Witnessed: Devil in the Ditch - The Doodler | 4. Gilford and Sanders

Episode Date: July 22, 2025

More than a year after the murder of Gerald Cavanagh, the SFPD finally assigns a dedicated team of investigators to The Doodler case. Turns out Rotea Gilford and Earl Sanders, the first Black homicide investigators in the SFPD, are perfectly suited for the job. Around this time, The Doodler claims his fourth victim - a nurse named Fredrick Capin. Now, Kevin and Mike try to learn what they can about the circumstances around his death. This is a re-released series from The Binge archives. Binge all episodes of The Doodler, ad-free today by subscribing to The Binge. Visit The Binge Crimes on Apple Podcasts and hit ‘subscribe’ or visit GetTheBinge.com to get access. From serial killer nurses to psychic scammers – The Binge is your home for true crime stories that pull you in and never let go. The Binge – feed your true crime obsession. A Sony Music Entertainment production. Find out more about The Binge and other podcasts from Sony Music Entertainment at sonymusic.com/podcasts and follow us @sonypodcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit ⁠⁠podcastchoices.com/adchoices⁠⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC Optimum Points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. You're listening to The Doodler, a re-release series from The Binge Archives. If you're a subscriber to The Binge, you can listen to all episodes ad-free right now. Visit The Binge channel on Apple Podcasts or getthebinge.com to browse all the great

shows on the channel. The Binge, feed your true crime obsession. This series contains depictions of violent assault and murder. Listener discretion is advised. Listen to this series carefully and let us know if anything you hear in this show jogs a memory of yours. And if you've got a tip, you can call us at 415-570-9299. Round Necks.

That was the name San Francisco cops used for cases they considered unsolvable. The kind of cases that would get hung on new investigators. In 1974, two inspectors in the homicide department were famous for actually solving them. Rotea Guilford and Earl Sanders. Rotea wore rimmed glasses. He had attentive eyes and a bright smile. Earl was stout, all muscle and a mustache. Earl and Rotea weren't like the rest of the guys in their department, and not just because they were the only black detectives.

One thing about Rotea and my dad is they knew people on the street. That's Earl Sanders' son, Marcus. That was really their secret sauce, because people would tell them things. Rotea told me a story once, and we knew more criminals than we knew police, because you couldn't solve a homicide in the Harlem Justice. Criminals actually liked Earl and Rotea.

They didn't bust people unless they were directly related to a homicide, and that built them trust and connections all over the city. His informants were everywhere. He used to have a, I remember it was a shoeshine guy that we would go when I was a kid over there near the old Regional Joe's. He would take me there for dinner and the guy was there and he said look man let me tell you what I know. This was especially true in the black communities of San Francisco. People would tell them things they wouldn't tell the white cops.

That's how they built a reputation for solving the unsolvable, the round necks. By the middle of 1975, Patty Hearst was still on the loose. The zebra suspects were on trial, and the Zodiac was fading from the headlines. The Doodler case was a year in, but police weren't even calling him the Doodler yet. The murders of Gerald Kavanaugh, Jay Stevens, and Klaus Christman looked a lot like round necks. From the San Francisco Chronicle, Ugly Duckling Films, and Neon Hum Media, this is

the untold story of the Doodler. May 12th, 1975. Police find another body in the dunes on Ocean Beach, a block from where they found Kavanaugh, stabbed 16 times, characteristic of a rage killing. The method and location fit a familiar pattern. This victim's fingerprints were in the state records. That's how they identified him as Frederick Kappen, 33 years old, a registered nurse working in the city at St. Joseph's Hospital. The location and method of Fred Kappen's killing weren't new, but investigator Dan Cunningham tells me there was one thing different about this victim.

It was believed that his body had been moved maybe several yards on the beach after he was killed He knows this from the coroner's report. Why would someone move a body several yards? Could be a lot of things like Could be the surf Or maybe somebody saw it and didn't want to go out to the the body to go out to the sea. Hmm and moved it maybe they were putting in a different location that couldn't be seen off the thoroughfare. It could be a lot of different reasons. Cunningham and I went to Ocean Beach in October of 2020. Look at this, look at this. I mean you think about it. There's a lot of coverage.

