Going West: True Crime - Polly Klaas // 42

Episode Date: October 30, 2019

In 1993, a 12-year-old girl had her 2 friends over for a slumber party at her home in Petaluma, California. Before they headed to sleep, a strange man entered the house and abducted her. This is the case of Polly Klaas. Case Sources: https://people.com/archive/polly-alive-in-memory-vol-60-no-12/ https://www.crimeonline.com/2017/09/30/taken-in-the-night-polly-klaas-kidnapping-and-how-winona-ryder-offered-20k-for-her-return/ https://www.deseret.com/1994/5/15/19109038/slumber-party-excitement-turned-to-terror-girls-recall https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ca-supreme-court/1286985.html Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on true crime fans? I'm your host Heath, and I'm your other host Daphne, and you're listening to Going West. It's been a couple weeks since we've been able to record but we're so glad to be back and with you guys today but before we get into this episode today we obviously want to give some shout outs to people who left us five star reviews. We can't get to all of them because unfortunately we've been gone for a few weeks and we cannot say all the names in this episode so we're just gonna do some of them so thank you so much to Monica from New York and Ashley from Colorado. And then we have Kate New York and Ashley from Colorado.

And then we have Kate from Pennsylvania and Stella from Portland, Oregon. Thank you to Lane's from Nebraska and Bridgett from South Bend, Indiana. And a big thanks to Vanessa from California Miranda from late New Utah and Andy from St. Paul, Minnesota. Thank you so much Gabriella from Washington, Sarah from Utah, and Ashley from Vancouver, Washington. And a big thanks to Maddie from Murray, Utah, Marissa from Murrayville, Georgia, and Jessica from Skagget County, Washington.

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on that. We have a new bonus episode coming out this week on Halloween. Alright guys, without further ado, this is episode 42 of Going West, so let's get into it. In the past two months, the search for 112-year-old girl in one small town has come to represent a whole nation's fears about random crime. Sometimes a single event is so shocking and so unsettling that it makes the entire nation tremble. I now have one last statement to make that the main reason I know that I did not attempt any lute act at night was because of a statement The young girl made to me when walking her up the embankment Just don't do me like my dad. I have to pay my dues. I'm so shit.

Where the hell did this? Fucker! Damn boy! Where are you? Fucker! Poly class was born on January 3, 1981 in Fairfax, California to Mark and Eve. But when Polly was just two years old, her parents divorced because they apparently had a pretty bad marriage, and although Polly lived with her mother Eve after the divorce, she was still super close with her dad.

They saw each other almost every weekend and spent holidays together as well, and during this time, Mark was dating a woman named Violet, and he actually lived with her at the time. Mark ended up moving to San Francisco, which is about 20 miles south of where he was living before with Polly and his ex-wife, Eve. And Eve and Polly moved around a bit before settling in Petaluma, which is a town in Sonoma County, just 26 miles north of Fairfax. So neither of them moved very far at all, and they all stayed in the Bay Area,

which really helped so that they could all see each other. So shortly after she and Mark split up, Evry married a man named Alan Nicholl, who she had been with before she met Mark Class. In 1987, when Polly was six years old, even Alan had a daughter together and named her Allie, who was Polly's only sibling. Polly was known to be a wonderful kid growing up, she had a lot of spirit and she was very passionate and she had a ton of friends. She also played music and in

October of 1993, when she was the 7th grader at Petaluma Junior High, she played clarinet in the school's band. At this time, Polly was just a few weeks into her second year of junior high, and she was 12 years old when she decided to have a couple of friends over for a slumber party that would change everything. On Friday, October 1, 1993, Polly had her friends Kate and Jillian over at her mom's house for a sleepover. The three girls had met in the school's band and they actually all played clarinet so they had that in common. And a year earlier Eve had split up with her husband Allen and she was living in a

quaint little three bedroom house with their daughter Annie and they were also living with Polly too so it was just a three of them at the time. That night Polly and her friends all ate popsicles that Jillian and Polly had picked up from a shop up the street. Then they went to Polly's room where they played dress-up, which was one of Polly's favorite things to do. More specifically, they tried on their Halloween costumes since it was just a few weeks away. Jillian put makeup on Polly to make her look dead. Polly's mother, Eve, told the girls that it was time to go to bed around 10pm, and she was also headed to sleep just across the hall in her own bedroom. Before going to bed, the girls decided to play a little Nintendo, and then they started

to play a board game called Perfect Match, and this was kind of just a fun little game about finding your dream date. The following day, even her daughter Annie planned to head down to Monterrey, California, which is a beautiful beach town just a few hours drive south from their home in Petaluma, and Polly was planning to stay with her dad Mark while they were away. But none of that would happen. While the girls were getting ready to head to bed that night, Polly left the room so she could grab some sleeping bags for everyone.

