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Six months is a long time when you are a teenager. By July 4, 1969, the murders on Lake Herman Road remained unsolved and had transposed into mystery. Summer fun was now high on the horizon. Independence Day celebration is the perfect holiday for Summer. Summer is a time of outdoor living and fun, family vacations and sport. July 4th celebrations are the one holiday in America outside of Halloween in which the entire community is the stage for the holiday. Most people are eating similar food, barbecuing, shooting off firecrackers— a decidedly outdoor event— enjoying the same symphony music, same parks, same boat regattas. More than any day of the year Americans realize that public property is public property.
The summer of 1969 was also a volatile time. The antiestablishment movement was now sweeping the nation. The Summer of Love, a benchmark for the Baby Boomers, was already 2 years old. The Haight wasn’t bustling with the mainstream anymore. A weird psychedelic drug culture was replacing it. It was becoming the center of dropouts and illicit trade. But the massive coverage of that phenomenon in 1967 had slowly begun to affect the mainstream, in both thought and fashion. The same Baby Boomers were now preparing for a new benchmark. In just over a month, a huge festival was to be held in which the nation’s youth would flock, as they did to the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco in 1967. Billed as an “Aquarian Exposition: 3 days of music and peace,” it was to be the “Sermon on the Mount” for the hippie era and go down in history simply as Woodstock.
(The videos at left will help contextualize for the reader the era. Two of them are Scott Mackenzie singing San Francisco. These were chosen for all the archival footage in them. The third video is actual film of the Haight-Ashbury area in San Francisco in 1967. You can see hippies and counter culture mixed with what your average teen and youth looked like, 1967. The hippies lived The Haight, but the mainstream sampled it when they liked. It’s the mainstream types, not the hippies, that the ZODIAC killed.)
Soon also, America was preparing to set a man on the moon. On July 16, Apollo 11, was scheduled to take off. Life went on, but it was at the fulcrum of the Janus. Between the extremes, American society, fashion and attitude was treading into tomorrow. Tomorrow, America awaited the age of the Jetsons. Today it celebrated a colonial past with powder wigs, tricorn hats, redcoats and bluecoats, muskets, and lots of fireworks amidst psychodelia, counterculture . . .and the wilting symbols of flower children.
It was about midnight. The 4th was almost over. A few kids— “hippies types”— Jerry, Roger and Debbie, rolled into the parking lot of Blue Rock Springs Park in Debbie’s car, looking for their friend. A brown sport coupe sat toward the south of the lot, angled north. Other than this dark silhouette, the dim parking lot was vacant. Suddenly, the car’s lights came on. The left turn light strangely also started blinking. In the dim wash of the rear lights, they saw a young man wallowing on the ground. He was at an angle to the right rear. Debbie pulled up behind the car. Jerry leapt out.
The young man had been shot to pieces. Blood was all over his face. Gurgling through the blood coming from his mouth, he said “I’m shot and the girl’s shot. Get a doc.”
Roger had also jumped out and was gaping over the scene, but it was Jerry who replied. “All, right. We’ll get one.”
The young, agonized man, replied: “Hurry.”
Jerry wanted to stay, but Roger and Debbie insisted that he come with them. They tore out of there and went toward Springs Road and then down to Jerry’s home on Castlewood. They called the police at 12:10 a.m.
About 12:15 a.m. Officer Hoffman was the first to arrive. He recognized the car to be a brown 1963 Chevrolet Corvair 2 door coupe. Hoffman immediately saw the young man laying on his back at the rear of the car. Blood was coming from his mouth, from under him and from his left leg. All the young man could say was that he had been shot. He was in severe pain.
Hoffman next checked the victim in the Corvair. She was a young woman. She had been driving. She was slumped over the wheel partially, with her head on the left door frame. Both windows were open in the car. The radio was playing. The shift was in 1st gear. The lights were on. The left blinker was blinking and the ticking sound was methodical. From the passenger side window Hoffman could see 2 gunshot wounds in her upper right arm and a bullet hole in her right side inches below the armpit. Upon looking though the driver’s side window he could see no bullet holes in her due to the fact she was slumped over upon the door frame. However, blood was splattered everywhere.
Soon detective sergeant Conway would arrive. The victims would turn out to be Mike Mageau, age 19, and Darlene Ferrin, age 22. This crime episode would spawn legends to mythic proportions. Like the multi-headed hydra, when one head is cut off another would grow in its place. All things famous, as The Zodiac Case would later become, inspire folklore and reactionary debunking. But I intend to avoid that here, since it only detracts from the evidence. We can address that later and at another link(s).