There's the waves of the ocean. There's houses over on 48th, but that's, by the time you hear sounds, you don't know where those sounds are coming from. Bouncing off the walls here, the sand dunes. Between Yoloa and Vicente Street, the dunes are like a wall of sand, separating the ocean from the road. This is around where the body was found. And this bandstand, or whatever the heck it is... That structure right there?

That's been there forever. There's a large concrete platform covered with graffiti. It sticks out from the dunes kind of like a pier that doesn't quite reach the water. At about eight feet high, it looks like it would provide pretty good cover. I started to think about why Capin's body had been moved. Is it possible that the killer might have had sex in the dunes or alongside this bandstand or started the attack and then chased him into the flatter area out more open?

It is possible. I'm not exactly sure where I'm standing at in relationship to where it actually happened. But we're in close proximity, I would say. It seems to me the ocean would be a perfect place to dispose of a body. So why go through the trouble of dragging Fred Kappen into the dunes, where he was more likely to be found? The fact that he was dragged might mean that this killing didn't go as planned.

It's weird looking out on this placid beach scene. I'm standing right now where Capen was killed, and there's little kids playing in the sand. There's people stretched out on the blanket. There's a gay couple embracing on the ground in front of me. It's all these years later, and it's the same beautiful beach scene that it was then with a whole different societal overlay. You got to think I just that never leaves my

head about this thing. I am absolutely sure no one here having a good time on the beach right at this moment knows the kind of awful things that happened here nearly half a century ago. But I do know what happened, and I want answers. Fred Kappen was the doodler's fourth known victim, and like the others, his crime scene left investigators little but questions. To me, this was looking like another roundneck. Your local Benjamin Moore retailer is more than a paint expert. Your local Benjamin Moore retailer is more than a paint expert. There's someone with paint in their soul. A sixth sense honed over decades.

And if you have a question about paint, it's almost as if they can read your mind. I sense. You need a two-inch angle brush for the trim in your family room, regal-selected and eggshell finish, and directions to the post office. Benjamin Moore paint is only sold at locally owned stores. Benjamin Moore, see the love. By 1975, homicide inspectors Rotea Guilford and Earl Sanders had been partners for four years. In that time they'd become best friends and they'd help solve the zebra killings in some of the city's other big cases. Former Inspector Frank Falzone.

They were very competent investigators. I'll tell you one thing, they both loved the overtime, so they put in long hours. Rotea was a rising star. He had been an inspector since 1964. In fact, he was the first black inspector He had been an inspector since 1964. In fact, he was the first black inspector in any department of the SFPD.

That had come with some perks. Rotea was always on the security detail when Martin Luther King came to town. That's Jude Guilford, Rotea's wife. She sent me a picture of Rotea grinning behind Martin Luther King Jr. Meanwhile, Rotea wasn't allowed to drive a patrol car like the other detectives. He could be a passenger, but he couldn't drive.

And they told him it was because the insurance rates would go up if black officers were driving the police cars. It was among the many racist slights that Rotea put up with. His partner Earl later described the SFPD as an Irish old boys club, but Rotea broke that barrier too. Rotea was the first black homicide detective and he was going to be the first black chief. Falzone was a young gun in homicide back then, and he looked up to Rotea. He was sharp as a tack. The way he dressed, the way he spoke,

he was definitely a leader. And in those days, Earl was the follower. When Rotea was promoted to homicide inspector in 1971, he was allowed to choose his own partner. He picked a 33-year-old patrolman named Earl Sanders, making him the second black homicide inspector in the history of the SFPD. Rotea was 10 years older than Earl

and had been his mentor since he joined the force. On their first day in homicide, they weren't even given a desk. The two of them had to haul one from an unoccupied office to the fourth floor of the Hall of Justice. In spite of the hostile work environment, Earl and Rotaya became two of the most successful inspectors in the homicide department. Two streetwise detectives you did not want to mess with. Former SWAT Sergeant Bob Del Tori says they were admired by the street cops, too.