But when she opened the door, there was a man standing in the hall, and he immediately walked into Polly's bedroom holding a knife. At first, Kate and Jillian thought it was just a prank because Polly loved messing around with them, but they were still really scared. Before the girls could yell for help, the man, who was big and dressed in black, threatened to slit their throats if they made a sound and told them to lie face down on the floor and that's when the friends knew that this was real. He kept asking the girls where the valuables were and Polly said that they were in a jewelry box. She then also

tried to give him $50 but he didn't want it. So he actually tied their hands with cords which was from the Nintendo that they had been playing earlier and gagged them before covering their heads with pillowcases. And meanwhile, even Annie were sleeping in their rooms just next door and didn't know any of this was happening at all. So it seems pretty weird that this older man would confront young girls about where the homes valuables were, so I wonder what his plan was entering the house because if Polly hadn't have opened the doors to get the sleeping bags at that moment, I wonder if he would have entered at all because obviously he didn't know that was a little girls' room, but then once

he was spotted, he was like, oh shit, I have to go through with this kind of thing. Right, that's kind of my thinking as well is that as soon as he walked into the house, he had a couple doors to choose from, and he chose the little girl's room instead of choosing the mom's room where he could have been like, hey, where's the valuables, the mom gets the valuables he leaves. So at this point, I think he's confronted with these young girls who probably don't really know where all the valuables are in the house. So and then at that point, you know, he has to figure out what he wants to do from here.

This is where it gets kind of confusing for me because is he there for an actual robbery or is he there for any other purpose? Well, that's why it seems weird too because they lived in a modest house in Petaluma. It's not like he decided to rob like this super nice house. I've never seen a photo of their house. I just read that it was described as a modest three bedroom house in like a little neighborhood. But to me, it didn't seem like they lived in this nice house and I mean I guess everybody has some valuables, but it just seems odd why this house.

Yeah, it seems really odd to me that you would just pick a house at random, especially when there's multiple houses around like why this house specifically. I would think that a lot of robbers typically would case houses first to see if it's even worth their time to go in and rob it, but it feels like this was not the situation in this case. Yeah, but it seemed like he definitely was looking for money because he asked which of the girls live there and Polly spoke up and she was crying, but she still said that it was her house and the guy then told the girls that he was taking Polly so that she could show him where the valuables were, and to count to a thousand, and that after a thousand seconds went by, Polly would be back unharmed, and the man also mentioned

that he wasn't going to hurt any of them because he was just doing this for the money. When the girls thought that they were safe, they helped each other free themselves from the restraints, and then they ran into Eve's room to ask her for help and tell her what happened, and that's when Eve called the police. She first checked to make sure that Polly wasn't somewhere in the house, and she later looked to see if any jewelry or money was missing, but nothing had been taken. And the girls didn't actually count before getting up and getting help, but a thousand seconds eventually did pass, and Polly still wasn't home.

So unlike most missing persons cases that we talk about, this was a very clear abduction. So police acted immediately and they put out an all points bulletin about the abduction with details of the man's appearance, as well as Polly's, and this was broadcast on all local news stations. details of the man's appearance, as well as Polly's, and this was broadcast on all local news stations. There were multiple sightings of a strange man on Polly's street the night that she was abducted. First, around 8.30 pm that night, after Kate's mom dropped her off at Polly's house,

she went to drive home when a bearded man seemingly started walking straight towards her car as if he wanted to be seen or wanted to get hit. So she had to swerve out of the way, but she got a pretty good look at the guy. She noticed that he was wearing dark clothes, had scragly salt and pepper hair, and he was holding a bag. Kate's mom informed police about this incident thinking that the man that she saw could have been the man who took Polly. One of Polly's neighbors, who was just a year older than her, later stated that she saw a man

