Was Mira Loma a Trap?

[jjmcgr]

It's amazing in this case how when you put one piece together how many others fall into place.
Upon figuring out that the 10/29/77 attack was the townhall meeting attack, a bunch of things fell into place:

1. why the Dec 77 memo lumped that attack in Arden with the foothill Farms attack.

2. an explanation for the Mira Loma HS meeting on November 8. This meeting was well publicized and photographed (which is why CCF had to use the stills from it) and it was set up in a place close to the area of the townhall meeting attack.
To me this reeks of a event set up to trap the attacker. It didn't work, probably because the attacker would have realized that the police knew the previous victims attended the Foothill Farms JHS meeting.

3. There were no more couples attacks in Sacramento after this meeting. The less wild EAR (EAR-A) seemingly felt the police were on to him and therefore decided to keep away from the area.

[ista]

Jjmcgr, I think the Stockton attacks should be looked at as closely as the Orangevale attacks. I think there is something in those 2 attacks as well. Especially the Lincoln Village West in North Stockton on 9/6/77 - Tuesday - 1:30 a.m. Then you have the 3/18/78 - Saturday - 1:05 a.m. They were 6 months apart. Both were couples attacks, yet the attacks after the first Stockton attack are all messed up. You have couples, a 13 year old girl, an aborted attack, 2 teenage girls, a double murder. Now, all of this is taking place in the prime past months that EAR attacked. It's as if the left EAR didn't know what the right EAR was doing, or vice versa.
See what I mean? That whole 6 months doesn't follow the original pattern that had been established. Either by one person or two.

[jjmcgr]

I think I have an explanation for the events between the two Stockton attacks.

I think EAR-A shifted to Stockton because EAR-B had not attacked in Sacramento and A didn't want to attack there without the cover of an EAR-B attack.

Then EAR-B did attack in La Riviera against a couple who were not supposed to be there in a condo (10/1/77).

So EAR-A came back to Sac. I think the 10/21 and 10/29 attacks have to be grouped together (as the police did) and should be considered as the EAR-A attacking in his own neighborhood. I think 10/21 had special significance to EAR-A-- he had some sort of connection to the victims. He was also seeming spotted by a neighbor outside the house before the attack.
Anyway, after the attack came the Foothill Farms meeting on 10/27 and the townhall meeting attack farther south in Arden the next night. And then the probable police trap at Mira Loma HS on 11/8/77.

After these events, EAR-A was too spooked to attack in Sacramento again- he went too far. He took a long break before he attacked again and when he did so it was in Stockton again on 3/17/78.

Meanwhile EAR-B is mad about all the attention A got and lashes out by committing spur of the moment attacks, first in La Riviera near where the A had previously attacked (against the mother and daughter on 11/10/77) and up in Foothill Farms, another area where he knew A had been operating (12/2/77- the attack where the attacker did not know that teenagers hung out on the corner late into the night on weekend nights) which he had to abort. In January (1/28/78), he continued this trend by attacking the two sisters not that far from the A attack of 10/29/77. The Maggiore murders followed and the South Sac attack which may have been a local (if he followed the babysitter from her home to the attack site) or an attempt to duplicate the A So. Sac attack.


The EAR-B disappeared permanently (in my opinion) somewhere between the summer of 1977 and April 1978. Some of the above attacks may have been a different person (as were, imo, the Davis and CCC B attacks). If not, these attacks, to me show a mad EAR-B who is unable to commit attacks as well as A, and just gets wilder while committing attacks in areas the A had previously operated in.

Anyway that is what I was thinking of this period.

[dengas]

I'm quoting this from a letter from Oscar Clifton, May 21, 1985..

"Now to R.B. your right and I have no way of knowing that he was not involved with Richmond: All I've said I can not say he was or was not: I do feel he know a lot about the other cases: But I can not ask him about Richmnd's without him knowing who I am. If he knows he has never said anything. So I just can't truly say if he was involved or not: Since the Police was here he has quite talking as much: But he dose know about the guy in the store: He also knows about the teacher: He run away from the hospital - three times -- once when the teacher was killed. That's what he says."

