here For all credits and sources please visit casefilepodcast.com/case-53-east-area-rapist-1976-part-1

This series deals with horrific sexual assault offences, and there's a lot of them. We feel it's a very important story to cover, but it won't be suitable for all listeners, so please use your discretion. If you decide to keep listening, we will be releasing a map with each episode to help as you go along, or for you to refer to afterwards. You will find a link to the map in the show notes on our website, or you should be able to access the link from the show notes in your app. I can kill you. I can kill you. I can kill you.

I can kill you. I can kill you. I can kill you. In the mid-1970s, California was reeling from the end of the Vietnam War. Over 5,500 Californians didn't make it back from Vietnam by the time the war ended in April 1975. Lives for a lot of Americans had been changed forever. In 1976, Rancho Cordova was a fairly new post-war suburb in East Sacramento. Beginning as a housing development in the 50s, by the 70s it was predominantly a middle-class single-story neighborhood, surrounded by other similar

suburbs. Much of these outer suburbs at the time had wide open spaces, either earmarked for housing developments, schools, or park lands. Houses were going up everywhere, for sale signs and for lease signs were common on every street. The area was a hot spot during the gold rush of the mid-1800s, and as the gold ran scarce, the land was transformed and used for grape growing, with vineyards spreading through the rolling hills. With the addition of Aerojet, the aerospace company, and the local Maida Air Force Base close by, post-war families saw opportunities growing in the area. Maida Air Force Base employed over seven and a half thousand people by the mid-1970s, and with four army bases within an hour of the city,

many local families had some link to the armed forces. Rancho Cordova was the place where a wave of violence and terror came crashing down on the state of California, washing away any notion of safety and security of everyday Americans. The survivors and victims, most of whom were barely experienced enough at life to know such evil existed in the world, were unprepared for the horror to come. In fact, no one was prepared. Policing at the time was about to go through some changes. According to retired Sacramento detective Richard Shelby, officers learnt most of their skills on the job. There was little specialty training for the more serious areas of policing. Training programs which turned

officers into professionals in major crime investigations were still in their infancy. Sexual assault investigations were usually handed to whoever was on the desk at the station, and there was little in the way of formal guidelines for such cases. If an officer had knowledge of a particular area learnt on the job, they were often assigned a similar case. They did what they could to get the job done. In 1976, Richard Shelby was a detective with the Sacramento Sheriff's Department. Fellow detective Carol Daly handed him a stack of reports relating to an unknown offender dubbed the early bird rapist, and a copycat offender called the early morning rapist. The attacks of

these offenders were committed a few years earlier, 72 to 74, and no arrests were made. Carol Daly was doing a follow-up investigation on the early bird rapist, as the offender had by now been identified, but had not yet been arrested. The number one suspect who lived nearby had felt the heat of the investigation, and suddenly moved his family to Montana. Sacramento had seen its fair share of serial offenders by the time Shelby read those reports, and he was certain there would be more. He was right. According to the Encyclopedia of Serial Killers, in the period between 1971 and 1992, 65 serial killers were apprehended in the United States. Of that number,

11% were in the Sacramento area. But just like everyone else, Shelby had no idea what was about to come. In June 1976, Detective Shelby received a call. A young woman had been attacked in her home. A 23-year-old woman had been enjoying the beginning of the Californian summer. Rancho Cordova was a typically normal and safe place to live. Safe enough that the woman's father felt comfortable leaving his daughter to stay home alone for a month while he traveled back to Boston following a death in the family. Since her father had left, things had been mostly normal. Although in the previous month, she had noticed a car occasionally cruising her

neighborhood, one she had not noticed before. She saw the driver a few times, and when he saw her, he looked away and drove off. The car stopped cruising by, and she never thought too much more of it. A couple of weeks later, in early June 1976, she started receiving prank calls. The person on the other end would remain silent for a few seconds and then hang up. It wasn't something that particularly worried her, and seeing as her father would be home again soon, she didn't think anything more of it. It was 4am on the morning of June 18th when she awoke to a methodical tapping on her bedroom door. There was a man standing in her doorway, lit partially from a light down the hall. He was naked from the waist down. It took a few moments to realise she wasn't dreaming.

The tapping, tap, tap, tap, was the sound of a large knife hitting the frame of her bedroom door. The first things she saw were his eyes, fixed on her through small holes in a dirty white or grey, tight fabric mask. He was lean at around 160lbs. His legs muscular, but lean and covered in dark hair. He was young, maybe around 20-25 years old and about 5 feet 9 inches tall. He had a noticeably small penis. The mask had a heavy seam down the centre, as well as the small eye holes. There was a hole for his mouth. He wore a dark coloured t-shirt with a pocket on the left chest and black gloves. The woman hid beneath her sheets. The only movement she was able to make is terror set in. He moved quickly, jumping on top of her and ripping the

sheet down. Holding the knife in his left hand, he pressed the tip against the temple and drew blood. If you make a move or sound, I'll stick this knife in you. His voice like an angry whisper, his mouth hardly moved, his teeth clenched. Pointing the knife at a nightgown, he demanded she take it off as he stood up and paced the room. He had bought his own thin rope, already cut into lengths, ready to tie her up. He used his rope to tie her hands tightly behind her back using a square knot and loop, but it wasn't enough. He found a cloth belt of hers in the wardrobe and used it to make sure she was tied up tight. He bound her so tightly, she almost immediately began to lose the circulation in her hands. He then raped her. Do you have money? You better

have money in the house. She went to answer him, but he cut her off. Shut up. He found her hair dryer in the bathroom and grabbed her again on the bed, wrapping the cord of the hair dryer tightly around her ankles. He grabbed her bra and wrapped that tightly along with the cord. She kept her eyes on him as he paced the room until he found her night slip. Eyeballing her, he came at her again and wrapped the slip around her head, this time gagging her. Don't make a move while I'm here or I'll kill you. He left the room and she could hear him rummaging around in the kitchen, opening drawers and pulling things out. He was talking in a low whisper and when she heard him say,

I told you to shut up. She immediately thought someone else was with him, but she could only hear one set of footsteps. She soon realized he was talking to someone who wasn't there. Then everything went quiet. After what felt like an eternity frozen in silence, she realized he was gone. They took her a long time to struggle loose from her angle bindings and get to the front door. The door was ajar and he was gone. With her wrists still beyond, she couldn't reach the wall phone. Her fingers were numb from a lack of blood flow and they were starting to turn black. She fumbled, she couldn't feel them, but her only way to get help was to use the phone. She finally got to her father's empty bedroom, struggling with the phone

she managed to call the police. Outside in the backyard, her wallet was found with contents scattered around. He had climbed the back fence from another house to gain access to the yard and the back door. Nothing of value was missing from the house. A bird bath had been moved into position underneath the phone line leading from the house. He had attempted to cut the phone line but only cut through the insulation so the phone was still working. He had jimmied to the back door open. Police assumed this was a targeted, isolated incident. A well planned and thought out attack by a young opportunist offender. He left no fingerprints as he kept his gloves on the entire time. He had stolen $14 and a few packets of Winston cigarettes.

Police took a statement and after being taken to the hospital, the victim had swabs and evidence taken. Although it would be another two years before rate kits would be used with great effect in criminal investigations, there was still at that time a more primitive version of the rate kit. It was also 10 years before DNA analysis would be used on crime scenes. Although even at that point in the mid-70s forensic evidence was valued at crime labs and that they were still able to determine certain traits in body fluids. Detective Shelby was called in to work on the case and he looked into the victim's background where she worked, her lifestyle and whom she came into contact with. The victim worked as an insurance radar for the Pacific Bell Telephone Company.

She had recently lost her mother and lived with her father, a retired US Army serviceman. Shelby ascertained that being ex-army though had spent some time around the military hospital that made their air force base, a small hospital with only eight or so rooms and only a handful of stuff. If the rapist knew police were keeping a close eye on this survivor, they didn't deter him. He continued to call her, taunting her with hang-up calls for two weeks following the attack. She felt like she was still being watched. Just short of a month later, 10 miles away in the middle to upper class area of Del Deo, Carmichael, two sisters aged 15 and 16 were home alone. Their parents were away for a few days on

a church hiking weekend but had no reason to worry about leaving their teenage daughters to look after themselves. There had been no news reports that a rapist was in the area. Their neighborhood was safe and their house, a single story detached corner home, was in a close-knit community where everyone looked out for each other. They had taught their daughters to lock the doors and had comfort in the fact that they had each other. On Friday night, July 16th, the sisters watched television until about 10pm. They checked all locks and doors before going to bed. What the sisters didn't know was that in the days, possibly weeks leading up to this night, someone had been watching them, watching from afar and deciding which of the two would be his next victim. At some stage,

he had gotten close enough to learn the parents would be away for the weekend. As he approached the house, it was nearing 2am July 17th. He didn't pause to look inside the master bedroom to make sure the parents weren't home. He already knew they weren't. Size 9 Wavy patterned boot impressions were present outside the older sister's bedroom window. Confirmed later to be from a type of hiking boot. There were enough impressions to determine he stood there for a fair amount of time. He then walked straight to the back patio where he quietly pried the sliding glass door open. He entered the house and walked down the hallway, quiet enough to not wake either girl. He headed straight for the older sister's bedroom, passing the younger

sister's room on the way. Again, he had brought with him four equal lengths of pre-cut rope. The older sister jolted from her deep sleep to the man sitting on her back. He pointed a knife she could not see into the side of her neck. If you make a sound, I'll stick it right through and kill you. His voice a strange growling whisper. He bound her wrists so tight she almost immediately felt them go numb. She struggled and as she did, he hit her in the head over and over. He climbed off her and ripped the phone from the wall. He threatened to kill her again, then told her he would only be in the house for around 30 minutes and was only there to rob them.