matching the same description, get out of his car, and walk down the sidewalk towards Polly's house. And these sightings would have happened about two hours before Polly's abduction. Sometime between 10 and 10.30 pm on October 1st, another neighbor was getting dropped off at her house after seeing a movie at the theater. Her uncle had been dropping her off and they both noticed a man who they thought was homeless walking near Polly's house and holding a bag. The girl was too afraid to get out of the car so she had her uncle wait until he was gone. But before the guy got out of sight, he walked past the uncle's car and covered his face. They both still noticed that he

was wearing dark clothes and had a beard. So it's important to note that Polly's friends Jillian and Kate agreed that the whole encounter with the man lasted likely around 10 minutes, and this was around 10.30 pm. Because at 11.15 pm, that same night, a suspicious call was made to police. So there's a woman named Dana, who at the time, lived in a house on a massive plot of land near Petaluma in Sonoma County. And on October 1st, she had been working late

and had her usual babysitter Shannon watching her 12-year-old daughter. They lived at the end of the road, there was a gate that said no trespassing. At around 1115 pm, Shannon was approaching the gate on her way off the property when she noticed a Ford Pinto parked on the other side and it was stuck in a ditch. A man was standing by the car as Shannon approached and stopped her car wondering what was going on. The man went to her car window and she noticed that he smelled bad and looked really disheveled. He even had leaves in his hair and his dark long sleeve shirt was inside out. Shannon asked him what was going on, and he said that his car was stuck,

and that he needed some rope. And Shannon actually pretty much toughened up in this situation, because she told him that if he could only read the road signs, not only would he have not gotten stuck, but he wouldn't have ended up on a private road. And then the man kind of tauntingly asked her what was up the private road while his hands were on her car. And she said that up the road there were people who were going to call the police if he didn't leave.

Then she drove away and frantically tried to find a pay phone. When she found one a few minutes later, she called Dana to tell her that a creepy guy was at the bottom of her driveway and that she should call police. And just remember guys, Shannon is the babysitter and Dana is the one who owns the house. Yeah, so what a terrifying phone call to get because obviously she couldn't call Dana in that moment because she didn't have a cell phone, 1993. And then she has to wait a few minutes to call her while this creepy man is at the bottom of the driveway. And also,

when he put his hands on Shannon's car, her window was slightly cracked and he like put his hands in her window, like in the crack. Right, like the fingers going through the crack of the window. Exactly. Yeah. And so I mean, she must have been totally spooked by him and just to know that this guy is at the bottom of the driveway, must have really freaked out then too. Right. So basically so so far we have all these accounts of this really creepy, homeless-looking guy with a beard. Yeah, and it's crazy that there's this many sightings of the same guy on this one night too.

So Shannon was really freaked out by this whole situation, which made Dana really scared and she didn't even want to be in the house alone with her daughter, so the two got in the car to leave for the night before calling police. When she got down to the gate, she saw the Ford Pinto, but she didn't see anyone standing by it, which was probably even more worrisome that this guy is at a site. By this time, it was nearly 30 minutes after Shannon had seen the man, so she had no idea where he could be at that point. But Dana kept driving until she too reached a pay phone and told the police what was going on. I'm assuming she didn't call the police at her house because she

wanted to see if he was still there, but I still think for percussion she should have called the police maybe, but... Well, I think in that situation, I think she just wanted to get as far from her house as possible. That's true. She probably just wanted to flee like ASAP. So unfortunately, the police from Sonoma County Sheriff's office who were the ones that showed up to meet with Dana, after she called them, they had been using a different radio frequency than the Petaluma police.

So they hadn't heard that Polly had gotten missing. So when they showed up to investigate the strange man outside at Dana's house, they didn't know that he could potentially be involved in a very fresh disappearance in the area. So the weird part is that when police actually ended up going to Dana's driveway, they actually found the man standing next to his car, which was around 15 minutes later, and they explained that he was on private property. The officers also noticed his disheveled appearance along with the leaves and twigs in his hair, and all over his clothes, and he was really sweaty, which all struck them as a little

bit odd. On top of all of this, he smelled really heavily of alcohol, so they frisked him, which really pissed him off at this point. They asked him what he was doing on that road, and he explained that he was in the area to see a family member, and he had pulled off a scenic route to Citesy. Yeah, likely story. Yeah, I don't even know why he made this claim because on October 1st, 1993, the sunset at 6.30pm, and he got his car stuck after 10.45 pm that night, which we know

because that's when Dana got home from work. And I should also mention that Shannon stayed at the house for about 20 to 30 minutes before leaving, which would be the timeslot when this man arrived and got caught in the ditch, because Dana didn't see him when she drove up to the house. So that means we know that he got there probably between 1045 and 1115. Right. And you don't go sightseeing at 1045 pm at night when it's dark. Like that just doesn't make any sense.

