Young, Queer, and Dead: A Biography of San Francisco's Most Overlooked Serial Killer, The Doodler
Read about one of the most overlooked serial killers
The Zodiac Killer may have been San Francisco's most notorious serial killer, but another equally cruel killer was also stalking the streets at the same time, and, just like the Zodiac Killer, has never been arrested for his crimes. The difference is, while the Zodiac Killer's murder spree was heavily publicized, this other killer, nicknamed The Doodler, went unreported by the media and is nearly unknown today.
How did this ruthless killer become almost forgotten? Because he didn't target helpless women or children--he targeted gays--and in the 70s many people believed they had it coming; if they would just stop being gay, then all would be well.
In this gripping short book, you will go on the trail for one of the most brutal killers who ever lived.
Read about why his victims were disregarded by a homophobic press, and how he was positively identified by three escaped victims...only to walk away free without being arrested.
The Zodiac Killer may have been San Francisco's most notorious serial killer, but another equally cruel killer was also stalking the streets at the same time, and, just like the Zodiac Killer, has never been arrested for his crimes. The difference is, while the Zodiac Killer's murder spree was heavily publicized, this other killer, nicknamed The Doodler, went unreported by the media and is nearly unknown today.
How did this ruthless killer become almost forgotten? Because he didn't target helpless women or children--he targeted gays--and in the 70s many people believed they had it coming; if they would just stop being gay, then all would be well.
In this gripping short book, you will go on the trail for one of the most brutal killers who ever lived.
Read about why his victims were disregarded by a homophobic press, and how he was positively identified by three escaped victims...only to walk away free without being arrested.
Buy Now!
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Excerpt
Prologue
San Francisco, California, the city by the bay. It conjures up images of The Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island, Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s a city rich in history and culture, with top rated museums, cable cars, trendy shops and boutiques and the famed Chinatown District.
The city was nearly devastated in 1908 by the great San Francisco earthquake, which toppled buildings and ruptured gas lines, igniting hundreds of fires that burned out of control. With water mains destroyed, the fires burned for days, leaving the city in ruins. But San Franciscans quickly rebuilt, and the city has become one of the top tourist destinations in the world.
But San Francisco, like all major cities, also has history that tourists aren’t readily aware of. Dark and evil predators have called The Bay Area home, and used it to commit some of the most heinous crimes in history.
In 1895 Theo Durrant, a young, good-looking medical student, brutally raped and murdered two young girls, hiding their butchered bodies in The Emmanuel Baptist Church. Quickly tried and convicted of both murders, Theo Durrant was hung at San Quentin Prison on January 7, 1898.
In September of 1921, film star Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle was falsely accused of savagely raping and subsequently causing the death of aspiring actress Virginia Rappe in a downtown San Francisco hotel. Arbuckle was never convicted of this crime, but the scandal was enough to ruin his career for good.
The Durrant and Arbuckle cases were considered ‘crimes of the century’, and kept San Franciscans glued to their newspapers and eager for more. But by the time the mid-twentieth century rolled around, the city was dealing with a different breed of killer, the likes of which it had never seen before. So bizarre and unusual was this new type of criminal that law enforcement officers would coin a new phrase specifically to identify them; serial killers.
San Francisco’s introduction to serial killers began in the 1960’s with The Zodiac Killer, a phantom psychopath who murdered brutally, and indiscriminately, and left the city in a near state of panic. The Zodiac shot, stabbed, and maimed his victims, all the while taunting the police with bizarre letters and highly intricate cryptograms. And he has never been caught.
By the time the 1970’s arrived, and while The Zodiac was still causing mayhem, San Francisco found itself dealing with another series of crimes attributed to this new breed of serial killer.
The Zebra Killings, a series of grotesque acts of violence, terrified the city and caused wide scale panic. Perpetrated against men, women and children, the crimes were committed by a group of radicals who stabbed, shot and hacked their victims to death.
But The Zodiac and Zebra were not the only killers roaming San Francisco at the time. Another dark and evil entity stalked the city’s streets, committing crimes every bit as vicious and gruesome as any that came before him. This killer targeted the gay community, and his name was The Doodler.
Chapter 1: The Beginning
It all began in January 1974, when San Francisco police, responding to an urgent call, discovered the murdered body of what, at first glance, appeared to be a young female. Upon closer examination, however, it soon became apparent that this victim was not a woman, but a man made up to look like one.