I left in the spelling & grammar errors. This is about Rodney. In another letter from Clifton, he said that Rodney was in a Stockton rehab. When he is referring to the store, we're talking about a "murder for hire". The teacher is Snelling. And, of course, Richmond refers to Donna Richmond, for which Oscar is serving a life sentence.

I wonder if Stockton has DNA?

Mark was in Sacramento rehab.

[jjmcgr]

we can logically presume Stockton does not have DNA because it was never compared to anything.

One interesting thing is that some story somewhere when listing the crimes by location placed one in Tracy, CA.

[an aside- there's a Tracy here too in Missouri across the river. it is where the main drag from Kansas meets the nearest interstate highway. The town is about two blocks long but in those two blocks is always a police speed trap. The speed limit lowers a bit when you enter the 'town' so if you are not paying attention, they got you! They would have got me once but they got the guy in front of me first]

anyway, Tracy, CA, is kind of between Modesto and stockton and right on the interstate going form those places to Contra Costa. I wonder if they had a similar crimes there which was later withdrawn from the official list?

[nightdriver]

JJ, that comes from me. It's on page 107 of the Sacramento Magazine article. It is a statement partially attritubed to Paul Holes, and it specifically mentions Stockton and Tracy. I have mentioned this to LFL and we agreee that it must be a "cover statement."

I just don't understand how people can't grasp the concept of that. Either two or three women outside of Sacramento were raped by a man who committed eight to twelve murders. They are probably all still alive, and he may also be. How would you like to spend the rest of your life looking over your shoulder? At times, our "right to know" is trumped by their right to a little privacy.

Contra Costa has a well regarded lab, it is not at all inconceivable that juridictions other than SCSD may have given their samples to Contra Costa for safekeeping and comparison to their cases. This could have occured while EAR was still active in Contra Costa. All we really know is that two or three samples in possession of Contra Costa do match the linked killings.

For the "one perp" theory to have any traction, then all samples must indicate a Type A, non-secretor. We do not know that this is the truth. But with only two comparisions ever made in Sacramento, even that has some holes in it. For a real definitave answer to these questions, one would have to question the author, one Michael Bowker.

One other interesting tidbit. on page 103 they reproduced a partial copy of the 11-10-76 article. This paragraph kinda stood out, I have no clue why it wasn't picked up on long ago.

"Last month alone, he raped four women and attempted to rape two others. Two of his victims were in Del Dayo, and two others were in Carmichael." Now, what was that about believing everything you read in the media?

[jjmcgr]

when I worked with A76 long ago on the original timeline, some of the initial information came from the Sacramento Magazine article. But the info didn't fit and when I made my new timeline, I looked at the old one which had notes from the Sacramento Mag article and I discarded almost all of what it said because it was wrong.

I should type out an annotated version of that article. It is only partially online and the many errors in it should be pointed out. You know when you've well researched a topic when you can pick out obvious errors at sight from secondary sources!

Are you claiming that there was a linked attack in Tracy that has not been publicized for 'privacy' reasons? If so, I disagree with that decision, if LE made it. They cannot pick and choose what cases to publicize and which to hide. Why admit, then, that CCC had any links too? Privacy would entail not revealing the exact place and name, not denying the very existence of the attack in the first place. How do they expect the public to assist in solving the case when the jigsaw puzzle is several pieces short deliberately?

Of course all the victims are looking over their shoulders and the attacker will know who they are and where the crimes happened. Privacy might have been a concern at the time and if only one such crime happened in Tracey then. But over 20 years later concealing general links between crimes only hinders the investigation.

Comments by Holes on camera clearly indicate the samples he linked were from three attacks committed in CCC. Of the 8 CCC attacks, 5 resemble the EAR-A/ LK MO. Of the 5 one was actually in Fremont, which is in Alameda County. So there are four cirmes Holes could have tested to get his three matches.

Tracey would be a prime location for a linked attack given its placement on the road from CCC to Stockton/ Modesto. However, I simply think the Sac magazine article got it wrong again and there were no attacks in Tracey or there was an unsolved rape there but it has not been linked.