Suffice it to say here that Ferrin lived a vivacious lifestyle. She was 22, on her second husband already, had one baby, frequently used baby sitters so she could enjoy a single-woman’s style of life, which included dating men as friends, and keep company to all hours. She was always late to any event, a bit flighty, but very personable. None of this implies promiscuity, of course. She was, simply put, not a married woman in mindset. Mageau was one of her platonic friends. He was one of the Mageau twins. He was only 19, a bit eccentric, and had used the story that he was wanted by the FBI as an “in” to attract the adventurous Dee Ferrin’s interests.
Despite her wounds, Dee Ferrin was still alive. Her breathing was very shallow. The police listened, but she could say nothing more than “I” or “MI”— apparently meaning Mike. After Officer Clark arrived, Hoffman was able to search about. He found at least 7, 9 millimeter shell casings peppering the parking lot on the passenger side of the Corvair.
Despite the pain that Mageau was in, Conway wanted him to talk. He knelt by him and listened carefully. It was hard for Mageau to keep coherent. But he was able to furnish a description. The shooter was young, white, about 5.8, but heavyset. Thick. Not flabby. Big face. Curly brown hair, almost blonde. Mageau didn’t know him. When asked if the man had said anything at all, Mageau replied:. “No, he just started shooting and kept shooting.”
Questioning went on for a while until the ambulance arrived. However, something surprising had now taken place. Conway got a call from the station. A man had called at 12:40 a.m. and took credit for the shooting.
Nancy Slover had taken the call. She had also taken the call when Debbie had reported the crime at 12:10 a.m. She listened carefully. When she tried to speak for clarification, the man on the other end raised his voice and spoke over her. She felt he had rehearsed the following:
“I want to report a double murder. If you will go one mile east on Columbus Parkway to the public park you will find the kids in a brown car. They were shot with a 9 millimeter luger. I also killed those kids last year. Goodbye.”
It was both a confession and a warning. His voice had deepened on the “Goodbye.” It became taunting. He was intimating there would be more.
The investigation that was launched hereafter pursued many angles. Indeed, on the Vallejo Police report it lists possible motives as “Jealousy/Revenge.” Dee Ferrin’s dynamic lifestyle gave the police a line of possible “responsibles,” which included disgruntled admirers, apparently a stalker, old loves, an Ex, and boyfriends on the side. As a waitress she had also, as any waitress can attest, attracted unintentionally some sordid admirers. That could mean some nutty secret admirer was on the loose. Now overlay Dee Ferrin’s vivacious character. It is not surprising the police followed up every angle they could. Despite the killer taking credit over the phone and, moreover, for taking credit 6 months after-the-fact for the Lake Herman Road murders, there were reasons for the police to initially believe that Ferrin might have known her killer or vice versa.
Unusual events continued to occur which suggested some link with Ferrin and the killer. Dee Ferrin’s parents, the Suennens, received a phone call at 1:30 a.m. No one was on the other line. There was only heavy breathing. They did not recall this to the police until a couple of days later. Naturally, they were too shaken to think in detail when detectives talked to them in the morning. Dee’s husband, Dean, had only been told around 2:30 a.m., and the rest of the family was still in shock by the news. The police had already heard and suspected enough to ask if their daughter had been afraid of anybody in particular. Surprisingly, the Suennens said Mike Mageau.
The extent to which Dea Ferrin compartmentalized her friends is evident in the different names given by different people when asked the same question. Some said there was a “George.” Much later one of the baby sitters would say she had a stalker and his was a common, short name. She recalled seeing him sitting outside their apartment at 564 Wallace Ave. This was their address before they had moved to their new home of 1300 Virginia St.
The truth of it is that family and friends heard only snippets of the life of Dee
Ferrin.
Mageau called the house very frequently to talk with Dee, so it seemed the
idea she was afraid of him was only her parents guess or outdated impression.
They had known each other for a while now, so it seems her parent’s impressions were simply quite dated. Mike and Dee were quite close, but it seems he was little known by her family. Her younger sister, Christine, really knew nothing of him. Her older sisters, Linda (Del Buono) and Pam (Huckaby) knew little as well. But they were able to pick up enough tidbits to know there could have been a stalker and that Dee was afraid of somebody.
Legends would say that Dee Ferrin’s stalker, the middle-age man who would watch her, had killed a man and that Dee had seen it. Legends would say that Dee not only smoked weed (marijuana), but that she had even sold some. There was therefore reasons to wonder about a local drug cartel. Then there was the report, contained in the police report on the Lake Herman Road murder, that David Faraday knew someone who was pushing dope and was going to turn them in. This incident apparently happened at a popular spot in town, the International House of Pancakes on Tennessee Street, the place where Dee had worked before working at Terry’s on Lincoln Highway and Magazine Street. Was there a connection in the murders? Was there a drug dealer who killed Faraday and Jensen by mistake? Or did he intend to kill all the loose strings, like Faraday and Ferrin? Jensen also supposedly smoke joints, and she had a resemblance to Dee Ferrin, especially in that both had widely spaced eyes. Was she a mistake?