The crime scene was horrific, the room splattered and drenched in blood, the body slashed and horribly mutilated. Investigators soon discovered that the victim was a known transvestite who frequented the area’s gay bars and clubs. He was also a regular at the city’s popular gay bath houses, where men could go to pick up strangers for sex. While investigating the death, police learned that the victim had last been seen at a gay bar in the company of a young white male with light brown hair. But further investigation failed to produce any witnesses who knew who the young man was. Police continued to visit the different gay establishments and question people further, but information and clues were scarce, and the case soon went cold.
Within months, however, the badly mutilated bodies of four more transvestites would be discovered, sliced, stabbed, and butchered in a grotesque manner. Obviously connected, the police theorized that they were dealing with a sick and twisted psycho who had a deep hatred for cross-dressing drag queens. All of the victims were homosexual and well-known customers of the Bay Area gay establishments. None of them had been hesitant to pick up lovers on the spur of the moment, a fact that hampered the investigation from the start. When police would question one of the men’s known lovers, they would invariably be given the names of several more the victim was known to be intimate with. As for the strangers he may have picked up, no one had a clue as to who they might be, nor how many of them there were.
Police were worried, and frustrated, realizing early on that a good portion of the city of San Francisco could be considered suspects. Worse yet, they had no idea if the killer was gay or straight, or even targeting the homosexual community. There was always the chance that he was a straight guy who had picked up a transvestite believing it was a woman, and then, humiliated and enraged when he found out the truth, decided to do away with any cross dressing drag queen he came across. For now, police had no choice but to keep following up on any leads and questioning whoever they could. They didn’t know what else to do.
As winter gave way to spring, and then to summer, San Francisco police continued to hunt for the killer targeting area transvestites, but no new victims had surfaced, nor any new suspects, and cops were running out of leads. As a result, the investigation was cursory at best. Besides, the police had newer problems to worry about as an entirely different set of bodies began turning up. These new murder victims were all men too, and, what’s more, they were all gay. Furthermore, they were also regular patrons of the gay bars, clubs and bath houses in the community, and unafraid to pick up strangers when the whim struck them. But these new victims were not transvestites, although police quickly learned that they too had a secret kinky side.
These new murdered men, although not into cross-dressing, were deeply involved with S&M, or sadomasochism. Not a readily known subject in 1974, S&M is a bizarre form of sexual relations where pleasure is either given, or received, from inflicting pain. S&M often includes whips, chains and bondage.
Although there were several similarities between these new deaths and the transvestite killings, there were differences as well. While both sets of victims were gay and known to pick up strangers in the same bars and clubs, these new victims were also known to frequent the more bizarre establishments in the gay community. These clubs were known as ‘leather bars’, and sported names such as ‘The Ramrod’, ‘The Fe-Be’s’, and ‘Folsom Poison’. Each of the men had been brutally cut, slashed and stabbed in a similar fashion, but they had not been mutilated as the transvestites had been. It was this fact alone that police focused on. So convinced were officials that the original five victims were the result of someone with an uncontrollable rage against transvestites, not gays in general, that they immediately discounted the idea of any connection between those deaths and these new ones.
And so, two separate investigations were begun, and the San Francisco police department was scouring the city for two separate and distinct killers.
The barbaric murders had generated little publicity, and area newspapers barely even reported on them, a fact that both angered and upset the gay community. San Francisco, in the early 1970’s, had a large homosexual population, and they felt the police and public didn’t care that members of their community were being slaughtered on a regular basis. Local gays felt betrayed by the lack of publicity, and believed that the majority of citizens felt the men had gotten what they deserved. In other words, they believed the attitude of the public to be; they asked for it by choosing the lifestyles they had. Determined not to let law enforcement forget about them, gay community members criticized the police, demanding the crimes receive the same attention they would if the victim’s had been ‘straight’.
In all actuality, the gay community may have been right. Only one known victim of the ‘The Doodler’ caused even a hint of a stir in the media. When a well-known, wealthy and respected San Francisco attorney was found hacked to death in his posh and expensive high-rise apartment, his death was reported in area newspapers. But when the attorney’s gruesome murder became linked with the other S&M cases, the publicity just as quickly dropped from sight.
By the time fall and winter arrived, the S&M body count now stood at six, one more than the dead transvestites, and police were no closer to catching either of the two perceived killers. To make matters worse, more bodies were turning up. But unlike the transvestites and the sadomasochists, these new dead men were all upscale San Francisco businessmen. Wealthy, respected, and well-liked, most of them were described as the last person you would ever expect to be murdered. Police were also relieved to find that none of them were known to have a ‘secret, side’.