by the street cops too. I don't know the percentage, but it seemed like 90% of the time, they solved not only those two, but others in the unit solved the murders. That both those guys were snappy. Even if they show up at three in the morning, they'd be all decked out. They always were in a suit and there was a presence like,

oh, here they are, man, homicides here. Rotea Guilford wore a three-piece suit and a matching tie. Earl Sanders was just as well dressed in his blazer and pants. And he wore a classy fedora to match his suit. They would come up to the scene, always super polite, really respectful to the, you know,

the patrol officers on the street. And they were right to the point, you know, here's what we need. We want you guys to preserve the crime scene, track down any witnesses for us. If you can't get statements, preserve the evidence. And then, yes, sir. As the only black inspectors at the time,

they may have felt they had to be extra nice. Nevertheless, Earl and Rotea had a reputation for respecting everyone, regardless of who they were. They talked to everybody, everybody. It didn't make a difference who the victim was. It was a homicide. They were not your average cops. They were more connected to the people of San Francisco. A lot of San Francisco inspectors did not live in the city. They were not part of their community. Jude Guilford told me that Rotea was very involved in his community.

He spent his free time coaching baseball and basketball and raising money for community campaigns. He always lived in his community and he shopped and he went to restaurants and those are the people that he associated with. San Francisco at that time had a vibrant black population. That's former Mayor Willie Brown. He was a state assemblyman back then.

With restaurants and nightclubs and active churches and active social organizations, all of which Rotea was exposed to. Rotea and Earl knew the streets of San Francisco as well as anyone else in that homicide detail. They worked well together because they were kind of opposites. You particularly didn't mess with Earl. Rotea was not as forceful as Earl, but Earl was very forceful. Marcus Sanders heard some crazy stories growing up. Gallows humor. One time, Earl and Rotea pulled up to a murder scene on the top of a hill.

And Rotea stepped out of the car and rolled down the hill. And he rolls up against the dead body. And my dance hero was yelling down the rotator, he said, well, are you okay? Rotator said, no, I'm fine. But this guy out here is dead. Ha ha ha. In mid-1975, inspectors Guilford and Sanders

were assigned a set of old cases, potentially linked. A handful of gay men murdered out on Ocean Beach and one in Golden Gate Park. Lots of similarities, but few leads. Some of the murders were over a year old with thin evidence and no suspects. Earl and Rotea's reputation for solving the unsolvable was about to be put to the test.

And they were determined, even if it meant going places where police weren't welcome. A lot of the guys on Polk were very uptight about a cop being in the bar. Ron Huberman was a teacher back in 75 and a regular in the Tenderloin and Polk Street bars. He later connected with Earl and Rotea when he became the first openly gay investigator

for the district attorney. Rotea was really, really good at interacting with people. And he was what I call a smooth cookie. Roteo did a lot of outreach to the gay community. Roteo was the easiest one for me to introduce. Earl Sanders was a slightly harder sell. He was a bulldog. He was a little short of it. He was like a fireplug. And if they walked in, the people in the bar thought it was a raid.

And so, you know, I found the hard way that you can't go in the bar with cops that look like that. Earl and Rotaya needed to make inroads at several different bars across town. Jay Stevens was last seen at the Cabaret Club. Klaus Christman was at Bojangles Club, and perhaps the Shed. What had the cops been missing up to this point?

Rotea Guilford was the kind of guy that could make people talk. Ron Huberman says there was a very active rumor mill among the bartenders on Polk Street and in the Tenderloin. Everybody would give these rumors because you always had to have like a sixth sense about people in the bar that were there for nefarious reasons. They were there to rob people, they were there to steal coats. Every know, every type of crime that you can imagine that can happen in a bar happened in those bars. It was a kind of defense mechanism the gay community developed. With all the dangers around them, they had to know what was going on. Ron Huberman specifically remembers a

bartender at the new Bell Saloon named Wayne Friday, the kind of guy who had the inside scoop on everything. He became a gossip columnist years later. Anyway, Wayne knew Jay Stevens. He's the one who told Ron about Jay's disappearance when it happened and how Jay's friends were worried. It wasn't long after that that Wayne heard a new rumor about the man who killed Jay.

From what I heard from Wayne, that this guy would doodle on the napkin and then show his perspective, you know, victim the picture and say, look at this issue. And it just sucks people in. And he was good. I mean, I never saw his work, but from what the rumor was, he could do a representation. The gay community was buzzing with rumors about this killer, this doodler, in their midst.