When he left the room, she was able to take a good look at him, around five feet nine inches tall, 18 to 20 years old with a lean build. He wore a brown mask with only eye holes, but over the top he had her multicoloured beanie on. He must have gotten it from her wardrobe. He was wearing corduroy pants and a printed shirt. She froze as she heard boots stomp down the hallway towards her sister's room. The younger sister was who he wanted. He had been watching her. She was his choice. She was taller than her older sister and possibly appeared older to the intruder. When she woke to a gloved hand covering her mouth, she froze. Unsure if she was awake or asleep, she tried to yell but couldn't.

Two pale, angry eyes, like little lights appearing from the darkness of his mask, fixed on hers. She couldn't see his mouth but heard his whispering words through clenched teeth. Shut up. I have a knife and if you don't shut up, I'll kill you. She jumped so far she rolled off the bed and onto the floor. He had made the mistake of standing beside her as he threatened her and to now she was running for the door yelling for her sister. But in just a few steps he had her. He hit her hard, three or four times on the back of her head as she fell to the floor. She was dazed but conscious. He hit her again a few times and as he did, she made the split second decision to pretend to be unconscious. He dragged her back

into the bedroom. Shut up. I've already tied up your sister. Still pretending to be unconscious, she didn't respond. This only angered him. Get your hands behind your back. The rope was knotted tightly around her wrists. He did the same to her ankles. He then put his mouth to her ear. You do everything that I want and I will fill my bag and leave. He yanked at her face and shoved a sock in her mouth. He then wrapped a belt around her head keeping the gag in place. He yanked her under the bed face down. If you move or make the bed twinge, I will kill you. He then left the room. Like in the previous attack in Rancho Cordova, the victim could hear drawers opening and slamming

and things being thrown around. A few minutes later, he came to her side and pulled the towel tighter over her head before leaving again. More rummaging could be heard this time in the kitchen before she heard his footsteps getting closer to her door. She heard the click of the light switch and she could tell through the towel that the room had gotten lighter. She felt the thud of the intruder on the bed and then the strong smell of baby lotion as he untied the bindings on her ankles. The Nazi tide must have been the type to be able to stay tight but easily undone as he did this with ease. He was on top of her but strangely he never rested his full weight on her. He was holding his weight back. He raped her and then tied her

ankles back together. Where's the money? In a state of shock she motioned towards her dresser draw where she had six dollars hidden away. He pulled out the drawers and then threw them down spilling the contents across the floor. On the top of the dresser sat a photo of the young girl with her boyfriend at their junior prom. He left her room and as he approached her sister's room she froze. She had no idea what had happened to her older sister at this point but he walked straight past her without a word and went through her drawers as well. He made his way back to the younger sister's room and stood over her. I knew when I saw you at the junior prom I had to have you. He raped her again before ransacking her room one more time. He then left her room and searched

the house again pacing up and down pulling drawers out slamming cupboards. He spent what seemed like an eternity in the kitchen opening and closing the refrigerator door. He would then appear again at the side of her bed. He did this a total of four times each time reappearing and raping her again. The last time he came back he stood by her side. Where's the doctor's drugs? I looked in the fridge and they're not there. Through his rummaging in the house he had likely discovered that the girl's father was a doctor a cardiologist. He may have known this already but it was only after a long period of ransacking in a location where prescriptions were commonly kept that he came in and demanded drugs. The girl shook her head. He was angry his chest

moving up and down as he breathed heavily through his mouth. He walked out of the room and after a minute there was total silence. Both sisters bounced separately in their own bedrooms lay frozen in fear. They took them quite a few minutes to realise he had left. After they heard a car drive away only then did they attempt to get free from their bindings. When the younger sister was able to wriggle the towel off her head she saw the time on her radio. It was 4 30 a.m. For two and a half hours she had been terrorised within an inch of her life as her sister lay helplessly bound in the next room. She managed to get herself off the bed her hands now void of any circulation and her feet aching from the rope wrapped around them. She hobbled as best she could to her older sister's room.

Her older sister had managed to free herself from her own wrist ties. After cutting the younger sister's binds they huddled in their parents' room and called the police. The officer assigned to the case was Detective Walt Cousin. An examination of the crime scene showed the similar traits of the first attack attempting to instill a level of comfort in the victim by telling them he was only there to rob them but then carrying out brutal rapes. Both houses were ransacked but nothing of great value taken and there were no fingerprints but the rapist had left something behind this time. He started to leave little clues small intricate signatures that would enable police to link him to each crime as time went on. The victims had seen him wearing the multicoloured beanie

owned by the older sister but it was only when the police found the rapist had placed the beanie along with its matching set of mittens in a random drawer that they got a glimpse into his tendency for deliberately moving things around in his victims' homes. They also found two empty Coors beer cans outside and another on the kitchen counter. The beer cans didn't belong to the household. They guessed he would have had to have brought a bag of some sort to carry the beers and likely the pre-cut rope and baby lotion as the baby lotion didn't belong to the household either. Neither sister smelt beer on his breath so it was theorised that he either drank these after the attack just prior to leaving the house or he had tipped the beers down the sink

and left the cans for some reason. His mentioning of seeing the victim at her prom was discounted as being true as her prom photo was in plain sight of the rapist. One thing that caught the attention of police was the mention of drugs. Most interestingly the fact that the attacker knew that some drugs are kept in the refrigerator. The father's doctor's bag sat completely untouched in the master bedroom so it was hard to determine if he really was after drugs or if this was something to throw the victims and the police off. One thing was clear however, he was familiar with medicines to know to look in the fridge. Although there were no footprints found inside, outside it was clear that the rapist left the same way he came. Through the backsliding door

and over the back fence where he left scuff marks from his size 9 hiking boots, he had spent considerably more time in this house than the last. He had escalated a notch by attacking two people at once, increasing his level of control. The two locations he had struck so far, Rancho Cordova and Del Deo, Carmichael, were around 10 miles apart by road and just a few miles as the crow flies. The two areas were separated by the winding American River. The only means across the river north or south was either the What Avenue bridge a couple of miles to the east or the Sunrise Boulevard bridge a couple of miles to the west. Both areas were quiet and ran alongside major

roads and arterials. Back at the station Detective Cousin spoke with Detective Shelby. Immediately Shelby knew it was the same rapist, the MO fit, the stalking, the type of access to the house, the ransacking and promises of only wanting to rob the victims. The other thing which jumped out was the fact that in both attacks the victims parents were away. But Cousin had something else to report. A few days prior Cousin had attended a house close by to the sister's home in Malbraway, Carmichael. A man of around 50 years of age stepped into his garage and interrupted another man rummaging through his toolbox and cabinets. The intruder ran at the man. In one hand he had a short baton with padding on one end, in the other hand he had a revolver.

The homeowner was hit and knocked to the ground. Detective Shelby immediately knew the club that Cousin was describing was a type of military training weapon called a pugil stick. The intruder in the garage fit the description of the rapist, but it was clear he was not there to attack and rape anyone inside the house. He was collecting tools to aid his break-ins. Of concern was that if this man was the rapist he had a gun in his possession. What was cleared to Detective Shelby is that there was a very high chance they were seeing the beginning of another serial offender. And one thing Shelby knew, serial offenders usually don't just stop. Although Shelby didn't raise the alarm just yet,

he knew it was only a matter of time before they heard from this man again. In those days before special operations units or field experts were assigned, detectives often kept things to themselves until they had further proof, and this is exactly what Shelby did. Shelby thought hard about the possible link to the military. Within an hour's drive of Sacramento in any direction there were five military bases. He contacted the Air Force Office of Special Investigations, also known as the OSI, as well as the other branches affiliated with each base. The net was wide and an enormous amount of people would have to be combed through to list possible suspects. With the age of the attacker given by the survivors, if he affiliated

with the military he could have been a young recruit, or at the other end of the scale could have been the son or younger brother of a serviceman. The net was large, but it seemed like a good start. One of the responding police patrol officers, Sid Curtis, told Detective Cousin about a man known for lewd conduct who lived close to the sister's home. Cousin followed this up, but the man was determined too old to be the rapist. In a strange coincidence there was someone with almost the exact same name as this man who went to school with the sisters, but he too was ruled out, he didn't fit the physical description. So the police had little to go on, it was decided to refrain from notifying the public, they wanted to keep it low profile. The police would patrol

and hopefully they would catch him before he struck again. They didn't. It was just over a month later, in the early hours of Sunday 29th of August 1976, that he struck again. On this particular hot summer night he had made his way back to Rancho Cordova. The street was less than 10 minutes walk and just a 2 minute drive from his first attack two months earlier. He had been drawn back to that location. The house was like the others he targeted, a single story home on a quiet street filled with a mixture of hardworking blue collar families as well as the upper middle class. The bedrooms sat at the front of the house, their windows facing the street, and the kitchen and dining areas at the back. A mother and her

two daughters aged 12 and 15 were inside. At 3am the 12 year old daughter woked to the sound of the chimes hanging from her curtain rod. She immediately glanced in the direction of her window and saw the silhouette of a man prying open the screen. He was using his left hand, and he saw her too. She bolted out of the room towards her mother's bedroom. After waking her mother they both went quickly back to the young girl's bedroom. As they did, the figure outside ran quickly towards the fence. The mother and youngest daughter went to wake the eldest daughter, but she wouldn't get up. Presuming they had scared the would-be intruder away, the mother didn't insist that her oldest

daughter get up. The mother went straight for the kitchen to call the sheriff's office. The two huddled together on the floor and dialed the number for the sheriff's department. As the numbers clicked over, the sound of the chimes echoed through the house. Then they heard the thud of someone hitting the floor. The intruder had not run away. He had gone and found a chair, placing it back at the bottom of the 12 year old's bedroom window, which was fairly high off the ground. When he appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, the first thing the woman and her daughter saw was his gun, pointed straight at them. Then they saw that he was completely naked from the waist down.