Investigators worked these cases more closely, and quickly learned that although it didn’t appear that these victims had any secret, or kinky, sides, they did, indeed have them. These men too, like all the previous ones, were gay and known to frequent the gay establishments looking for sex and one night stands. This information came from people who knew them well. People who knew them better, in fact, then their own families did. Street people, hustlers, and fellow patrons of the bars and clubs the victims visited. For these men were still ‘in the closet’, not publicizing their sexual preferences, even to their families or closest friends.
The fact that these new murder victims were gay, however, mattered little to the San Francisco police department. These men were not cross-dressers, drag queens, or into sadomasochistic sex. Therefore it stood to reason; their deaths could in no way be related to the previous ones. Right? As in the first and second string of murders, a third investigation, focusing on a suspect that targeted gay men, was now begun.
San Francisco, California, the city by the bay. It conjures up images of The Golden Gate Bridge, Alcatraz Island, Pier 39 and Fisherman’s Wharf. It’s a city rich in history and culture, with top rated museums, cable cars, trendy shops and boutiques and the famed Chinatown District.
The city was nearly devastated in 1908 by the great San Francisco earthquake, which toppled buildings and ruptured gas lines, igniting hundreds of fires that burned out of control. With water mains destroyed, the fires burned for days, leaving the city in ruins. But San Franciscans quickly rebuilt, and the city has become one of the top tourist destinations in the world.
But San Francisco, like all major cities, also has history that tourists aren’t readily aware of. Dark and evil predators have called The Bay Area home, and used it to commit some of the most heinous crimes in history.
In 1895 Theo Durrant, a young, good-looking medical student, brutally raped and murdered two young girls, hiding their butchered bodies in The Emmanuel Baptist Church. Quickly tried and convicted of both murders, Theo Durrant was hung at San Quentin Prison on January 7, 1898.
In September of 1921, film star Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle was falsely accused of savagely raping and subsequently causing the death of aspiring actress Virginia Rappe in a downtown San Francisco hotel. Arbuckle was never convicted of this crime, but the scandal was enough to ruin his career for good.
The Durrant and Arbuckle cases were considered ‘crimes of the century’, and kept San Franciscans glued to their newspapers and eager for more. But by the time the mid-twentieth century rolled around, the city was dealing with a different breed of killer, the likes of which it had never seen before. So bizarre and unusual was this new type of criminal that law enforcement officers would coin a new phrase specifically to identify them; serial killers.
San Francisco’s introduction to serial killers began in the 1960’s with The Zodiac Killer, a phantom psychopath who murdered brutally, and indiscriminately, and left the city in a near state of panic. The Zodiac shot, stabbed, and maimed his victims, all the while taunting the police with bizarre letters and highly intricate cryptograms. And he has never been caught.
By the time the 1970’s arrived, and while The Zodiac was still causing mayhem, San Francisco found itself dealing with another series of crimes attributed to this new breed of serial killer.
The Zebra Killings, a series of grotesque acts of violence, terrified the city and caused wide scale panic. Perpetrated against men, women and children, the crimes were committed by a group of radicals who stabbed, shot and hacked their victims to death.
But The Zodiac and Zebra were not the only killers roaming San Francisco at the time. Another dark and evil entity stalked the city’s streets, committing crimes every bit as vicious and gruesome as any that came before him. This killer targeted the gay community, and his name was The Doodler.
Chapter 1: The Beginning
It all began in January 1974, when San Francisco police, responding to an urgent call, discovered the murdered body of what, at first glance, appeared to be a young female. Upon closer examination, however, it soon became apparent that this victim was not a woman, but a man made up to look like one.
The crime scene was horrific, the room splattered and drenched in blood, the body slashed and horribly mutilated. Investigators soon discovered that the victim was a known transvestite who frequented the area’s gay bars and clubs. He was also a regular at the city’s popular gay bath houses, where men could go to pick up strangers for sex. While investigating the death, police learned that the victim had last been seen at a gay bar in the company of a young white male with light brown hair. But further investigation failed to produce any witnesses who knew who the young man was. Police continued to visit the different gay establishments and question people further, but information and clues were scarce, and the case soon went cold.
Within months, however, the badly mutilated bodies of four more transvestites would be discovered, sliced, stabbed, and butchered in a grotesque manner. Obviously connected, the police theorized that they were dealing with a sick and twisted psycho who had a deep hatred for cross-dressing drag queens. All of the victims were homosexual and well-known customers of the Bay Area gay establishments. None of them had been hesitant to pick up lovers on the spur of the moment, a fact that hampered the investigation from the start. When police would question one of the men’s known lovers, they would invariably be given the names of several more the victim was known to be intimate with. As for the strangers he may have picked up, no one had a clue as to who they might be, nor how many of them there were.
