|
The more information released on the crime spree of the East Area Rapist the more complex it becomes; yet paradoxically, or perhaps ironically is the best word, the more it seems to make sense, that is to say, there is a chronology that is evolving that is very persuasive, one that begins to illuminate bits and pieces of the past of EAR/ONS. At least some blanks are now being filled-in which help put in place a logical progression of events between EAR’s historically known and accepted crimes.
One of these is the Marco Way Incident. The page will deal in a preliminary way with these events.
It was the summer of ’76, the ever-glorious and patriotic summer of 1976. It was July, perhaps a week after the nation’s 200th birthday had been celebrated and a week before a strange home invasion rape would scar Carmichael’s peaceful and upper middle class Del Dayo on July 17. Sacramento Sheriff’s Department didn’t have a handle there was a serial rapist beginning for the simple fact there had only been one strike on June 18 last, and this was south of the American River in Rancho Cordova.
SSD had also forgotten that just a few years before there had been an odd cat burglar who had struck Carmichael and Rancho Cordova. He had been known only as “the cat burglar that strikes Rancho Cordova and the East Area.” Today, records indicate he had struck over 1972-’73, but later records are not yet accessed. The detective who had handled those cat burglar cases (herein known as the Cordova Cat) had already died by 1976, and detectives didn’t share cases with each other back then. Despite Duane Lowe beginning the modernizing of the sheriff department at this time, much of the stifling antiquity of his predecessor Sheriff Misterly still permeated attitudes. Misterly didn’t believe in modernization, and he didn’t even want his deputies to be college educated. Those that took courses had to hide the fact. It was still old style constable on patrol (COP) tactics, and detectives worked their own beats and cases.
The result was that no one was expecting a deadly evolution: a serial rapist with the padding skill of a cat burglar. This is a formidable combination, one almost impossible to thwart. And it was one that was hard to see even when the same pattern became obvious in the EAR attacks. With only one attack on record, the miscreant was thought to be young, perhaps even a neighborhood kid in Rancho with only a peeper background, and not an older, skilled cat burglar.
The Cordova Cat hadn’t been your usual cat burglar either. He prowled more than he stole. He took odd items, some of little value. In one case he emptied a drug bottle’s contents in the sink but took the worthless bottle. This wasn’t a skilled jewel thief, sophisticated and urbane. This was an oddball who was thrill robbing, peeping, and even going into a rage to kill a yipping dog (on occasion) if it wouldn’t shut up.
There must have been some cessation to his attacks in the East Area or another detective would have gotten the case and then pointed it out to the EAR Task Force (when it was developed) that there had been a cat burglar recently who had hit the same neighborhoods. In any case, the strikes of the Cordova Cat seem to have stopped for at least over a year (or so tapered off they were not connectable to the previous spree) that no detective was aware a deadly combination had turned night predator.
Marco Way was and is a dead end street off Palm Drive. And Palm Drive is the suburban extension of Marconi Avenue. You can’t get more main street in this part of town except for the main axis north and south of Fair Oaks/Manzanita Blvd. It was on the eastern side of this major thoroughfare that Marconi becomes Palm Drive. I know the area well. I used to have a booth in Antiques Unlimited, and my CPA was down Palm Drive. It is a woodsy, beautiful area. It is next to the Ancil Hoffman Park and golf course.
It is a straight line from Manzanita/Fair Oaks Blvd (double yellow, left of frame), past California Street (single yellow north/south line) to Marco Way. It fits EAR’s use of direct routes off the main axis north/south of Manzanita/Fair Oaks.
The area of Marco Way had been experiencing prowlings. Officer Generated Logs summarize a variety of strange events associated with these prowlings. Most disturbing, an unknown man was being seen and he appeared to be feeding residents’ dogs. On this hot July afternoon it came to a crescendo. Three teen girls saw a man emerge from one of the nearby fields. The youngest of the 3 described him to the cops as “ugly and mean.” She was asked, “Would he be handsome if he smiled?” And she replied: “No, he was ugly. Just ugly and mean looking.”
Was this EAR prowling for his next victims? In Scoping The Lair I have noted how everything east of Manzanita in this area is blank, that is, it carries no attack numbers indicating EAR had struck there. The reason, I deduced, was that it really isn’t grid streets that afford EAR a quick exit in a number of directions if something should go wrong.