Through clenched teeth, they heard him say, freeze, as he ordered the mother to hang up the phone. He approached them and stood above them. His gun pointed right in their faces, and in his other hand, a short club, yellow and wooden, similar style to a police baton. Who else is in the house? The mother didn't answer. Instead, she grabbed his wrist and shoved his gun away from her and her daughter's direction. He reacted by beating her over the head with both his gun and the baton. She stopped struggling. Don't worry, all I want is your money. You won't be heard if you cooperate.

He made them sit on the sofa. Both the mother and daughter described him in the same fashion as his other descriptions. He was wearing a brown t-shirt, black gloves, and a dark brown ankle height lace-up boots. When describing his build, the mother stated, in a fair fight, I could have taken him. They both noticed something different, however. His legs, rather than being described as pale with significant dark hairs, they were now tanned and appeared hairless. The daughter described his butt as stark white, in comparison to his legs. He had some sort of utility belt on, a wide brown belt that the mother described like a lineman's belt. Her husband, who wasn't home at the time,

was a dispatcher for SMUD, a Sacramento utility company, and she recognized the belt as something similar to that worn by utility workers. From the belt, he pulled out shoe laces and torn strips of towel. He had come prepared. But what police would later find was that he had only brought enough bindings for two people. This, added with questioning who else was home, showed that he was unprepared for a third person in the house. He told them to put their hands behind their backs. He attempted to first tie the mother's hands, but she was having none of it. She began fighting again, this time running towards the front door dragging her young daughter with her. He chased after them, again hitting the mother on the head with the club,

but they were too quick for him. Screaming, they ran to their neighbor's house, pounding on the door. As they did so, a neighbor from across the street had peered out her window to see what all the commotion was. At that moment, the eldest daughter came running from the property as well, towards the same neighbor's door her mother and sister were at. She had initially dismissed her mother's alarm, but then she heard the intruder inside their house, and punched out her own window screen and ran for her life. The neighbor from across the street then watched the figure of a man whom she thought was wearing white shorts come out of hiding from some bushes. When the mother and daughters were safely in the next door neighbor's house, the intruder removed himself

from the bushes and walked coolly and calmly from the property. She described his style of walk as upright, straight up and down in the way a military person or police officer would carry themselves. She was shocked to hear from investigating police that the white shorts she described were nothing more than the outline of untanned skin, and the intruder had in fact walked calmly from the house naked from the waist down. Police found no pants stashed anywhere in the vicinity, nor did they have any accounts of a car driving away. By this point, the sheriff's department had staff on lookout, parked around the east area neighborhoods. There was actually a patrol car parked only two blocks away, but by the time it attended the scene, they found no trace of the intruder.

They had disappeared. They had some new information which they hoped would paint a clearer picture of their suspect. The tan, the hairless, possibly shaved legs and his gun, which was described to match guns similar to those carried by off-duty police officers. By far the biggest difference in this case was the fact that the victims had fought him off and escaped. The mother's head wounds required 32 stitches. The lingering questions for the investigators were, did he go on foot into a nearby property and hide until he could escape? Did he simply walk a few blocks to the safety of his own home? Did he have a bicycle stash somewhere where he placed his pants back on and rode off

into the night? For Detective Shelby, there were ongoing indications of a military link. The military liked batten from the garage attack where he was looking for tools. The clothing he wore, the firearm, even though it was described as looking like one police carry, it could easily be one carried by a member of the military. Plus there was the stealth-like quality of the rapists actions and the fact he seemed to have a lot of confidence and no fear. Two days later, the neighbor from across the street who had watched him walk away reported to police that an intruder had entered her house. Nothing was taken nor was she confronted. Just six nights later, the rapist returned to the Carmichael area.

He had zigzagged up and down between Rancho Cordova and Carmichael four times now. The difference here was that this particular area of Carmichael was situated more north than the previous Carmichael location at Del Deo. The other difference in location for this attack was the number of open spaces, wooded areas and walkways in the immediate vicinity. There was a large park with many entrances and exits. There was the canal by which it's easy to walk and pop up in a different location, and there was also several schools either against the park or a number of blocks away. There were two other big differences this time. One, the victim was attacked outside on the driveway, and two, there was no indication prior that the victim would have been going to that

property that night. She didn't live there. It was her parents' house. She just decided that while they were away she would go over and do a load of washing. It appeared to be his first opportunist attack. He may have been prowling the area when he stumbled across the lone woman and by complete coincidence found his next victim. One thing was for certain, he was angry. Things certainly didn't go according to plan last time. Maybe it was anger at having the last woman fly back and escape. Unfortunately for his next victim, she would bear the most violent and brutal attack yet. About 6pm on Saturday, September 4th, 1976, a 29 year old recently separated mother of two pulled into the driveway of her parents' middle class suburban home.

She worked for the State of California in the Department of Education while her ex-husband was a teacher at a junior college. Her washing machine was broken and she took the opportunity to do some washing there while her parents were out of town. She entered the house through the garage, leaving the garage door open. It was a quiet, safe neighborhood and she knew it well. She spent a few hours doing her laundry and hanging around the house. At 11pm she took her laundry basket and put it in the boot of her car before walking back towards the house to lock up. A hand rested on her shoulder. She turned around and saw a glimpse of a mask with tiny holes for eyes before she was punched in

the face. She fell to the ground, her nose broken and the blood pouring like a tap onto the concrete. It stained the concrete so bad it couldn't be removed. He dragged her inside into a bedroom where he tied her up and gagged her in the same fashion as his previous victims, blindfolding her with pre-cut or ripped pieces of towel. He cut her clothes off with a large knife he had brought with him. He held the knife to her throat and said if she looked at him he would slit it. Is anyone expected home soon? It appeared that he had learnt from his prior attack. He wanted no surprises.

This time he gave a little more of himself away or maybe it was that he deliberately lied and said things to throw those after him in a different direction. I just want your money and your car. I need to get to Bakersfield. He also said he was in the army. He told her he had slept with all the girls while he was in the army and they all loved it. Like the previous attacks he came in and out of the bedroom while ransacking the house, pulling drawers out and throwing things around. It would be determined later that he had helped himself to food in the refrigerator. Over approximately two and a half hours the woman was assaulted so brutally it was by far the most violent and ruthless attack thus far. His level of violence and viciousness escalating.

The victim thought she heard him talking in a low voice at one point, possibly on the phone, but no call was recorded from the house. After the attack he dragged her out onto the back patio and tied her to a post. Her wrists were turning black from lack of blood flow. He left the back door open with a chair resting against it so it couldn't close. He stole her car but he didn't go far. It was found only two blocks away. Police found two empty cores beer cans in the kitchen. Almost everything was in keeping with his MO. He was leaving a trail with his signature. The level of violence he had thrust upon his fourth victim was unlike any he had inflicted previously. It appeared he had lost control

or he was angered by the escape of his last victim. Detectives knew he had grown highly tactical in his prowling of the areas and had planned his escape believing he could have driven his own vehicle and parked it up to a mile away from the house. He had unplugged appliances and kept all the lights off. Another major signature was noted this time. The white shoelaces used to tie the woman's wrists. The following is from Detective Richard Shelby's book Hunting a Psychopath. They had been tied with a square knot under a half hitch which was under an overhead knot. These knots, as others to come, would later be identified in a book describing nautical knots in terms. When police canvassed the neighborhood they found that down the street a house had been

broken into one week prior but nothing had been taken. A few weeks prior to that the owner of a house two doors down had chased a guy who he described as a teenager from his backyard. Detective Richard Shelby had some niggling things in the back of his mind. A military link kept rearing its head both in things the victim said but also things like the rapist's walk, the weapons, and the color of his clothes. The other thing which still bothered Shelby was the lingering feeling that he had a link to the medical field. The account of the rapist having knowledge of medicines kept nagging at him. The fact that this house was alongside the man-made open canal also was a red flag for Shelby. The structure of the canal is like an open concrete squared off half

pipe. It runs alongside roads in the area but is set lower than the road enabling someone to walk through it unnoticed. It also runs behind houses and alongside parks. It was easy to disappear into the canal and pop up in a different location. It was assumed by Shelby that the rapist had been stalking along the canal possibly with another victim in mind before seeing this woman appear alone and deciding to attack her. Up until this point the rapist had made four attacks. The first three he had attacked in the early hours of Friday, Saturday or Sunday mornings respectively. He preferred the weekends. The fourth attack was also on a weekend with a slight difference that had occurred late at night 11 30 p.m. as opposed to the very early hours of the morning. It was the

first time he attacked the victim outside. It appeared to be the first time he had not stalked the victim in the days or weeks leading up. She arrived at a house that was not her own. On a night she wouldn't ordinarily be there. He seemed to have been prowling the neighborhood working the open spaces to his advantage before stumbling across the woman. His first opportunistic attack. Up until October 1976 the rapist had carried out his attacks once per month. June, July, August and September. None of the four were even formally linked. Shelby was sharing his views that this was looking to be a serial offender but there was no proof and that there was no formal team on the case and certainly no formal police tactics being discussed. Shelby had been promoted

to sergeant by this time and he met with Sergeant Bevins who was the investigator assigned to this last brutal attack. As Bevins described the attack in detail Shelby got the immediate sense it was the same man who had attacked the other women. Bevins wasn't so sure but as Shelby heard the intricacies of this last attack the whispering through clenched teeth the survivors hand turning black from having her wrists bound so tight and the words spoken and the threats made. He believed it was undoubtedly the same offender. As rumors of the rapes spread through the affected communities the Sacramento Sheriff's Department asked the media to give them time to catch the offender and requested they didn't report on the rapes.