Well, exactly. And it had been dark for five hours at that point. So wait and make yourself look weird to police that you're sightseeing up on a private road at night. So at this point, the police ran some basic tests to see if the man was drunk, you know, like the pupil test, the balance test, and things like that. But they didn't breathalyze him because they didn't feel the need to, although he smelled of alcohol and he appeared to be drunk.

They took down his license plate number and his name, which was 39-year-old Richard Allen Davis, but the car wasn't registered in his name. They asked him if he had a warrant out for his arrest and he said that he did not, nor had he ever been arrested or incarcerated. And they saw in their database that there was in fact not a warrant out for him, so they didn't look to see if he had a criminal history since he had only been trespassing as far as they knew.

They didn't do a full search of his car, but the two officers noticed a couple paper bags in the front of his car, which they checked. One contained unopened beer, and the other had torn up clothes in it. But like we said, they didn't know that a girl was missing in the area, so they didn't automatically assume that Richard had done anything wrong at this point. So they helped him get his car out of the ditch, and they escorted him down to the highway. And before they all left the area while they were trying to get his car out, Richard grabbed one of the beer cans from the car and started drinking it right in front of the police officers. So he was either being an asshole or he's just a little off because that's obviously a really dumb thing to do and they told him to pour it out which he did.

Yeah, like if you're already being kind of investigated by police officers and they're trying to help you get your car that you're going to drive pretty soon out of a ditch, you don't fucking crack a beer can and start drinking it. Not doing yourself any favors, Richard. So let's talk a little bit about Richard Allen Davis. Richard was born on June 2, 1954 in San Francisco, California, to his alcoholic parents along with four other siblings. He was the middle child and they were all physically abused throughout their upbringing.

For example, Richard's mother Evelyn once caught him smoking so to teach him a lesson, she burned his hand. Once his parents split up when he was 11 years old, he and his siblings went to live with his father Bob, who worked on the waterfront and helped ships unload. His dad was a very absent father, though, and his siblings later said that Richard took care of the other kids more than Bob ever did. And Bob suffered from extreme hallucinations and also suffered from a mental illness. So Richard's entire upbringing was incredibly traumatic, which led him to do some very horrible things.

Since Richard was a kid, he liked torturing and killing animals, especially dogs and cats. He did some really sick things to them, and things only got worse as he got older. When he was a teenager, he began robbing people because it supposedly helped him relieve stress. After he dropped out of high school on 10th grade, he committed even more crimes, and he got caught for them too. And in turn, he was forced to join the US Army by a judge and he served just over a year. And the reason it was such a short term was because he was discharged for going a wall.

When he was 21 years old, he went to an 18 year old girl's house named Marlene and she was having a party. By the end of the night, Marlene was dead, and although she died from a gunshot wound and there were suicide notes found at the scene, no one in her life believed that she committed suicide. And many people, including those close to Marlene, felt that Richard had murdered her and staged it as a suicide. He later told a psychiatrist that sometimes when he looked at people, a voice would come into his head telling him that that person wanted to be robbed or raped or killed.

Throughout his life, Richard had been arrested over 10 times, even though he had told police that he had never been to prison. Other than countless robberies, Richard had charges relating to drugs, rape, and abducting a 26-year-old. He has one of the longest criminal records I've ever seen. So the fact that on October 1st, 1993, he was stopped and frisked by police and got away without them knowing who he was and what he had done is pretty remarkable. For the next two months, the town of Petaluma searched tirelessly for answers, and police acted on thousands of leads as well as taking bloodhounds around to trace Polly's scent, but none of this brought them to Polly.