The Marco Way Incident and the preceding prowlings in the area, however, suggest that EAR had, in fact, considered the area. And we have to consider this, not because a man was seen feeding the dogs, nor because prowlings had occurred, but because this strange prowler never came back after the 3 girls got a good look at him. EAR, of course, didn’t like to be seen, but I was reminded that EAR would later avoid areas where it was possible he felt he had been seen.
(The Haskell Avenue Incident may be a rare exception. But he was seen at night, not clearly, and came back in a vengeful mood. Also, it may be that EAR was not so worried about his face being seen as he was some identifying mark on his clothes or manner of walk. After the Danville Attack (No 48) he left the Contra Costa Corridor, and when he had been seen there his jacket had carried some logo or name. EAR was also thought to be one of the strange solicitors going door to door in some neighborhoods ((before a nearby rape occurred)), but he may have been heavily disguised when doing so.)
However, there is another reason. Perhaps less subjective. I learned that this area around Ancil Hoffman Park was a favorite comfort zone for the earlier Cordova Cat, whose existence over 1972-73 (and maybe longer) has recently been brought to light by the diligent work of homicide inspectors working the EAR case. The Cordova Cat not only had the exact same kibitzing MO between Rancho and Carmichael, he struck in the same areas where EAR would strike. Except here. EAR didn’t strike here.
Instead EAR would take his 2nd victim a week later down Fair Oaks/Manzanita Blvd in Del Dayo. Both Marco Way and Marlborough Way (site of second attack) share one thing in common. They are straight off a main road into the community, one that is itself right off the main polar axis of Fair Oaks/Manzanita (Jacob Street for Del Dayo; Palm Drive for Marco Way). Both lie just beyond the second main cross street. In Del Dayo this is American River Drive. For Marco Way, it is California Street. Jacob Street dead ends at the levee at the William B. Pond recreational area. Palm Drive dead ends at the fields adjacent to the Ancil Hoffman Park and the American River.
The difference between the two? EAR returns to Del Dayo for Victim 7 and eventually for Victim 21. He never strikes the area of Marco Way. Nor did that strange prowler ever return after being seen by the 3 teens despite the amount of time he put in ingratiating himself to the neighborhood dogs. Another difference? He had never been seen in Del Dayo.
It is strange that the area where once the Cordova Cat felt safe is now avoided by EAR, but every other place the two overlap. The Cat had struck off Sunrise Blvd in the Merlindale area and in the area of Mission/Whitney and Thornwood, just precisely where EAR would also strike 3 years later. EAR follows the Cat’s padding except for here at Marco Way— but somebody had that July and didn’t follow through.
The Cordova Cat liked cars. He drove a lot. Not just back and forth in a night from Rancho to Carmichael. Months after one robbery he started using the victim’s gas credit card. He got gas all over the Sacramento area, as far away as Lodi and Marysville. At one place the license plate was taken down on the receipt. The detective on the case had traced it to a car wrecked a month before the robbery. Plates from wrecked cars is a cover EAR would use a lot more than once!
EAR/ONS obviously liked to drive, as his MO reveals. So did the Cordova Cat. He also seemed to like car stuff in general. In one Carmichael robbery, the Cat took a yellow glass after shave lotion bottle. It was a bottle shaped like a Model T— probably why he took it.
The incidents at Marco Way help give basis for pre-existing theorizing on EAR’s Stalking MO. Some of the EAR’s victim’s dogs never reacted to EAR much, and on a couple of occasions dogs that were known to challenge and bark at strangers did not dutifully alert their owners before EAR gained entrance and assaulted them. There was no information yet in the public forum when I wrote my analysis section here at Q Files, but I offered that EAR probably had fed the dogs beforehand. After all, he had stalked some victims for a long period, and even some neighborhoods in depth over weeks. Victim 21 in nearby Del Dayo is a case in point. Here at Marco Way a strange prowler was seen to be feeding the residents’ dogs.
If this was EAR, it would not be a stretch to deduce that if he returned and struck in the areas, the sheriffs might just go back and do Identikits with the 3 girls. Three witnesses got a good look at the ugly and mean guy, and their Identikits would be invaluable even today in identifying a night creature who is still largely amorphous.
|