They put the shivers to everybody on poke. I mean, everybody heard about it and nobody had any substance. Earl and Rotea went to the gay bars. They listened to these theories, even if they were mostly rumors. Doodling is a form of flirtation and then seduction to lure someone into a trap? It made sense. He was playing on their vanity. They're being flattered on the fact that he's making a picture of them. And it put their defenses, their usual defenses, went right out the window.

The rumor mill. Bartenders like Wayne passing this story around. Tips that Sanders and Guilford scraped up. That's how the name The Doodler came about. I've got a level with you here. We don't know for sure who first coined the name The Doodler. It could be Wayne Friday. It could be Earl Sanders. Or Retea Guilford. It could be a newspaper editor It could be Earl Sanders or Retea Guilford. It could be a newspaper editor who wanted a catchy headline.

Nobody alive has taken credit. No doodles were left at the crime scenes. However it came about, the name stuck. It's the one the cops started using. There's a lot of hearsay in this case. As Marcus Sanders says, Retea Guilford was not big on taking notes. If he didn't write it down now, that information is gone.

Dan Cunningham shares new details in a trickle, one drop after the other. I've had to be patient. But in the meantime, there are other ways to learn about the doodler. This is a true story. It happened right here in my town. One night, 17 kids woke up, to learn about the doodler. because the police covered everything well. On August 8th. This is where the story really starts.

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Yo. Hey, it's me. Mike Taylor's been going down every avenue he can to find people connected to the Doodler's suspected victims. That goes for the Doodler's fourth victim, Fred Kappen. this person and he showed me the various databases to look at things but it doesn't you know we can't solve the crime in 54 minutes. Mike's gone as far as emailing and calling people who he thinks lived in Fred's apartment building 45 years ago but he hasn't been getting any replies from anyone. Mike's good at his job but he can't force people to talk to us and when you're dredging out a mystery as old as this one, it's a lot of luck and a lot of patience.

Last night, I found a niece of Kaepern, and I emailed her, and she actually emailed back. She said her mother was Fred Kaepern's sister, Gretchen, who passed away a few years ago. So I sent her an email saying, you know, let's talk and here's what we'd like to know. So like anything in this case, we'll just see if she actually follows through.

I don't hold out hope, I give it 50-50. Her name is Debbie Wright. And it turns out that 50-50 was a good bet. She is more than willing. She put us in contact with her half brother, Marty Johnson, too. The only thing I knew all my years growing up was Uncle Fred was murdered in San Francisco

when nobody knew why or how or anything. Marty Johnson was just a year old when his Uncle Fred was killed. As an adult, he found out the truth about his uncle's death, but not from his family. One day, I was just, you know, you get bored, you look around on the internet, and I looked at my uncle's name and that article came up and I read it. I'm like, wow, that's how it all happened. All I knew as a child was that he was murdered in San Francisco.

That's Debbie Wright, Fred's niece. And that his body was dumped on a beach. What I didn't realize was the doodler was an artist. I find that a little bit interesting because my uncle was an artist as well. Debbie remembers hearing her mom say that Fred's art was hanging in a bar somewhere in Seattle. But that was some years ago. And it was beautiful stuff.

We painted some portraits, you know, nature scenes and stuff. He was an artist from like, you wouldn't believe it. Both relatives told us that Fred and his sister Gretchen were really close growing up. Hardship had bonded them. They grew up in a tough situation. It was a classical dysfunctional family.

My grandfather and grandmother, they liked to party. They drank. There was times where my mom and him would go into foster care, in and out of foster care. They moved around a lot, too. They lived in Spokane. They lived in the Seattle area. They lived in Gig Harbor, Bremerton. Debbie and Marty painted a picture of an unstable household, one where children were an afterthought. But Fred and his sister had each other. My mom and Fred were like best friends.