The whole neighborhood really came together and helped pass out missing persons' flyers while doing whatever they could to support her family. Winona Rider was actually raised in Petaluma, California, and when she heard about Polly's abduction, she offered a $200,000 reward for Polly's safe return. And Winona was just 22 years old at this time, and she said that she was lucky enough to be in a position where she had a voice and could help spread the word and that she felt connected to Polly

and just wanted her to be returned safely. But on November 27th, 1993, so just two months shy of when Polly was abducted, they got some answers. Dana, who remember is the woman who lived on that massive property near Petaluma and who had called police on Richard Allen Davis, found some evidence on her property. Just a few feet away from where Richard's car had gotten stuck, she noticed some red tights, and they were children sized and alongside a large dark sweatshirt and a piece of knotted white cloth. She immediately thought back to when Richard's car had broken down, and now knowing that a girl had disappeared

in that area at the same time, she was pretty suspicious. So she called police that night and told them what she found. Something I'm curious about is why the Sonoma police didn't question Richard Allen Davis after they did discover that Polly had disappeared that night. I'm thinking maybe to them he was just a weird guy who was trespassing, but I feel like maybe he would have stuck out to them I mean, I guess hindsight's 20-20, but I wonder if they had thought about that at all I definitely agree with you that it's kind of strange and I wonder why maybe they didn't

Stop him and talk to him afterwards since they had his name and his license, but like you said hindsight is 2020 they had his name and his license, but like you said, hindsight is 2020. So the Sonoma police didn't show up to Dana's until the following day, which was November 28, 1993. The deputy looked at the clothing and also examined the area around it where he found an unrolled condom, matches, an empty beer bottle, and tape a few feet away. Once they discovered these additional items, Dana told the deputy about how Richard Allen Davis had been potentially attempting to trespass there just the month before. There were no photos taken of the crime scene because,

for whatever reason, the deputy didn't follow normal protocol when he collected the evidence. Once the items, except the unrolled condom, were taken away, an FBI team arrived at the scene and then took photos. When the deputy went back to the police station, he looked into Richard Allen Davis and discovered that he had a long criminal history, which included assault and abduction. The deputies sent the items to the lab for testing to see if they matched any of Polly's DNA, but before they did that, they compared the white cloth to items found in Polly's bedroom and it appeared to be the same material. Just one day later, it was a confirmed match, and those red tights they found belonged

to Polly class. Just a few days later after that, on November 30, 1993, the FBI found Richard Alan Davis hiding away at his sister's home in Yucaya, California, which is about an hour and a half north of Petaluma, and they were able to arrest him on a parole violation, because it turns out that about three weeks after Polly was abducted, Richard was caught drunk driving, and this was a violation against his parole on a previous charge. So they took Richard's car and some other items of his to test, and they also brought him

down to the police station for questioning. The FBI agent asked him outright about what he knew about the abduction of Polly, and Richard denied knowing anything about it. So going back to when they had originally searched Polly's bedroom and home for any evidence, all they found was one partial pom print on her bunk bed. So now that they had Richard in their custody, they took his prints and ran it against the partial found in Polly's bedroom, and it was a match. At this point, police pretty much told him that they knew he did something with Polly

and they encouraged him to give them the information so that they could bring Polly home. And at this point, they really didn't know if she was dead or alive. But considering it had been exactly two months, they wanted to act fast in case she was still out there. On December 4, 1993, police questioned Richard again and he spilled his guts. Richard explained that on the evening of October 1, 1993, he had driven to Pettaluma so that he could see his mother who apparently lived in the area. But he didn't know where she was, so he smoked some weed and drank beers in a park. He also mentioned

that the weed that he was smoking may have contained PCP, which for those of you who don't know is a drug that has mind-altering effects and can cause hallucinations. The reason that he thinks the weed may have been laced with PCP is because he's supposedly not very clear on what happened after that. All he remembers is that he entered Paulie's house through an unlocked window that night, and he had never seen her before and didn't know who she was. And the reason that he went to her room first was because he heard voices in there. The next thing he remembered was tying them up, and then didn't remember any events until he was driving away with

Paulie sitting in the front seat of his car. It's really weird and also sad that nobody saw anything happen after. Like nobody saw Polly very clearly sitting in the front seat of his car or being taken out of her house. But so many people saw him before he went into her house. Yeah, I think it's unfortunate that we couldn't get any witnesses of this event actually happening. Richard also doesn't remember what he had planned to do with her, but she was complaining about her restraints being too tight and kept telling him that all she wanted was to go home. But instead of just taking her back to her house, he drove around aimlessly and got lost, which is how he ended up on Pithy and Road and got his car stuck outside Dena's gate.