It would appear from the timeline of break-ins and assaults that the rapist took a break for a few weeks in September. This often happened and it would be easy to suggest he was away working or sufficiently satisfied enough to take a break but what started to become clear in hindsight is that there were many reconnaissance missions carried out during quiet weeks or months. He was meticulous when it came to planning his crimes and it became apparent that he spent weeks planning the perfect attack. The 29-year-old mother called the Sheriff's Office on September 20th 1976 reporting a break-in in the same area of East Sacramento as the last attack. As well as a mom to a young three-year-old she was a nursing student and an Air Force reserve lieutenant stationed at

Travis Air Force Base situated an hour southwest towards the Bay Area. Her husband was an Air Force captain at the closer McClellan Air Force Base. He left early for work and was always gone from home all day. She had been doing chores around the house when she noticed mud on the carpet under the window in her three-year-old son's bedroom. She checked to see if anything was missing and noticed some inexpensive costume jewellery was gone. The strange thing was her expensive jewellery was still there. She checked again and got the immediate sense that someone had definitely been through her draw. The Deputy Sheriff was dispatched to the scene and took a look around. Outside in the backyard it was obvious that someone had stepped in mud under the window.

The officer also saw pry marks on the window screen as well as on the lock. None the wiser, the Deputy Sheriff told the woman it appeared to be the work of kids, possibly not able to tell the difference between expensive and inexpensive jewellery. He was not privy to any discussions Shelby, Cousin and a couple of others at the Sheriff's office had been having regarding similar break-ins in the East Sacramento area that resulted in brutal assaults. When asked if anything else strange had occurred recently, the woman told the Deputy that for most of September she had been receiving strange hang-up calls. There was no voice on the other end. The person simply waited for a few moments and then hung up.

The Deputy filed a report. The hang-up calls continued into October and on the third she was so angry that when she answered the phone to no one on the other end again she told them to stop. I'm going to kill your husband, came the voice at the other end. She immediately hung up and ran around the house in a panic. She tried calling her husband who was at work at the base but he couldn't be located. She called the Sheriff's office and was assured by her Deputy that it sounded like kids again. She grabbed her three-year-old son and ran out of the house taking refuge with her neighbour. She was too scared to go home until her husband

arrived home from work. He reassured her that everything was okay and the following day everything was back to normal. Two days after the phone call with the threat to kill her husband, October 5th, the 29-year-old woman and her three-year-old son awoke as they normally did saying goodbye to the boy's father at around 6.30am as he went to work, the young boy cozying up in bed with his mother. A few minutes later the woman heard a sound coming from her son's room. It sounded like a light switch being turned on and off repeatedly. Then she heard thudding down the hallway, someone was running towards her bedroom. A masked man appeared at her door wearing a khaki coloured ski mask. In sheer panic she

grabbed her son tightly and froze. The intruder raised his knife above his head. Shut up. All I want is your money. I won't hurt you. Shut up and stay there. Cooperate and you won't get hurt. Please don't hurt us. I'll show you where my money is. Please just take it and leave. Shut up. She froze in desperate fear. She knew he was the prank caller. The intruder tied her hands and the boy's hands behind their backs with black shoelaces. He moved the boy to the floor beside the bed, tying his ankles tight. He grabbed sheets that had crumpled to the bottom of the bed and tied them around her legs. She was hysterical. The intruder again told her he only wanted money. Then he held the knife to

a throat, pushing the tip of the knife directly against her skin. If you don't do what I want, I'll kill you both. She heard the sound of him ripping towels near her head. He was tearing her bath towels and proceeded to gag and blindfold her with them. He switched back and forth from threatening to kill her to reassuring her that all he wanted was money and he wouldn't hurt her. Every time she went to answer a question he asked, he would tell her to shut up, indicating he wasn't interested in getting an answer to his questions. He left the room and started going through drawers and cupboards throughout the house, throwing things around. It seemed as though he was looking for something.

Every room was ransacked. He found $160 in cash and nothing else. He came back at random intervals to check they hadn't moved. On one occasion he actually said he was leaving, but he wasn't. She could hear what sounded like him applying lotion. Blindfolded, she was not aware he was naked from the waist down. He walked towards her. She said, shut up and do what I say or I'll use this knife. He untied her feet and raped her. He told her he had seen her at a dance with the captain at the McClellan Air Force Base Officers Club. I thought you were attractive when I saw you in the club. Do it like you do with the captain. He bound her ankles again and said he was going to the kitchen to make something to eat.

He got out of the pan and started trying food in the kitchen. She listened closely, expecting him back at any moment, but then she heard the back sliding door open and the house fell silent. He was gone. She struggled until she got her blindfold and gag off. She got herself onto the floor and saw her son still bound with a combination of shoelaces and strips of towel. She told him to stay there and she went for help. Her son had not been harmed at all. In fact, he said to his mother he thought it was a doctor who would come to check her out. She hobbled to the back door where she made her way into the backyard and towards her back gate. Her hands were still tied behind her back but she managed to get the

gate open and call out to some kids for help. When patrol officer Hatfield arrived at the scene, he immediately called for backup. There seemed to no surprise in the department that the rapist had struck again. The captain of the Sacramento Sheriff's Department, Captain Stam, appointed Detective Shelby and Detective Carol Daley to the case. Detective Daley was the detective whom Shelby received the files from earlier in the year about the early bird rapist and the copycat early morning rapist. Stam knew that she had been instrumental in the identification of the early bird rapist, so appointed her to this case. Shelby and Daley first spoke with the sergeant who had also attended the scene, Sergeant Irwin. They then

approached the survivor who was being comforted by her neighbour. She was rubbing her wrists where the deep red indentations were still clearly visible. She said she had been bound so tightly that her hands turned black. When Shelby examined the shoelaces he found, the rapist had used two shoelaces tied together on her wrists. The knots used on these binds were not like any other knots Shelby had ever seen and after examination by experts it was found that they were a specific type of knot called a diamond knot. This type of knot was well known as a nautical knot but was also used when working with horses or in the 70s while creating macrame items in home decorating. A diamond knot is a knot used when you need some kind of pull. You can create this knot with a

single strand of string or rope and you are able to adjust the tightness by controlling one length. The strange thing about this knot is that it is a convoluted knot to tie. It's not the type of knot you tie in a hurry and even if it's well known to you it's still not easy to make. 10 steps in total are required to make it. Carol Daly stayed with the survivor and talked to her further while Shelby and Sergeant Irwin looked around the house. Daly explained to the woman that they would arrange for her to be taken to the hospital for a medical. Like the other cases they would also collect any physical evidence they could to hopefully get some answers on the rapist. Inside the house nothing was missing apart from the $160 cash. However costume jewellery that

didn't belong to the victim was left behind. Police established that several local homes had been robbed in the lead up to this attack. The costume jewellery found in the victim's house had been stolen from another house nearby. Tangled up with torn pieces of tower located in the bedroom were white shoelaces. They also didn't belong to anyone from the household. Shelby called dispatch and asked them to send a man he had heard of who had a blood hound trained to track people. He had never used the dog before in an investigation but he knew that a fellow detective Pat O'Neill had success with this exact dog in a homicide investigation. The blood hound was shown items known to have been touched or held by the rapist.

The dog picked up the rapist's scent outside the child's window. Upon picking up the scent the dog shook, slobbered and behaved erratically. This indicated one of two things. Either the rapist was a heavy-duty drug user or he had a serious disease. These dogs can detect even minute chemical changes in a person's scent which detectives realized could play a part in determining the rapist's profile. The scent trail led from the child's window to the back fence indicating that's the way he'd come in. His trail went through the vacant field behind the house across an orchard being bulldozed through housing development and at a right angle onto a street behind. Along the curb opposite two houses the scent stopped. The residents of both of those

houses were interviewed. Four days earlier the woman from the first house saw a strange man standing next to her car in her driveway. They stared at each other before the man calmly turned around and walked across the street. He slowly got into a dark green car and drove away. He fit the description of the rapist but she also added he had thick dark hair. The only thing contradicting previous descriptions was that she thought he was between 30 and 35 years of age. On the morning of the attack the owner of the second house took his garbage out just before 7am. He noticed a dark green 1952 Chevy coupe parked across the road. He took notice because in their quiet suburb he knew everyone's car but he didn't recognize this one. When his neighbor,

the woman who had seen the man in her driveway a few days prior, left for work at 7.20am, her husband stepped outside straight after she left. He didn't see the Chevy parked across the road. At this exact spot where the blood hound lost the scent there was an oil stain on the road. The tracking with the dog helped detectives hone their theory. It was evident in this case that the rapist had driven a car parked it at enough of a distance away to not raise immediate suspicion and had used open spaces to move discreetly through the area utilizing fields and back fences. Again an open canal the cement lined drain which you could easily travel through unnoticed lay between two of the surrounding streets. In the field behind the victim's home they found

one of her husband's socks possibly used as a glove. What was striking however was the big risk he had taken this time to break in and attack during daylight. He was upping his risk significantly but he must have felt this woman was worth the risk and he was determined his plan would go ahead. Shelby knew now more than ever that they were dealing with a serial rapist. He was methodical, meticulous and he showed a sense of bravado officers had never seen before. They became a formal serial investigation. Detectives checked sex offender registers as well as offenders on parole and started to build a profile. They still kept it quiet. Captain Stam requested that no one leak the investigation to the press. They didn't need

the rapist knowing that police would be quietly patrolling the neighborhood and closely watching the community. Memories of prior serial attackers were fresh in the minds of Sacramento's police force. The media had created nicknames for these criminals. The vampire killer, the thrilled killer and more recently the early morning rapist, the early bird rapist and the vice salio ransacker. There were a few similarities between the rapist and the vice salio ransacker but detectives were confident they were currently dealing with a different league of criminal. The precise planning his lack of fear and his apparent young age made this current rapist one of the most worrying they had come across. It appeared he was learning from his past crimes to perfect his next attack.

