Victim was asleep in bed at 12 midnight when her husband returned from his swing shift job. The husband had a beer while he watched a late show. About 2 a.m. husband went to bed. His wife awoke him shortly afterward and they cuddled for a while. Husband’s back was to the sliding glass patio door in the bedroom. At this point he heard a rattling noise at the door and turned over. At that moment he saw a man coming through the door. The assailant shined a 2-cell small flashlight on him (holding it in his left hand) and in his right hand he held a .45 automatic. Victim’s husband estimated it as the blue steel military type.

     Assailant ordered “Lay perfectly still, don’t make a move and don’t look at me. Put your hands where I can see them in front and don’t move a muscle.” Assailant produced some shoelaces and ordered victim to tie her husband’s hands. His exact words: “Tie the man up.” As she was tying her husband up the assailant told her exactly how to do it and to “Tie it tightly.” He repeated this more than once. Assailant then tied the wife’s hands.

     Assailant told them that he was only going to get some food and money. Then he proceeded to start rummaging through the closets in the room. Every time the husband would look up, the assailant would turn the flashlight back on him. He threatened “I’ll kill her and her son if you don’t keep your face down.” He took shoelaces from shoes. He walked over to the husband and put the gun to his head. “Lay still.” He then retied the husband’s hands and tied his feet. Husband then heard the assailant rummage in the bathroom. He returned and put glass bottles on the husband’s back.

     “Don’t move. If I hear that sound, I’ll kill everyone in the house.” Then he retied the victim’s feet and hands.

     Husband could hear assailant rummaging about in the kitchen in the cupboards. Then the assailant returned to the bedroom and put some dishes on the husband’s back. He then put a knife to his neck and said: “Don’t make a move or I’ll kill everyone in the house. As I promised, I’m only going to get food and money and then go to my van and eat it. If I hear that sound I’ll come back and kill everyone in the house.”

     Assailant then untied victim’s feet and yanked victim out of the bedroom. It was not long until the assailant returned to the bedroom and shined a flashlight around and then closed the bedroom door. After he left, husband heard his wife moaning. It wasn’t long and assailant was back in the bedroom. After awhile husband heard the assailant open the sliding glass patio door from the family room. After a few minutes husband knocked some dishes off his back and when this did not attract the assailant husband assumed he had left. He knocked receiver off the phone and dialed with his hands behind his back.

     Victim later recalled that when she had been doing her laundry earlier that night (which required that she take several trips to the garage where the washing machine is located) that on one occasion she noticed side garage door was open. She thought that the wind had blown it open. She locked it and continued about her business.

     Victim went to bed about 11:30 p.m. She recalled that when the assailant entered the room and ordered her to “tie up the man” he threw some shoelaces at her. Victim attempted to tie her husband very loosely, but assailant went over it and tied him tighter again. Victim also heard assailant in the bathroom pumping a bottle of lotion. It is after this that he came back and put the dishes on her husband’s back.

     Then the assailant took her into the living room and ordered her to lie down. He already had pieces of towels torn into strips on the floor. He tied one strip around her eyes.  Afterward she heard a zipper and then some kind of “snapping or slapping noises.” He straddled her then squatted down on her stomach.

     He raped her.

     He then rolled her on her side. He raped her again.

     Then he sodomized her.

     When he was finished he put his face right up to her blindfold. He said in a clenched whisper: “I have something for you to tell the fucking pigs. They got it mixed up the last time. I said I would kill two people. I’m not going to kill you. If this is on TV or in the paper tomorrow, I’ll kill two people.” Then he asked: “Are you l-l-l-listening? Do you hear me?” He stuttered the word “listening.” Then he said: “I have TVs in my apartment and I’ll be watching them. If this is on the news, I’ll kill two people. Then he sobbed and said: “It scares my mommy when it’s on the news.” He repeated this twice. He sounded like he was going to cry when he said the word ‘mommy,’ but when he said the word ‘pigs’ he was real mad.

     Then he left.