Since his car was stuck and he knew he would need assistance getting it out, he had to put Paulie somewhere, so he carried her up in an embankment where he had her sit until he returned. After that, the police showed up. So when the Sonoma police came to get his car out, she was sitting alone on an embankment very close by and she was alive. And remember this is at night as well, so she's tied up, most likely gagged so that she can't scream and she's on this embankment by herself.

And she's probably terrified in its pitch black so it's not like she really could have run or gone anywhere, gotten help. Richard explains that he thinks it was a robbery gone wrong and he doesn't know why he took Polly. And once he had her, he had no idea what he was going to do with her. After the police left and he retrieved her from the hill, he decided that he was going to kill her because he didn't want to go back to prison. And since she had already seen his face, he felt like he couldn't let her go or he would get caught. So he used that piece of white knotted cloth that the police found a few days ago and strangled her with it.

And this is so frustrating because there's literally no reason for her murder to have happened. He didn't want anything to do with her and the fact that he killed her solely so he wouldn't get caught. But then he got caught anyways is ridiculous. Because either you risk getting caught for abducting someone or you get caught for abducting someone and murdering them, so it sounds like an obvious choice just not to kill them, but of course he thought he would get away with it, even though getting away with murder isn't a super easy thing to do anyway. My whole thought process of this whole thing is just so mixed. It's like I just don't understand

why even take Polly if he was there to rob the place because it's not like he took Polly and said, you know what, I want some ransom money. Give me my ransom money. Right, so it's just purposeless. Yeah, it's a completely pointless thing that he did, like why take her? And this also didn't appear to be a sexually motivated crime necessarily because Richard says that he didn't think he had sex with Polly or even tried to. And of course he could be lying about this, but he stated that he believes he went in there to steal valuables. Richard explained to police that he took her body to some nearby bushes and covered

her with plywood that he found, and he agreed to show them where she was. After they were done interviewing Richard, the police sergeant and FBI agent and an investigator got in the car and followed Richard's lead. Polly was buried in a shallow grave nearly an hour away from Dana's property, where he had left the other evidence. Also, the fact that he left those items in the same spot that he had been just two months later is the dumbest shit ever. I mean, I'm glad he made that mistake, of course, or else he wouldn't have been caught, probably. But to assume he's never going to be pinned for this crime while making a silly mistake like that is almost funny.

Well, it sounds to me like everything that Richard does in his life, he gets caught for. He thinks he's gonna get away with all this shit, but he never does. He's a horrible criminal. Yeah, he's really bad at being a criminal. When they got to the spot, he had buried her. They discovered polyclasses, badly decomposed body, and a shallow grave. Her skeletonized body was almost fully intact, except her head had been detached, and police assumed that this was done by animals because her organs were missing as well.

Unfortunately, because of the condition that her body was in, they were unable to determine Polly's injuries, cause of death, and whether or not she was sexually assaulted. They didn't discover any semen on her clothing, and assumed that she was strangled due to Richard's confession. Since they weren't sure on whether or not she was sexually assaulted, the investigators told Richard that they found semen present on her and Richard asked them where they had found it. They told him they found it on her body and Richard's response was, so you found it on her, not in her though. Then they asked how it would have gotten on her body, and he said, look, at least it

wasn't in her. But then he claimed that he didn't sexually assault her at all. So the facts on what actually happened there are still unclear because Richard himself apparently isn't sure what happened. And the condom that was found at the scene was also tested, but no DNA evidence was found present on or in it. So the weird thing to me though is that the police said this whole lie, you know, they didn't actually find Seaman on her, but they said that they did just to get a reaction out of him. And the fact that he was so casually like making it seem as though

wasn't a big deal and wasn't even sure I'm sure he did. I'm kind of thinking that he did as well. I don't know why there would be a condom found right there at the scene if that wasn't the case if he didn't try to at least sexually assault her. Or plan to. Yeah, he could have planned to and maybe not fall through with it or he could have done it and we would never know because of the condition of the body that when it was found. On top of all of this evidence, they discovered that the carpet fibers in Richard's car matched fibers found in Paulie's bedroom, meaning that he tracked them in when he abducted her.