The newspaper article from November 1976 is not wrong in my opinion. It says there were 4 rapes and 2 attempted rapes in October 1976, including 2 attacks in Carmichael and 2 in Del Dayo. Newspapers get details wrong, but they usually get the most basic facts about contemporary events correct.

Well there were 4 rapes in October- Oct 5 in Citrus Heights, Oct 9 in RC and Oct 18 in Del Dayo plus an additional attack that was later removed from the list (this is mentioned in a Oct 3, 77 newspaper story).
There was one documented attempted rape- the Oct 18 parking lot attack in RC. On my master timeline you'll see a second attempted rape is listed. This other attack is not documented except in several newspaper articles.
The Oct 5 attack is only given a general location in most sources, placing it on the CH/Carmichael line. So that could be considered one of the Carmichael sources cited. The location is listed as Dewey and Greenback.

By process of elimination this means the removed attack and the unlisted failed attacks must have taken place in Carmichael and Del Dayo. Which happened exactly where is now lost in the dustbin of history and police reports.

[jjmcgr]

LfL,
as an LE guy, do you think the cops would have set the Mira Loma meeting up as an elaborate trap for the EAR?
In previous posts I've expressed why I think so. The press blurb made it seem the meeting was set up by community groups, not the polcie, but, of ocurse, the police ran the actual meeting.

[lfl91]

jj, It really depends if they planned a trap. It depends on the dynamics of the group, the supervision, outside pressures, the Sheriff, etc, etc. It could have been as simple they had so much pressure from the community that they had to hold a meeting to keep the uproar down.

I believe the SSD was staying independent at the time and didn't have a task force going. You start including outside agencies and it gets more complicated. Everyone has a vote, it might not go as you want to approach the case. So between ego's and wanting to do it your way the SSD did their own thing.

As I remember the only two agencies that were involved early on was SPD and SSD. They couldn't even get it together. On one of the chases the SSD ran the guy into the SPD jurisdiction and SPD detectives were on surveillance in the area. SPD didn't even know what was going down and probably could have caught the EAR.

They eventually exchanged radios so it wouldn't happen again. So the EAR was one lucky SOB.

My guess is that the SSD was so busy putting out fires they didn't have time for outside the box thinking. Maybe after the attack on the couple when the man stood up, changed their approach but it was too late. But this is speculation.

[jjmcgr]

police jurisdiction disputes is one of the banes of American law enforcement.

There simply are too many unnecessary jurisdictions. Every local place wants direct control over its own law enforcement. They have to form task forces for any big cases that cross lines.

At one time in Boston if you peed on the steps of the state house there were five different agencies that could arrest you:

state capitol police
metropolitan district commission (MDC) police
boston police
MBTA (subway) police (there's a subway stop mearby)
massachusetts state police

recently the MDC and capitol police were merged into the state police. there was a bit of a ruckus because the the state police considered themselves an elite like the marines (although they dress like the gestapo). and the mdc was more like the mayberry PD. but they are all merged now.

JJM

[lfl91]

JJ, you are right about the mergers, that power trips and just plan we are going to do it our own way. So between investigators saying we will do it our way, we can't let the other LE take credit, it leads to things that are not well oiled and efficient. Oh how many times have I run into it. In one task force we had taken the names off of the inboxes and moved them to the outside of the garbage can so they would know we were very displeased with their actions.

[wintergirl]

According to Lateforlunch on A&E board, Victim #21 (5/17/77 Tue) was the townhall meeting attack. Supposedly he has it from a "reliable source".

[jjmcgr]

If that attack was the townhall meeting attack, the legend of the attack was distorted because there was no previous attack in that area (Del Dayo) for many months so the townhall meeting would have taken place months earlier, not right before. I think the victim of that attack may have been a poster on the board at one time. That attack was also odd because there was an unrestrained adult sleeping in the house and the attacker made contrary threats to both victims. Then there were no more attacks on the East side for 4 months. I think it this was the attack that formed the basis for the legend than the legend is not true or was very distorted from the reality.