They were always, if you saw one, there was the other one. As they grew older, they became more adventurous. They were troublemakers, always going out and drinking and hiking. It was a way to escape the chaos at home. Once, Fred's mother attacked him. One horrific incident is my grandmother

took a beer bottle across his face, smacked him with a beer bottle, and he got a scar on his face from it. Fred was abused by his mother and his father, and as happens, he pulled away from them. Eventually, he left home to join the military. He was a medic. He was a corpsman in the Navy, and he was attached to a Marine unit. He was

a war hero. He saved like three guys. He drug them like three miles under enemy fire and stuff to take them to the aid station. Mike and I did some digging, and it turns out Cap'n actually saved four Marines, not three. According to a Bremerton Sun story from the mid-60s, Cap'n was waiting with a Marine unit about to spring an ambush when all hell broke loose. Five VC walked right into the trap and we opened fire, Cap'n said. The VC took cover and we fought all night. Four Marines were wounded beyond their line of fire. Fred Kappen crawled out and took care of them until he could clear the Viet Cong and they

could be evacuated by helicopter. In the chaos, one of the Marines' guns accidentally went off and the bullet shattered a bone in Kappen's left leg. Debbie still has Fred's Navy medals. I'm looking, he's got one, two, three, four medals, and he's got, I don't know what these bar things are. This is embarrassing, I should know this, but he's got like five of them.

And then they've got lots of little pins on them. She sent us a picture of them. Most of them are service medals. They show that Fred served in three military campaigns in Vietnam. But the one in the middle, a green ribbon with white stripes pinned with a V, was the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal with Valor. It's an award Fred could only have received if he took extraordinary action in the line of duty. Fred was a war hero. And here's a detail in that yellowed Bremerton clipping

that made my breath skip. The photo with the story shows Fred recuperating with his shattered leg propped up. And this artist, who was later murdered by an artist, is carefully painting a picture with a brush. Fred Kappen left the military after four years of service. Of course, he wasn't an out gay man in the military. Back then, that could get you drummed out

with a dishonorable discharge. And every indication from Marty and Debbie is that his family wasn't so accepting of it either. He was a flamboyant guy from what my dad said. Being gay back in those days, that was like a big deal. When he came out as gay, maybe the family members didn't care for that and they kind of pushed him away.

My granddad died before I was born, you know, like pushed him away. My granddad died before I was born, but I imagine that it was not taken well. I think in many ways also my uncle probably didn't feel like he fit in and probably went to California to escape. Fred came to San Francisco to become a nurse and he did eventually. In the winter of 1975, Fred's sister reached out about a visit.

We were gonna go down there and visit him in San Francisco and he said, wait, don't come down here. It's getting dangerous down here. I'm gonna go back, I'm gonna go up north and I'm gonna go relocate to Washington. Maybe it was the gay bashings or maybe it was the rumors about the doodler that put the fear into him.

But Fred never made it to Washington. And then before you know it, my mom got a visit from the police or whatever saying that they found Fred and everything else. For Fred's niece, this topic is still painful. That's how it's been for all of the victims' families. It's why so many don't want to talk about it. He had a hard life, but he was a good man.

I just want my uncle to be remembered for the good that he did and not to be remembered for the circumstances under which he was killed. I wonder if the Doodler knows that he killed a nurse, a Vietnam veteran, a war hero. I wonder if knowing any of that would have made a difference to him. On the next episode, the Doodler takes a risk and makes his first big mistake. I think it was when, after July of 1975, when you had two people that actually survived an attack. And one of them is still alive today.

You talked to the diplomat, right? I've talked to that victim, yes. Does he want to come forward? That's next time on the Untld story of the Doodler. Introducing TurboTax Business, a brand new way to file your own T2 return all while getting help from an expert who actually knows small businesses. Got a tattoo studio, toy store, tiny but mighty taco stand? We've got someone who gets small business taxes

inside and out. Experts are standing by to help and review while you file, so you know your return's done right. Intuit TurboTax Business, new from TurboTax Canada. Some regional exclusions apply. Learn more at TurboTax.ca slash business tax. The Doodler is created by the San Francisco Chronicle and Ugly Duckling Films and produced in association with Neon Hum Media and Sony Music Entertainment. It is reported by me,

the host, Kevin Fagan and Mike Taylor. Produced and written by Tanner Robbins. Natalie Rand is our co-producer and Odelia Rubin, our supervising producer. Associate producers are Bennett Purser, Chloe Chobel, and Ryan J. Brown. Our sound designer and composer is Hansdale Su. Our editor is Nick White, and our executive editor is Catherine St. Louis. Editorial support from King Kaufman

and Tim O'Rourke for the San Francisco Chronicle. Executive producers are Sophia Gibber and Lena Bausegger for Ugly Deckling Films and Jonathan Hirsch for Neon Hum Media.