They also found two of Richard's hairs in her room, so we mentioned earlier that Richard had abducted before. The first abduction happened in 1976 to a 26-year-old secretary named Francis Mayes. Richard attempted to sexually assault her, but she escaped. After this occurred, he wound up in prison where he tried to hang himself in his cell. At this time, he was 22 years old. Unfortunately, he was able to slip through the cracks after being admitted in the Napa State Hospital when he was mistaken for a regular patient. He only served two years for the abduction of Francis. Then just a month later, in December of 1976, a woman named Josephine Krieger came home

from her bank job to find her house had been ransacked and her expensive jewelry was missing. When the police showed up, they found Richard hiding in a bush holding a shotgun. He later explained that he had planned to wait for her to come home so that he could tire up. So this was actually an attempted potential abduction, but the second abduction happened about 8 years later. In November 1984, Richard broke into a young woman named Selena Varick's apartment where he pissed a whipter and kidnapped her. He brought her to her bank where he made her withdraw $6,000.

He let her go after and had thought he'd gotten away with it. Before a month later, he was arrested for robbing a yogurt shop as well as a different bank. He later confessed to kidnapping Selena, which he served eight years for. He was originally supposed to serve a 16-year sentence, but he was paroled early. And his release occurred just five months before Poly class was abducted. The trial for Poly's abduction and murder began in early 1996, so about two and a half years after it occurred. After analyzing many of Richard's crimes, including the ones we just mentioned, a clinical psychologist

described that he believed Richard's criminal impulses were due to him possibly having paraffelia, which is a disorder where the person has abnormal sexual desires that caused them to be involved in dangerous activities. He was also diagnosed with anti-social personality disorder, and many people who suffer from this disorder experience aggressive behavior and also have a criminal history. And many of the murders that we've discussed on Arshel have anti-social personality disorder. This trial went on for a while because they dove so deep into his past to try and tie similar themes to Pauli's abduction and murder. On June 18, 1996, Richard Allen Davis was found guilty of kidnapping and murdering Pauli class. And since this trial was televised, Richard turned to the cameras, winked, flipped them off, and blew the lens a kiss.

Pauli's father Mark lunged towards Richard and shouted at him as police escorted him out of the room. And we actually played a clip of this in the very beginning of the episode, so during Richard's final statement, he told the courtroom that Polly basically told him that she had been sexually assaulted by her father. And a lot of people think that he said this because her dad, Mark, was very adamant about getting him the death penalty so that he didn't like Mark.

So he did this just to spite him even though it wasn't true. And obviously hearing that, Mark got really upset and yelled at him and they had to carry him out of the room. Just a few months later, a superior court jury sentenced Richard Allen Davis to death. About 10 years later, Richard was found unconscious in his cell after obtaining opiates and overdosing, but they were able to save his life. On March 13, 2019, Gavin Newsom, who's the governor of California,

issued an order to suspend the death penalty because he believes it's immoral. And this decision severely angered Pauli's parents because they just wished the man who murdered their daughter would be gone already. So at this time, Richard Allen Davis currently remains at the San Quentin State Prison in California and he's 65 years old. Mark Class ended up leaving his job to start the Poly class foundation, which is a nonprofit that helps other families

who have missing children. They also help with counseling families with missing kids, as well as help passing laws to help keep children safe. One of the laws that was passed in California with help from Poly's case was the Three Strikes Law, which was signed on March 8 8, 1994, and it increases the prison sentences of repeat offenders who have committed two or more felonies.

So if this law had been passed before Hollie's abduction, Richard would have still been in prison on that night. Thank you everybody for listening to this episode of Going West. Yes, thank you so much guys and we appreciated your patience over the last couple weeks. We were moving, we both got sick, but we're so glad to be back. So thank you and next week we'll have an all new case for you guys to dive into. Don't forget to check out our Patreon, which is patreon.com slash going west podcast. We have an awesome episode coming this week on Halloween, so make sure to check it out. And there's plenty of previous episodes for you guys to dive into as well.

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