Investigation

Police arrived to find the victim lying face down in the living room, hands tied behind her back, and her ankles tied. Torn strips of towel and brown shoelaces were on the living room floor. They found victim’s husband in the bedroom. He was sitting on the bed with his wrist and ankles tied with brown shoelaces. The phone was off the cradle.  Green wine bottle and opened packages of sausage were on the patio. Investigation also discovered that there was a for-sale sign in front of the house. [The family had bought the house and moved in three weeks before and the sign had not yet been picked up. (fact check)]

Description

As in the other cases the description of the assailant fit the East Area Rapist. In this case he did not demand the money under threat that he would kill them.  He always spoke in a whisper. Sometimes he stuttered. The whisper was real harsh like when someone takes loud breaths, hyper and perhaps slightly high pitched. He did not rape victim for very long, and victim felt his penis was quite small. He carried a .45 automatic and small 2 cell flashlight. Suspect was about 5 foot 9 or 10 inches tall; and perhaps 160 pounds.  He wore a red ski mask with eye holes and a mouth  hole. He was wearing a bulky dark-colored jacket and dark pants and wore black gloves. Husband was in the Marine Reserves and knew it was a military blue steel .45 automatic

Geography

The attack occurred in the area of Sky Parkway. This was the first attack in the south Sacramento area.  Yet the greater neighborhood of Sky Parkway fit the East Area Rapist’s tactical MO. It is locked in by a canal and a highway. In many respects, it has great similarities to the Sandbar Circle area at Del Dayo.

House

The house was a typical single story, detached middle class home.

Analysis

In this particular case, the East Area Rapist did not cut the phone line or pull it out of the jack. This would be his method when parked closely to the house. However, the bloodhound traced his scent to the cyclone gate in the fence that protects the narrow drainage canal opposite the house. The dog could not go further. Tire tracks were found on the other side of where there is now a sound wall. These were on the shoulder of the onramp to Highway 99. It was thought that these tracks could be from his car. If this is the case, then he had not remained long at the residence. He ran too much of a risk of his car being tagged by a CHP officer. Moreover, if he had been prowling the area for a while (thus accounting for victim’s garage door being found open earlier in the night) he must have parked elsewhere while prowling and later returned and parked in the exposed location on the Highway 99 onramp. Or it could be these tracks are incidental and he had been parked at a business where the canal begins on the nearby main street.

     The EAR played along his earlier themes here in other ways. Not only did he say patently misleading things, like in the case with Victim No 9, he tried to make it sound as if he was still quite young. “It scares my mommy,” he had said, no doubt with a dose of sarcasm. His attempts to pass himself off as young strike one as suspicious. Could he have thought that because of his higher pitched voice he could pass himself off as younger? He knew his words would be repeated to the police. Was he throwing them a red herring to hook them into believing they were looking for a young man? Was he older?

     EAR did not seem to have stalked the interior of this home before or to have established its member’s routines and identities. He refers to victim’s husband merely as “man” and the children as “her” children. This is an interesting contrast to his earlier attacks on couples, where he referred to boyfriends as “husbands.”

     As always The EAR showed that he was lording over the house. He drank and ate their food on the back patio.

     The EAR appears to have been wearing the same bulky blue jacket, even though it was late May. A victim would later identify this as a “Navy type” (M65) jacket.

     I asked in the photo essay, What brought the EAR to this area? I meant in the way of topography. This area was, in fact, blocks away from the office of a dentist who had made headlines now that Sacramento was in a panic, and this may have motivated EAR to use these victims here as chess pawns of terror and sadism against the dentist and the whole idea of a citizen’s Vigilante Committee. He would never strike in the south again. This attack was entirely unique.

     Theorizing has posited that EAR hurt himself when he went back to his car. The bloodhound lost the scent at the cyclone gate, indicating EAR had jumped it. The other side of the fence is very narrow and uneven and EAR could have slid into the canal and hurt his shoulder. This would explain two things: a man with fake I.D. and giving the age of 31 years old turned up 2 days later at the emergency ward of American River Hospital. He gave May 28 as the date of his injury. He struck them as suspicious and fled before the sheriffs arrived. It was thought this could be EAR. If so, it could explain why he was dormant all summer, as with a severely injured shoulder he was incapable of his gymnastic prowling, the agility that had made him so successful thus far. Please see The Next Couple Dies! for a detailed look at this theory.

The one time perhaps that a canal did not serve the East Area Rapist well. This is where the bloodhound lost the scent. It is assumed EAR jumped the gate and came down on the narrow strip on the other side and slid into the canal.

Night Predator
Files on the East Area Rapist/Original Night Stalker