This will be developed later, as it becomes part of the so-called myths surrounding Darlene Ferrin, but it is safe to say the police were hearing much. Thus despite the phone caller claiming he was essentially a serial killer, the police worked every angle trying to see if there was a solid connection with Dee Ferrin and any racket or disgruntled admirer.
It was not illogical on their part. No one had taken credit for the Lake Herman Road killings at the time they happened. Faraday and Jensen were also both murdered with a .22 caliber automatic pistol. Ferrin was killed with a 9 millimeter, just as the killer had claimed on the phone. If someone had a grudge against Dee Ferrin it would be rather clever of them to claim the earlier victims too in order to cover up the idea there was any personal connection between them and Ferrin.
But let us take up the narrative of that night again. Darlene Ferrin was pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. Mageau was in ICU. Ferrin had been shot 9 times. There were 7 exit wounds in the body. Two bullets were recovered from within her body. Mageau had been shot in the neck, the back, the left thigh and knee. In all at least 11 bullets must have been fired. (FBI report notably contradicts this. Ferrin’s autopsy report has yet to be cleared to me.)
In questioning Mageau at the hospital, the police also picked up a very interesting sequence of events as to what happened that night. As Mageau was being wheeled in and treated that night, he remained conscious. To the surprise of the medical staff, Mageau was wearing 3 pairs of pants, one T-shirt, 3 sweaters and one long sleeve button shirt. He considered himself too skinny, so he wore excessive layers of clothing to make himself look bulkier.
Despite being in severe pain, the following was given in segments, in response to several questions:
“A white man drove up in a car, got out, walked up, shined flashlite [sic] inside and started shooting. Man was older than me, window was down. After stop shooting I got out of car, I tried to get people to come over but they drove off. After finally 10 minutes, the Policeman came.”
At 3 p.m. the next day he was able to elaborate. His statement gives us insight into the carefree world of Dee Ferrin, plus more significant events leading up to the shooting.
He said that at about 4 p.m. July 4 Dee called him. During the conversation they agreed to go to a movie in San Francisco. Dee would pick him up at 7:30 p.m. The next he heard from her was at 8 p.m. Dee now said that she had to go to the Miss Firecracker Contest. She would call him as soon as she could when she could get free. Mike decided to remain home. Finally, at 10:30 p.m. she called him. She said she was on her way and would be there shortly. True to form, she was an hour late. She picked him up at his home on Beechwood around 11:30 p.m. Since both were hungry they decided to go get a bite first before they decided what to do.
This should be contrasted with other statements, such as those of her baby sitter, husband and his employer, Bill Lee. At 10:30 p.m. (or thereabouts) Dee and her younger sister, Christine (15 years old), had been at Caesar’s Restaurant on Tennessee Street, where Dean worked as a cook. Darlene left here with Christine, saying she was taking the kid home. Dee had said that after that she was going home herself and would take the baby sitter home, and then return home afterward. When she called Mageau at 10:30 p.m., it must have been from the restaurant or a pay phone. At 11:30 p.m. Bill Lee, Caesar’s owner, called Dee at home and asked her to go scout about for an open fireworks booth, as they were going to be coming there to 1300 Virginia St. for a late night party. She said she would try and then rang off.
If all the times are correct, she must have bolted out of there. She had to cross town to get to Beechwood, pick up Mike, then head to go eat. She would never have found any fire-works booth doing it this way. She obviously hadn’t told them she already had Mageau on the hook for that night. Nor did she tell him she was to be looking for fireworks.
In any case, they were now driving down Springs Road (West) into the heart of Vallejo. It is now that Dee said she wanted to talk to Mike about something. They turned around and headed (East) to Blue Rock Springs Park at his suggestion. He knew this was her favorite place to go sit. This is about 7 minutes away (due to the way the road was back then, it may have taken longer). There they arrived shortly before 12 p.m. The parking lot was nothing back then. There was no real entrance. You just drove in from the Parkway, which was itself but a dark 2 lane road under a canopy of eucalyptus. A small, rough rock wall divided the parking lot from the grass of the park. She stopped the car, turned the motor and lights off but left he radio playing low. The parking lot was empty.