They knew he was not going to stop and he didn't. This latest attack, attack number five, was the first of four to hit the community in October 1976. Four days later, October 9th, the rapist had gone back to the neighborhood of Rancho Cordova where he first began, the same area where attacks one and three had taken place. The media blackout set by police meant that the majority of the community had no idea there had been serious break-ins and sexual assaults in the area. Although there were whispers swirling through some parts of the community, it was only close friends and neighbors of those attacked that knew what had happened. Even then, they were not necessarily privy to the fact that

they were dealing with a serial offender. It was 4.30am on October 9th when a girl in her late teens was asleep in her bed. Her father and a brother whom she lived with had gone away and in her father's mind there was no reason why she wouldn't be safe in the house alone. He had no idea there had been five attacks of women in homes in the east of Sacramento. He had no idea that two of those attacks were within a stone's throw from his home. While she slept, the man whose descriptions and actions would not differ from those of the previous five attacks walked silently through her unlocked side gate. At the back of the house, he would do something that he had not done before. He cut the clothesline and took the

long lengths of line with him. He pried open a bedroom window screen and threw it into a bush. He then got through the open window so quietly that not a sound was heard. As the teens slept, he cut both of the phone lines. He then dragged the carpet rug out the back door onto the concrete patio. He was well aware the girl was home alone before breaking in. The rapist had only carried through with an attack if the person was alone, or if they were with children. So what he did next was the most puzzling thing he had done to date. Starting at the father's bedroom door, he tied a tight knot around the doorknob with the pieces of clothesline he had cut. He stretched the clothesline across the hallway,

doing the same thing with the brother's doorknob. After this, he crisscrossed through the house, tying each doorknob through the kitchen to the bathroom, and then lastly tying off the web of line to the bath faucets. There were three explanations as to why he may have done this. One would be to ensure that the victim was not able to escape or hide in any other room in the house. The second, if the victim attempted to run up the hall, should be caught by the clothesline and strung back and forth. The third, if the attacker had some doubt as to whether the father and the brother were home, tying these doorknobs assured none of the doors could be opened. But it's assumed he knew they weren't home. The girl worked to the pressure of a hand over her

mouth. Something sharp was against her bare back. It had been a hot night, so she'd slept without any clothes on. In the darkness, she could barely make out the figure and didn't know what he looked like or what he was wearing, but she immediately noticed his smell. Not necessarily that he smelled of anything in particular, but whatever it was, his scent was there. His voice seemed strange, like he was talking through clenched teeth and whispering loudly. He breathed in very short breaths. He told her to roll over. Gripped with fear, she instinctively screamed. He told her to shut up or he would kill her. He then tied her hands tightly behind her back. He had no doubt that his hand-tying method worked. Not one victim so far had managed to get out of his binds.

He then tied a cloth blindfold across her eyes, shoved a piece of fabric in her mouth and another strip of fabric around her head, gagging her. Get up. He dragged her down the hallway. She couldn't see a thing. And although he told her to duck down and he pushed her underneath the web of clothesline he had strung across the hallway, she had no idea he had done that. She felt something touch her back as she crawled along, but would not realize until later what it was. He shoved her out the back sliding door onto the back patio. There was raw dye and furniture and a barbecue peered on one side and on the other side he had laid the carpet rug. Above the patio was an overhead covering. He let the victim know he had been watching her.

He told her he had dreamt of having sex with her. He said that after he left if she screamed he would know because he just lived down the street and he would hear her. He would then come back and finish her off. He pushed her down on the rug and disappeared into the house. When he came back out he asked her where her money was. He said he just wanted money for her fix and she better have something. He then went back inside. When he came back out he was making strange noises and only later would she realize that he was using something to lubricate himself. He said he was only there for the money but he wasn't. He raped her three times in between disappearing into the house going through drawers and cupboards and tipping things around the place. At one point she heard the

sound of paper bags crumbling in the kitchen then as he came back outside it sounded like he was carrying them. He dragged the carpet underneath her over towards a post on the side of the patio. As he did this her blindfold slipped a little and she caught a glimpse of his black leather square-toed shoes. Although she hadn't seen his face she thought his voice sounded no older than 27. He grabbed her legs and tied them to the post. Once again he told her not to scream and he walked off in the direction of the side gate where he had come in. Then silence. Once she was sure he had gone she managed to free her ankles from the post. Then she wriggled herself from her blindfold and gag but she could not get out of her wrist

bindings. She hobbled into the house where she noticed he had cut the phone lines. She couldn't get back down the hall as there was the strange crisscross of clothes line across the doors. A neighbour was due to check in on her later in the morning so the victim made her way to the front door. When the doorbell finally went she let her in. The neighbour was shocked when she saw the victim naked and tightly bound cowering at the door. After helping her cut the bindings and free her blackening hands she took her to her house where they called police. At the time it wasn't widely known that having a shower and washing all traces of your body was not a good idea as far as evidence gathering went and on this day that's what happened.

Officer Crowder was dispatched to the scene. Although detectives Richard Shelby and Carol Daly were involved in the ongoing investigation of the other cases they were not sent to the scene and were not even told of this sixth attack until a few days after it occurred. This unfortunately meant that the officers who attended and conducted a sweep of the scene were not asking questions which would have honed in on certain information similar to the other attacks. They were simply not aware of the details and signatures to look for. Attending officers didn't know the benefits of using the blood here and either. They didn't ask important questions such as whether they were hang-up calls in the lead-up to

this attack. Shelby had also recently discovered that there were homes either for sale, sold, or under construction in the immediate vicinity of each previous attack but because it wasn't called to this scene this wasn't checked out. One major point that was picked up on later was that the victim mentioned she had gone dancing once in a while at the May the Air Force Base. The same base the last victim's husband worked at. The victim stated that in order to attend these dances you had to provide your name and address. At the scene strips of torn towels were found outside on the patio as well as on the victim's bed. String was still attached to the patio post. Under the bedroom window officers found a dish usually used for holding sweets.

The house had been ransacked but nothing taken. Officers were completely baffled by the intricate web of clothesline stretching across the hallway. The surrounding area would tell a familiar story. The street was only a few blocks away from attacks one and three. Behind the houses opposite the victims there was a completely secluded levee walk leading to the open canal system and further along there was the Jedediah Smith Memorial Bike Trail. The immediate vicinity was shaped like a horseshoe restricting the way vehicles can enter. This meant that police units could only approach from certain directions but the rapist could escape on foot in other directions. By the time he popped out he could

be in a completely different area. Not for the first time the question would be raised whether he used a bike and not a car. The other geographical point of interest was the perfect access to the green belt on that side of the American River. A green belt refers to large areas of undeveloped land neighboring urban areas. Detectives wondered if this was part of his escape. The rapist used the environment and the surrounding areas of his victims' homes tactically. He knew the ins and outs of each area and the growing theory was that he enjoyed the thrill and to the tactical planning of his attacks. The officers who attended the scene of attack number six did not conduct a canvas of the neighborhood but Officer Crowder did speak

to a young man who lived right next door. The young man in his twenties had seen the commotion and gathering of police. He walked over to inform them that although there was no sign of forced entry or anything taken he thought his house may have been broken into. He produced six rings he was sure didn't belong to his household. He said he had found them in his parents' bedroom and he was sure they weren't his mothers. Crowder noticed he was around the age and height described by the victim. He seemed very interested in what was going on at the victim's home and was trying to look around. When Crowder found out that the young man had spent the night alone next door he became suspicious. He studied the view from the young man's house to the survivor's house.

The survivor's house was a freestanding single story home. The neighbors was a double story with a balcony on the second floor at the back of the house. Although this balcony overlooked the back of the survivor's house it was determined that unless the neighbor was outside on his balcony in the corner he would not have been able to see under the overhang of the survivor's back patio. But when Officer Crowder walked into the survivor's bedroom he realized that the young neighbor had direct view of it from his own bedroom. The plant inside the survivor's window which she assumed gave her privacy from outside didn't take into account his bedroom on the upper level of his house. Considering he also drove a small green Chevy Vega he instantly became a

suspect very high on the list. All the victims so far had been given a medical checkup firstly for their health and well-being but also to collect any physical evidence left by the rapist. Swabs were taken and stored when possible but given some victims had washed prior to their examination it wasn't always possible. By collecting any body fluids from the victim or from the scene such as saliva, sweat, tears, semen or blood police would be able to ascertain at least some genetic details of the rapist which would at least help narrow down suspect lists later on. Besides not leaving a single fingerprint the rapist had thus far left no blood on any victim or at any crime scene. If he had they would have been able to easily determine his blood type.

He did leave semen behind though and there was one test that forensic experts were able to run on semen that may give them his blood type. Approximately 80 to 85 percent of the population of the United States are what are known as secretors. If you are a male secreter you produce 20 particles of blood in your semen which is enough to determine which blood type you are. In the 70s this was an effective tool in confirming whether suspects could be eliminated from an investigation or not. The rapist's semen was tested from swabs taken from more than one of his victims. He was found to be a non-secretor. He was in the 15 to 20 percent of the population who could not have their blood group determined by testing other bodily fluids.

Police would have to locate traces of his blood in order to confirm his blood type. Technically your secretor status depends on whether you have the secretor gene or not. Although detectives were unable to determine his blood type one interesting detail would come up that would not go unnoticed. Non-secretors are known to be associated with higher rates of disease particularly in digestive conditions as well as other immune related diseases. The fact that the bloodhound reacted the way he did indicating the possibility of disease was interesting. The other unusual behavior was the cooking of food and rummaging through refrigerators signifying a possible link that he needed to eat at unusual times. With this information if a

suspect arose and they were tested for their secretor status the result would help determine if they could be eliminated or not. Nine days after the last attack he was ready to strike again a quiet residential street in Del Deo. It was 2 30 a.m. October 18th when a 10-year-old boy awoke to the sound of his small dog barking. He was in their house with his mother and his younger four-year-old sister. His father was away. Wondering what the dog was barking at and wanting to shut him up the boy got up to let him outside. Bleary eyed the boy approached the back sliding glass door flicked the yard light on unlocked the door and opened it. With the yard lit up the boy froze when right in front of him standing at the kitchen window was a man in a dark mask and hood.