Police were worried, and frustrated, realizing early on that a good portion of the city of San Francisco could be considered suspects. Worse yet, they had no idea if the killer was gay or straight, or even targeting the homosexual community. There was always the chance that he was a straight guy who had picked up a transvestite believing it was a woman, and then, humiliated and enraged when he found out the truth, decided to do away with any cross dressing drag queen he came across. For now, police had no choice but to keep following up on any leads and questioning whoever they could. They didn’t know what else to do.
As winter gave way to spring, and then to summer, San Francisco police continued to hunt for the killer targeting area transvestites, but no new victims had surfaced, nor any new suspects, and cops were running out of leads. As a result, the investigation was cursory at best. Besides, the police had newer problems to worry about as an entirely different set of bodies began turning up. These new murder victims were all men too, and, what’s more, they were all gay. Furthermore, they were also regular patrons of the gay bars, clubs and bath houses in the community, and unafraid to pick up strangers when the whim struck them. But these new victims were not transvestites, although police quickly learned that they too had a secret kinky side.
These new murdered men, although not into cross-dressing, were deeply involved with S&M, or sadomasochism. Not a readily known subject in 1974, S&M is a bizarre form of sexual relations where pleasure is either given, or received, from inflicting pain. S&M often includes whips, chains and bondage.
Although there were several similarities between these new deaths and the transvestite killings, there were differences as well. While both sets of victims were gay and known to pick up strangers in the same bars and clubs, these new victims were also known to frequent the more bizarre establishments in the gay community. These clubs were known as ‘leather bars’, and sported names such as ‘The Ramrod’, ‘The Fe-Be’s’, and ‘Folsom Poison’. Each of the men had been brutally cut, slashed and stabbed in a similar fashion, but they had not been mutilated as the transvestites had been. It was this fact alone that police focused on. So convinced were officials that the original five victims were the result of someone with an uncontrollable rage against transvestites, not gays in general, that they immediately discounted the idea of any connection between those deaths and these new ones.
And so, two separate investigations were begun, and the San Francisco police department was scouring the city for two separate and distinct killers.
The barbaric murders had generated little publicity, and area newspapers barely even reported on them, a fact that both angered and upset the gay community. San Francisco, in the early 1970’s, had a large homosexual population, and they felt the police and public didn’t care that members of their community were being slaughtered on a regular basis. Local gays felt betrayed by the lack of publicity, and believed that the majority of citizens felt the men had gotten what they deserved. In other words, they believed the attitude of the public to be; they asked for it by choosing the lifestyles they had. Determined not to let law enforcement forget about them, gay community members criticized the police, demanding the crimes receive the same attention they would if the victim’s had been ‘straight’.
In all actuality, the gay community may have been right. Only one known victim of the ‘The Doodler’ caused even a hint of a stir in the media. When a well-known, wealthy and respected San Francisco attorney was found hacked to death in his posh and expensive high-rise apartment, his death was reported in area newspapers. But when the attorney’s gruesome murder became linked with the other S&M cases, the publicity just as quickly dropped from sight.
By the time fall and winter arrived, the S&M body count now stood at six, one more than the dead transvestites, and police were no closer to catching either of the two perceived killers. To make matters worse, more bodies were turning up. But unlike the transvestites and the sadomasochists, these new dead men were all upscale San Francisco businessmen. Wealthy, respected, and well-liked, most of them were described as the last person you would ever expect to be murdered. Police were also relieved to find that none of them were known to have a ‘secret, side’.
Investigators worked these cases more closely, and quickly learned that although it didn’t appear that these victims had any secret, or kinky, sides, they did, indeed have them. These men too, like all the previous ones, were gay and known to frequent the gay establishments looking for sex and one night stands. This information came from people who knew them well. People who knew them better, in fact, then their own families did. Street people, hustlers, and fellow patrons of the bars and clubs the victims visited. For these men were still ‘in the closet’, not publicizing their sexual preferences, even to their families or closest friends.
The fact that these new murder victims were gay, however, mattered little to the San Francisco police department. These men were not cross-dressers, drag queens, or into sadomasochistic sex. Therefore it stood to reason; their deaths could in no way be related to the previous ones. Right? As in the first and second string of murders, a third investigation, focusing on a suspect that targeted gay men, was now begun.