Blue Rock Springs Park was perfect for a quiet chat. This wasn’t a park in the heart of town. This was in the boondocks on the east side of Vallejo. There would be no festivities here. It was a famous park, an old landmark for Vallejans. But it was a dark park. It was used for special occasions during the day. It was developed around an old estate house, which remained as the caretaker’s home. It had its own aviary, outdoor theater, the springs, bridges, and a mini train. The rolling hills about and the huge eucalyptus made it a sequestered and at time eerie place. Peacocks were kept here. At night their unnerving mews, those plaintive cries, would be heard coming from the dark groves.
They were there for only a few minutes when 3 cars came rolling in. They were loaded with youths having a good time. There was laughing, some firecrackers were set off, then, shortly, the cars left with their celebrating occupants. It fell silent again.
Now, only a short time later, another car pulled in. It came from the south, from the Springs Road area, from where they too had also come. A bit presumptuously, it pulled up next to them, on Dea’s side, but remaining a bit to the rear of her Corvair and about 6 or 8 feet away. Its lights snipped out. It sat there for a minute. The driver remained behind the wheel. Mageau could only see his silhouette. He was alone. The car was similar to Dee’s. Hers was a 1963 brown 2 door Chevy Corvair coupe.
Dee’s effusive nature and carefree lifestyle naturally caused Mike to kid her about all the people she knew. He then asked if she knew who that was. Dee simply brushed that off with “Oh, never mind.”
It is an interesting reply, but Mageau’s goading is a little more of interest. It rather implies she knew the kind that might just pull up and then sit and watch. Ferrin was apparently used to dealing with such as this. Also, considering that Ferrin was parked catywampus, it was more than intrusive that the car mimicked her angle.
Yet nothing came of it. The car drove off and went back on Columbus Parkway south toward Springs Road and Vallejo.
Strangely, about 5 minutes later the same car comes back. This time the car pulled up and stopped about 10 feet behind the right side of the car, on Mageau’s side. The lights remained on. The man behind the wheel got out and walked forward. Mageau thought he had a large, high powered flashlight, the kind that comes with a handle. This made them think that it was a cop who was checking on them. The flashlight shined in the window. Mike leaned over to pull out from his rear pocket his license. At that moment he heard a muffled burst. Then his neck and back stung with deep pain. He heard more shots. He started flailing about. He felt pain hit him in other parts of his body. He tried to get in the back seat. He realized they were being shot.
The flashlight swept off them. The man was walking back to his car. Mageau let out a call, either in pain or anger, which he would regret. The man stopped. Came back and pumped 2 more shots into each of them. He walked casually back to his car.
Mageau reached outside of the car to get the door handle, since it was broken inside (in his kicking about he may have broken it; he does not specify). He unlatched the door and fell out. The shooter’s car was just backing out in a large turning motion. Mageau saw the driver’s profile. The car then drove off and Mageau saw its rear end. It was similar to Dee’s Corvair. He didn’t get the license. It was a brownish car, a bit lighter in shade than Dee’s.
He wallowed in his blood a bit. Said something to Dee. She moaned. The lights came on the Corvair. The hope was apparently of attracting attention. At this moment, she must have then slumped against the left door frame. Her hand fell down from the light knob and must have depressed the blinker stick. Thus this explains why when Jerry, Roger, and Debbie, entering the parking lot, the lights came on and moments after the blinker.
The rest we know.
But a few things we should deduce. The shooter’s car, though similar to Dee’s could not have been mistaken for a police car unless it was bigger. Police simply didn’t drive sports coupes. There was a 4 door version of the Corvair. This is a low-chrome car, to use James Owen’s description of the car he saw parked next to the Faraday Rambler. It may indeed have been the same car he saw at the turnout on Lake Herman Road.
Collating testimony would reveal that the caretaker’s son had heard what he thought were gunshots. He described one loud report. Then another. Then after this there was rapid fire. After this, he heard a car burn rubber and tear away. This calls into question Mageau’s belief that the shooter’s gun had a silencer on it. It also calls into question whether the shooter actually returned to the car to shoot them again. Such a gap in gunshots is not reported by the caretaker’s son. Understandably, Mageau was shattered. He had just been shot to pieces, possessing a resulting state of mind few of us have experienced.
What is most interesting, is the action of the killer beforehand. Why did he drive away and come back?
Afterward, we know the killer disappeared for 30 minutes. This, too, is of interest. He did not make his call to the police until 12:40 a.m. It would take about 9 minutes to get to the phone booth at Springs Road and Tuolomne Street (700 Tuolomne Street). What did he do for those 30 minutes? Nancy Slover said he sounded rehearsed in his words. I suspect he was rehearsing what to say. Yet I don’t think he realized how much he would give away in that simple, taunting confession that he had so quickly rehearsed.
But the killer would soon speak, to all the Bay Area and not just Nancy Slover. More importantly, he had spoken. In that one short statement to which Nancy Slover had listened he had said volumes.
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