The boy stood motionless his heart racing staring at the intruder. The intruder stared right back at him. For a moment the two stood there staring at each other neither knowing what to do. It was then the boy realized that the only thing the intruder had on from the waist down were a pair of tennis shoes. The screen was off the kitchen window and it was lying on the ground. The dog yapped and ran towards the intruder. He ran for the fence climbing just high enough to be out of the dog's reach. But once the intruder realized the dog was small and absolutely no threat to him he lowered himself from the fence and walked back towards the house without hesitation. The boy had slammed the sliding door and locked it as quick as he could but the kitchen window was

open and the intruder started to climb through. The boy ran as fast as he could into his mother's bedroom and slammed the door screaming that there was a man in the kitchen window. His mother flicked the light on and without any hesitation picked up the phone. It was then they heard a smashing sound in the kitchen. The boy jumped on the bed huddling into his mother. His mother tried to call the operator to get through to the police but she got no answer. She immediately clicked the receiver down and tried her neighbor. No answer there either. Footsteps thundered down the hallway. As she frantically tried the sheriff's office the masked half-naked intruder stormed into the bedroom and snatched the phone right from her hand. She screamed, don't scream. Do what you

told or both you and your son will die. His glove hand held a large knife. She screamed again, shut up. The dog was still in the backyard barking furiously and scratching at the door. Do exactly as I tell you or I'll kill you. I'll put to you all the pieces. I'm going to kill you if you don't get him. Shut him up. With the boy at her side and the masked intruder following behind she picked up the dog and shut it into her son's room. She kept her son close and they all walked back into her room. She looked up at him. Through holes in his mask she saw his eyes fixed on her. They were blue lifeless dull-like eyes. She noticed his arms and legs were covered in dark hair and she noticed his penis was unusually small. How many people

are in the house? She told him her young daughter who was four was home and begged him not to harm her. The intruder walked out into the hallway and closed her door. When he walked back into the bedroom he ripped the phone cord from the wall. The intruder walked back out of the room again and returned with a towel. He ordered the boy to go to his bedroom. He told the boy's mother to get up. He walked her to the living room at the back of the house. The backyard light was still on which filtered light into the room. He pushed her onto the sofa. His low voice still whispering don't move. If you do it will take seconds off his life. If you do what I say you won't get hurt. I'll be gone in a little while. If you don't do what I say I'll kill you all.

He started while he spoke for the first time. He used his knife to nick the edge of the towel. With one rip he pulled a big strip off the towel. Then another and another. He walked over to the Venetian blinds. He used his knife to slice the cords off. He grabbed the woman and yanked her arms behind her back, binding her hands tightly with cords from the blinds. He then bound her ankles the same way. Where's your money? She told him there was an envelope with money in it. It was a donation she was going to make to the Heart Association. But as soon as he asked the question he moved on as if it was just a ruse and he didn't really care about the money. He grabbed at the strips of

towel. Rolling one up he shoved it in her mouth. He used another to tie across her mouth and behind her head. The light from the yard lit him from behind. She noticed his frame. It was the same as the other victim's descriptions. He left the room and she could hear him rummaging through drawers and pulling things out of cupboards. The boy sat in his room with a lamp on. The intruder opened his door and walked in. He started pacing up and down the bedroom. The boy noticed the dark hairs on his arms and legs and described his eyes as dark blue. Although he couldn't be 100% sure, he thought he saw a tattoo on the man's right leg. The strangest thing the boy said about the man pacing his room was that he walked funny. The way he described his walk gave the

impression the man was either in a slouched position or bow-legged. This was the first time his walk was described in this way. Using strips of the towel he tied the boy to his bed head and then left the room. He walked back into the living room directly towards the woman. He leaned in close. He looked beautiful. He ordered her to the floor. She pleaded with him not to hurt her, telling him she was pregnant. But this didn't deter him. You have a beautiful body. Do you lay out in the sun? When he finished raving her, he walked to the kitchen. The victim couldn't see him but she could hear him rummaging again, moving around the house. He walked back to her and she felt something cold lay against her cheek. It was a knife. You lied to me. You said there was no

more money. I'm going to kill you for lying. There was more money in the desk. She was shaking her head and stopped when she felt a knife against her throat. If you don't do what I say, I'll kill you and your kids. He rolled her over and started pulling at her fingers, trying to get her rings off. They wouldn't budge. Her fingers were now swollen from the tight binds. He had taken her gag off by now and she yelled at him to get some soap to help get the rings off. She was petrified he was going to cut her fingers off. He was getting upset that they weren't coming off. He walked off and came back with the soap. There was no use. Her fingers were bulging from the pressure. So he cut her bindings off. Take the rings off or I'll kill you. He re-tied her hands differently and

not as tightly this time. He then tied her to the dining room table and raped her again. This time she tried to do something to change her situation. She thought if she played along with him he would be kinder to her, maybe even leave her alone. She told him he was a good lover. No one ever said that before. Most people just laugh at me for being so small, especially since something happened to my face. She asked him if he liked to be complimented but he didn't answer that question. I need to know what time it is. Where's your clock? She told him it was in the kitchen and he got up and walked that direction. She heard the refrigerator open and noises of him rummaging around in the fridge. He was eating. Why was he eating the victim thought to herself?

When is your husband going to be home? She answered Friday. He had not spoken yet in any other way but through clenched teeth in a whisper. He raped her again. The victim felt like she was going to pass out. He then left. The survivor heard what she described as a large American car engine start up behind her house. The area behind her house was a large open area which had been set aside for development. Although not a road, he still could have parked there as there was access. It had rained the day before so there was a fair amount of mud and some puddles. Although directly behind her house was open, the land itself had some lots for sale, as well as some sitting sold. On either side of this lot there were a number of new homes that

had been recently built. Some homes had been recently sold, some were for sale and some were still under construction. The victim in this case had just sold their house. They were moving to Danville, California. The sign was still up in their front yard. The survivor managed to free herself from the dining room table and go to her kids. She then used the phone in the kitchen to call the operator and ask for police. This time she got through. The scene was first attended by patrol officers who stopped well-meaning neighbors from accessing the crime scene. Detective Shelby, Detective Carol Daly and Sergeant Irwin were also dispatched to the scene. When they arrived, a neighbor who was a doctor had been caring for the survivor and her children.

Besides the deep indentations on her wrists and two small knife cuts on her foot and knee, she was physically okay. Both her children were unharmed and the dog was also unharmed. There was new information this time that threw the detectives. They were unsure if the rapist's stuttering in this attack was unintentional or just another ruse. Stuttering had not been described in any previous attack, but the detectives had no doubt. It was the same guy. The description of the rapist was put out on the police radio. Petrolling officers searched all nearby areas and stationed themselves along the exit points and other thoroughfares. Shelby and Daly noted the surrounding area that made up part of his MO.

Open land, the nearby greenbelt, two nearby schools and a levee walk. The perfect way for him to scope out the area. In a quiet neighborhood, these paths and open spaces were often used by dog walkers, joggers and cyclists. It made blending in easy. When detectives went out the back to inspect the land where the survivor heard the car start, they discovered the rapist had left muddy car tracks. The large size of the wheels and their tread indicated that the car was not a small car, not like the small Chevy described in previous sightings. This was a large car with a large wheelbase. The survivor's description of the loud sounding engine appeared to be on the right track. Detectives felt the rapist likely had access to a variety of cars. Whether they were legally

accessed or not, they didn't know. Two beer cans were found outside, Coors beer cans. This time the rapist had not been seen with a bag or a tool belt so it's unsure where he kept the beers, but they were likely drunk prior to the boy seeing him outside. This time the bloodhound was called straight back in. He picked up the rapist sent instantly and followed the route he had taken into the survivor's house. He parked his car in the open area behind the house, approximately 300 feet from the back fence. What was interesting though was that he crossed the fence and went straight to the window of the neighbour's house. These neighbours had a last minute change of plans and were not home that night, but they normally would have been. The husband was a doctor. The dog

followed the rapist sent around the side of the neighbour's house through the side gate and out the front to a parked car on the street. The dog then did a lap of the car indicating the rapist had circled the car before walking in a straight line to the side of the survivor's house and into their backyard. The dog crossed the patio then to the kitchen window and onto the back sliding door. The dog tracking to the neighbour's window, the husband being a doctor and the fact that they would have usually been home that night rang alarm bells. Detectives believed it was the neighbour who could have been the original target. The only issue with this theory however is that the rapist boldly took the risk of going next door. The chance that he stumbled upon a home

where the husband was away seemed like too much of a coincidence, especially as his previous attacks targeted homes where the husband or father was away. Like at the other crime scenes, Detective Carol Daly discussed with the survivor the process of attending the hospital for a medical checkup to make sure she was okay and to take samples for evidence. The neighbourhood was canvassed and it was no surprise that a number of neighbours had noticed things during the night. Lights were seen in the open field behind the survivor's house at around 9pm. At 5am someone heard a car start and drive off from the same spot out the back. Neither neighbour called police, stating it didn't seem sinister enough to warrant a call. The survivor's dog was heard

furiously barking at 2.30am by another nearby resident and another neighbour confirmed she heard the combination of the barking dog and a woman screaming. She too didn't think it necessary to call the police. She looked outside briefly and when she saw nothing she returned to bed. She didn't think anything more of it because after all, the neighbourhood was a safe one. Behind the scenes of the police investigation there were definitely persons of interest. Deputies had been placed on night watch out the front of the homes of each suspect. They were to report if any of them left the house. The young man who was the neighbour in the previous attack had risen to the top of the list but the night of this attack no deputies

had been assigned to watch his house. When two deputies arrived at his door that morning he was taking a shower. They said they needed to take him for questioning but instead of attending the police station they drove to the location of that morning's attack. The bloodhound was at the time tracking the rapist scent. The deputies walked in past the dog as it would be sure to approach him if he was the rapist but it didn't. The hand walked straight past the young man without a flinch. He was not the rapist although he would remain under surveillance for a while yet. Another suspect was under surveillance and early that morning deputies were staking out his house. They got word there had been another attack and the deputies were able to confirm

this suspect had never left the house eliminating him from the investigation. Immediately after this attack Shelby sought out the executive officer Lieutenant Ray Root and informed him that a serial rapist was at work. This offender understood how to be stealth. He knew the area like no other. He seemed to be escalating his level of violence and his bravado and lack of fear was rarely seen in criminal investigations. The Lieutenant didn't disagree with Shelby and prepared the force for what may lay ahead. Following this it was confirmed that crime scene investigators had lifted one of two latent fingerprints from a closet door situated in the survivor's hallway. They cleared those

with access to the house as being the owner of the print and filed the evidence as 12b. Latent prints are the type of fingerprint not seen by the naked eye. They can be left even when you think your hand is devoid of oils or dampness. As there was no other explanation for how those prints got there and the fact they weren't smeared over by more recent prints it seemed likely that they belonged to the rapist. The victim confirmed he rummaged through that closet. He had spent a long time in the house. He had ransacked and rummaged through the house on more than one occasion. Perhaps he took his gloves off at some stage and forgot to put them back on. Detective Daly would later receive a call from the survivor to say that after she

cleaned the house she found a spoon under her sofa. It was a common kitchen spoon bent in half but it didn't belong to her. When Daly took it for examination she found no burns or scratches on it to indicate it was used for drugs. After further searching and investigation the origin of the spoon was never found. The rapist wasn't content with the crime he had already committed early that morning, October 18th. Late that evening he returned east of the American River back to the neighborhood of Rancho Cordova just 10 miles by road and only a few miles as the crow flies from the attack earlier that morning. At 11pm a 19 year old woman pulled into her driveway. She had worked

that day at the Sacramento Army Depot where she was a receptionist. Her parents and brother were out but they were due home in 30 minutes. This was their usual routine on Monday nights. She turned her engine off. Her small dog was in the car beside her. It was a warm night and her driver's side window was down. As she gathered her purse a gloved hand came through the window and covered her mouth. A man wearing a grey mask whispered angrily, don't move or I'll kill you. He opened the door and dragged her from the car. She was struggling and trying to get away as her little dog sat in the car and watched the attack unfold. When the woman felt the blade of a knife against her throat she went still and stopped struggling. I just want your car and money

if you don't stop fighting I'll cut you up. The woman was dragged into her yard and pushed to the ground in the dark. He had some type of cord with him. She couldn't see that it was her own clothesline which he had cut before she pulled up. In the struggle she cut her elbow and she bled as he tied the clothesline tightly around her wrists. He then ordered her to get up and he pushed her around the side of her house into her neighbor's backyard. When they got to her neighbor's yard he forced her back to the ground. This is when she noticed some type of rag strips laid out in perfect lines on the ground. He took one of the strips of rag and blindfolded her. He threatened her continuously with his knife as he rummaged through her purse finding no money. He took her

keys out and said, if you move, blam, blam, blam. Then everything went quiet. She lay completely still too terrified to move. She then heard the familiar sound of her own car start up and drive off down the street. She wasted no time in getting herself free from her bindings which she didn't find too hard and she ran inside to call the police. She couldn't see her dog and assumed it had run off scared. This was the first time the rapist did what he said he was going to do, steal her money although she didn't have any he looked for it and then he took her car. It didn't seem like it at the time but the woman had no idea how lucky she was. When police arrived they were told a similar description to the previous attacks.

The three strips of towel they found neatly laid out in the neighbour's yard told them that he was indeed planning one of his usual attacks. They thought the neighbours had been the target and the woman disturbed him when she pulled into her driveway but then they found out the neighbours were an elderly couple. With that information they had no idea what to think. It seemed like a plan that had gone wrong. He was hiding in the bushes about to attack when the victim pulled into her driveway disturbing him or maybe he thought the young woman had seen him but with the neighbours being elderly that didn't really make sense. It certainly wasn't his usual MO. The most puzzling thing was the need to steal her car. The car was located just a few blocks

away very close to the locations of his first and third attacks. The unharmed dog was found locked in the boot of the car. This was the young woman's normal routine. She would only be home alone for 30 minutes before the rest of her family returned on a Monday night. If he had stalked her and she was the intended target he would have been aware of this and all of his attacks up to that point had been longer than 30 minutes so questions remained. Seeing as no sexual assault had taken place neither Shelby nor Daly were called to the scene. It was Sergeant Irwin who overheard other officers talking about the attack that led him to go to the scene. It was Irwin who located her car a few blocks away. Two days later a Sacramento police officer arrested a man who

fit the description of the rapist that had been broadcast across the police radio. They were on the lookout and this man appeared to be prowling. His name was Art Pinkton. Art was five feet nine inches tall with black hair and blue eyes. A quick check of his records revealed a Vietnam veteran with an arrest in the 60s for a series of Sacramento rapes. He was at the time classified as a mentally disorientated sex offender. Shelby was stunned. When he arrived at the Sacramento County Jail they found him to be carrying the following items. A craftsman brand leather pouch with the name Eric Parran written in ink. Three screwdrivers, one round metal file, one metal punch, one serrated steak knife, a silver colored spoon with a handle bent,

two car toggle switches, a business card for Raymond Rieland, psychiatric social worker, State Department of Health, one Buckstahl pocket knife, two rocks. Shelby went to speak with Pinkton as soon as he was made aware of the arrest. He noticed he had a quiet demeanor and seemed willing to help authorities, but it was no surprise that he denied any and all involvement in the rapes. A further look into Pinkton revealed a few things that caught Shelby's attention. His mother once worked for the Sacramento Sheriff's Department, but it was a role in which she didn't have access to sworn personnel information which eased his mind. Not long after this,

Shelby received a call from Pinkton's sister. She was aware her brother was being questioned over a series of sexual assaults in the area and although she had no information surrounding the attacks themselves, she thought she may have been able to help. She was worried given his history and his recent behavior that Pinkton was the man they were looking for. She told Shelby that Pinkton kept his toolbox in her and her husband's garage. Shelby checked it, but found nothing but rusty tools. It had been a while since his crimes in the 1960s, but his sister and other family members had reason to believe that he had planned to murder a woman. He had said he wanted to shoot her to see what it would feel like. Luckily the woman he targeted had not gone by him on the day

of his planned attack. After his arrest, they could only hold him for 72 hours without charge. They had no evidence, so he was let go and kept under close watch. On November 3rd, 1976, the Del Dayo Parents Club was holding their usual parents meeting. This regular meeting was always held at Del Dayo Elementary School. Del Dayo being the neighborhood in Carmichael where the rapists had struck twice, but it's also central to Rancho called over. It had been two weeks since a known attack, but with four attacks occurring in October, including two on the same day, the police remained on high alert. Art Pinkton was in their sights. He seemed to fit the profile in many respects and he was being closely watched,

but they couldn't guarantee he was the rapist. There were a few lingering doubts. The Sheriff's Department felt they needed the public to be reminded of some general safety tips, without alarming anyone or alluding to the fact that a violent sexual predator was on the loose. They didn't want a state of panic and they didn't want to alert the offender. The Sheriff's Department decided to hold a crime prevention seminar at the Del Dayo parents meeting. Detectives Richard Shelby and Carol Daly were both there. That night, 500 parents and community members were present. The seminar was going well until some members of the community started asking questions relating to rumors of a serial rapist being on the loose. The officers

were obliged to answer truthfully and that was the moment the community realized that no one was safe. Near the end of the meeting, one man sitting with his wife, who lived directly across the road from the school, stood up and questioned why the rapist had not yet been caught. He claimed that police must not be telling the truth about the MO of the attacks, stating no man would stand by and let his wife be raped. He for one certainly wouldn't. Detective Shelby, quote, strutting up and down the aisle, he loudly proclaimed that in Italy where he was from, this kind of thing would not be tolerated and would be dealt with quickly. After a few minutes of this nuisance, I asked him what he was worried about,

that he was not going to be raped. He made a caustic comment, then shut up and left. The officers assured the public they were doing all they could. They advised them of things they could do to improve their security. The following day, the Sacramento Bee printed its first news report. Man hunted a suspect in eight rapes. The article mentioned that Shelby believed an attack committed in 1975 appeared to have been committed by the same rapist, but this would later prove to be false. The first attack able to be tied to the man who from this day would be labelled the East Area Rapist was, as we said, June 18th, 1976, in Rancho Cordova. Within days, detectives were on the verge of obtaining a search warrant for Art Pington.

The night they were expecting to be able to serve the warrant, Detective Shelby was on patrol with Sandy Carlson. They had stationed themselves near an intersection in Citrus Heights, near previous attack locations, and right alongside an open field which was believed to have been used by the East Area Rapist before. It was around 10pm. They were expecting a call over the radio from Sergeant Irwin, who was getting the judge to sign the warrant. When he radioed confirmation, they would meet him to serve the warrant on Pington, but until then, they were on patrol. Suddenly, a man appeared seemingly out of nowhere. They watched as he passed the empty field along the road heading in the direction behind them. They got a clear look at him and Shelby instantly

got the sense that he wasn't right. He seemed out of place for some reason. They did a U-turn, but in what seemed like a second, he was gone. They followed the route he should have taken, but there was no sign of him. They continued driving. Shelby went around a couple of blocks, and at another street that bordered that open field, he mounted the curb, and with his patrol car lights off, quietly drove through the field. They were heading in the exact direction of where they were stationed earlier and where they had seen the man pass. And there he was. He was walking in the opposite direction to which they saw him earlier. Detective Shelby, quote, he was about five feet nine inches tall, 160 or 170 pounds,

late teens or early 20s. His hair was light brown and appeared to be styled or at least freshly cut. He was wearing a brown three-quarter length jacket. The jacket may have been leather, but I could not be sure. It may have been corduroy. He walked with head up, eyes forward, and his back ramrod straight. In a word, he was well dressed, groomed, and with a military bearing. A combination of not wanting to stuff up the search warrant they had worked hard to get, and the inexperienced officer he had riding in his car that night was what stopped Shelby from calling Irwin for backup in order to check this guy out. A decision that less than an hour later, he would say, was a big mistake. The search warrant was later signed and served on

Pinkton. He lived with his mother and the house was searched in front of her. Nothing of any relevance was found. Media reports continued running about the attacks. The name had well and truly stuck. The East area rapist. He didn't show any concern the police were hunting him. He continued to stalk the same old grounds right under their noses. An early evening attack was out of character. He liked to be sure he would go unseen, but police had publicly confirmed that he liked to strike late in the night and the early hours of the morning, so an attack at dinnertime was likely a tactical move on his part. The East area rapist hadn't struck in citrus heights since attack number five, October 5th, but on this night, November 10th,

he was back in the neighborhood ready for attack number nine, and it was early, just before 7.30 in the evening. He waved his way through the canal system, which he knew like the back of his hand. When he popped out, it was just a stone's throw from where Shelby had seen the suspicious young man the night of Pinkton's search warrant, the man he instantly regretted not stopping. The house the East area rapist approached was right there, on the same road Shelby had seen the suspicious young man. A teenage girl aged 16 was sitting alone at home watching TV. She was on the sofa with her pet poodle when she heard a loud crash inside the house. It instantly set her dog off barking. Before she knew it, a man wearing a leather

masked hood with just a slit for eyes jumped in front of her holding a large knife in a gloved hand. She screamed, which made him run at her with the knife at her throat. Through clenched, gritted teeth, he told her to shut up, or he'd kill her and her dog. He forced her to her feet and bound her wrists behind her back with black shoelaces and pushed her out the back door onto the patio. She instantly noticed that on her bike handlebars, other shoelaces were hung in a row. He threw her down and with another of the laces, bound her ankles tightly. Don't move or you'll be dead. And I'll be gone in the night. She watched as he put the screen back on the living room window. What she didn't know was,

he had not been known to do that before. He then demanded money. When she replied that she had none, he became furious and asked where her parents' money was. He also asked if she had a boyfriend, to which she nodded. Once again, he did something he had never done before. He untied her ankles and dragged her out through the backyard, out to the back of the house, and down into the open concrete canal. At this point, dogs in the neighborhood began barking. She pleaded and pleaded to be let go. If you're not silent, then you'll be silent forever. And I'll be gone in the night. He threw her to the ground and tied her ankles again. Then he walked off, came back, untied her, then repeated the process. He cut the binds from her wrists and immediately

retied them. Then he cut her jeans off with his knife. He was acting more erratically than he usually did. He seemed confused and highly agitated. This isn't working right. He then grabbed her face. She saw his eyes staring directly into hers. I know you don't I? Do you go to American River College? She said no. She went to San Juan High School. You're lying. He pushed the knife against her throat. He then did something which indicated he had no idea who she was. What's your name? She made something up. He then stood up. I have to wait for my parents to leave so I can go home. There was a pause. He bent over and pulled up his socks. I'm going to take off in my car. Within the next 20 minutes, make one move and you'll be silent forever. And I'll be gone in the night.

He walked away. She waited for what seemed like forever before she got herself free and ran for help. When police arrived and did their usual checks, they found that the girl who lived next door looked remarkably like the victim and she went to American River College. They immediately assessed the difference in his behaviour and realised that he had acted completely out of character. They concluded he had made a mistake. He broke into the wrong house. The victim's neighbour was his target. When he realised his error, he panicked and left. It was clear he had no idea how to act when things didn't go according to his plan. He ceased being in control and it made him confused and nervous. The evening news reported the attempted rape by the East Area Rapist.

The Sacramento Bee and the Union reported on it the following day. The attacks were now making headlines. Lieutenant Ray Root set up a task force dedicated to the East Area Rapist investigation. With Lieutenant Root commanding and Sergeant Bevan's as the lead investigator, the task force would consist of a number of officers from previous investigations, as well as patrol divisions when an incident arose or the task force needed to have more hands on deck. Detective Richard Shelby was one of the detectives used in the task force. The task force compiled files on each assault in detail, as well as a comprehensive background of each victim. Sergeant Mike Henredy had returned to the Sheriff's Department after being stationed

elsewhere for a few years. He was the right person to be responsible for this job. Any piece of evidence or any solid piece of information was filed in the growing catalog of files. By keeping the files organized, Henredy would notice tiny links between cases, the first of which was that three victims had all visited the big top pizza parlor which was situated on a major road between Carmichael and Citrus Heights. The task force got to work setting up a fake home in Rancho Cordova, a phony household rented by a phony couple who were really two detectives from the Sheriff's Department. It was a trap. It didn't work. The East Area rapist seemed to have his ears so close to the ground that he likely knew what they were trying to do. Unmarked cars patrolled the areas

he had already struck. They sat in the darkness of unlit streets keeping watch of open areas, trails, houses and anything that moved in the night. CB radio volunteers known as the East Area rapist surveillance patrol or his patrol for short were constantly on high alert for anything suspicious. Shelby was often accompanied by Sergeant John Bowman on his night watches. With so many officers already patrolling the streets, Shelby and Bowman took to the trails and green belts of the area. They set up fake night fishermen along the American River to keep watch but also as a source of backup if needed. Reserve deputies were added on the ground constantly. Two of these deputies were neurosurgeons during the day and the patrol officers by night.

Officers sat with night vision goggles and night scopes in their cars watching parks and dark corners of the city. With so many secret eyes and experts on the case, they felt it couldn't be too long before they had their man. What no one knew at the Sheriff's Office was that for the first three weeks of December, a 15-year-old girl in Carmichael had been receiving hang-up calls. Even with the release of some information at the school meeting and some press releases, not all information regarding the East Area rapist's MO was well known in the community. The police kept some information close to their chests. They wanted to avoid copycats. However, this meant that when some people started to experience the early warning signs of the

East Area rapist, they didn't know to call it in. Some families still weren't even aware about the East Area rapist existing at all. So early on Saturday evening, December 18th, 1976, the teenage girl's parents left for a Christmas party. The girl had a cold and didn't feel up to going. She sat at her piano playing. A loud crack came from the yard. Gaining entry to her yard through her neighbor's yard was easy, as the neighbor's poodle was old and feeble. The zigzag pattern of the East Area rapist's tennis shoe was perfectly imprinted on the fence which he kicked down. This was the loud crack the victim heard. He slipped into her house through the garage unnoticed as she returned to her piano playing. In a matter of seconds,

a gloved hand grabbed her across the mouth from behind. Make a move and I'll kill you. Do you have any money in the house? When are your parents coming back? You better tell me so I know how much time I'll have. He grabbed her hands, forcing them behind her back and led her out into the backyard. Get moving. If you say anything or flinch, I'll push this knife all the way in and I'll be gone in the dark of the night. In the backyard, he pushed her onto the picnic table, removed shoelaces from his pocket and tied her wrists behind her back. His jacket was a nylon ski-tied jacket with a zipper on the front. His mask was a dark-coloured ski mask. He bound her ankles and tied her to the post on the patio.

His angry whisper, which she thought was definitely not his natural voice, said. If you try and look at my face, I'll kill you. He then asked her where the money was. She wasn't sure where the strips of towel came from, but suddenly a piece was shoved in her mouth and with two others she was gagged and blindfolded. I'll be watching you every 10 seconds from the window. He then walked inside the house. Why he kept her outside was anyone's guess. She could hear him pulling drawers open and cupboard slamming. She then heard what sounded like a paper bag filling up with something. The only words she could hear him say were damn, oh damn. He came back out to the yard and tied her to the picnic table.

He went back inside and continued rummaging throughout the house. When he returned, he told her exactly what he was going to do. He untied her and dragged her inside. He raped her three times. In between he walked out of the rooms in the house and continued rummaging through drawers. She also heard him rearranging furniture and at one point he lit the fireplace in the lounge room. She lay helpless on the floor until she heard complete silence for long enough that she knew he was gone. She freed herself and called her neighbour for help. When police assessed the scene and spoke with the survivor, they found that the shoelaces used to

tie her up had been taken from her sister's shoes. With the short space of time between the survivor hearing the crack sound outside and then being confronted by the east area rapist, they questioned whether he had actually gained access to the house prior. When the parents checked the house, they found that a photo of the survivor had been removed from the wall. The neighbourhood canvas found that a girl lived next door who had an almost identical description to the survivor and she too had received hang-up calls in the weeks leading up to the attack but wasn't home the night it happened. Detectives believed that the neighbour could have been the intended target but this time the east area rapist had a backup. He knew who

they both were and when the first girl wasn't home, he had a second option. When other neighbours came forward with similar stories of hang-up calls, it became clearer that he had prowled the area and had several options. As the crime scene was processed, a bloodied bandaid was found on the picnic table outside. It didn't belong to the survivor or anyone from the household. It was likely it had been accidentally left behind by the east area rapist. The sample was sent to the crime lab, labelled urgent. The blood type came back as A positive. However, in forensics, the rhesus factor, which gives you a positive or negative blood type, is not used due to its degradation in older specimens. So from now on, this blood type will

just be referred to as A. The year 1976 ended with 10 attacks committed by the east area rapist. Sacramento law enforcement was shocked at the brazen nature of the attacks and the meticulous planning. He moved through the community with military precision. He seemed to always know where the police were and could avoid being caught. Did he have a police radio? Did he have ears in the force? Or was he just lucky? He showed no fear and he was only getting started. To be continued