Zebra murders
The "Zebra" murders were a string of racially motivated murders and attacks committed by a group of four black serial killers in San Francisco, California between October 1973 and April 1974; the perpetrators killed at least fifteen white people and wounded eight others. Police gave the case the name "Zebra" after the special police radio band they assigned to the investigation.
Some authorities believe that the Death Angels, as the perpetrators called themselves, may have killed as many as seventy-three or more victims since 1970. Criminology professor Anthony Walsh wrote in a 2005 article that the Zebra murderers "may have killed more people in the early- to mid-1970s than all the other serial killers operating during that period combined."
In 1974, a worker at the warehouse where the Zebra murderers were based testified to police for a reward, providing private details about the killings. Based on his evidence, four men were arrested in connection with the case. They were convicted in a jury trial of first-degree murder and conspiracy charges and sentenced to life imprisonment. The informant received immunity from prosecution for his testimony, and he, along with his family, was admitted to a witness protection program.
The attacks
1973
On October 20, 1973, Richard Hague and his wife, Quita, were abducted at gunpoint and forced into a van while walking from their Telegraph Hill home in San Francisco. Quita's body was found nearly decapitated at a railroad track over four miles away. Richard, who had been beaten unconscious, was later found wandering near her body with his hands bound and his head and face slashed. He was able to give police a description of the attackers, describing them as three young black men in a white van. The description matched an earlier abduction attempt of three boys, ages 11 to 15.On October 30, Frances Rose was shot repeatedly in her car near the University of California Extension. A witness to the shooting said a man sitting in the passenger seat shot Rose and then jumped out of the car. The man was identified as Jessie Lee Cooks and he was arrested shortly after.
On November 9, Robert Wayne Stoeckmann was shot by Leroy Doctor. Just before the shooting, Stoeckmann, a field clerk for Pacific Gas and Electric Company, was picking up paperwork from various projects when a well-dressed man asked him for directions to a filling station. The man then pushed Stoeckmann behind a fence and pulled out a.32 caliber revolver, shooting him in the neck. Stoeckmann survived the attack, took the gun away from the man and shot him three times. Leroy Doctor was arrested and sentenced to a term of years to life in prison.
On November 25, Saleem Erakat was found dead in his store across from the San Francisco Civic Center. His body was found near an empty cash register, shot in the head, his hands bound with his own necktie. Over $1,000 had been stolen. Erakat's wallet was found empty on a Muni bus later that day. It was revealed that Erakat's murderer was a regular customer who had greeted Erakat in Arabic before his murder. His death was unique in that he was one of the few persons of color killed by the Zebra murderers.
On December 11, Paul Dancik was standing with a friend near a telephone booth. The friend told police that two young black men in navy peacoats approached them and began shooting, killing Dancik. Three.32 caliber shell casings were left at the scene. Two days later, on the evening of December 13, Art Agnos top aide to San Francisco Assemblyman Leo T. McCarthy, was shot twice in the chest after attending a meeting in Potrero Hill; Agnos survived the attack. Less than ninety minutes later, Marietta DiGirolamo was standing in a doorway along Divisadero Street when a black man wearing a long leather jacket shot her three times at close range. Police found three.32 caliber shell casings at the place of the shooting.
On December 20, Ilario Bertuccio was shot four times as he walked across the street while on his way home from his work. Just over two hours after this murder, Terese DeMartini survived being shot several times while parking her car. Two days later, Neal Moynihan was fatally shot three times while walking near Market Street. Within a few minutes, just a few blocks away, Mildred Hosler was shot four times at point-blank range. Initial reports of the Moynihan and Hosler shootings both mentioned a buckskin coat, but witnesses reported different races, and in some instances described a man with a medium complexion. Nevertheless, police indicated that the shootings were likely committed by the same person responsible for five other killings over the previous five days, due to the fact that all seven victims were shot at close range with a handgun, three or four times and none were robbed.
On December 24, a dismembered white male body was found at Ocean Beach. Known as John Doe #169, the remains were cut with surgical precision, wrapped in plastic and stuffed in a cardboard box. His head, hands and feet were missing. It was later testified that the remaining Zebra murderers kidnapped John Doe #169, took turns hacking off his limbs, "starting with his fingers, and toes, until he was disassembled like a hog in a butcher's shop." He was never identified.
1974
The killings resumed on January 28, 1974, with five more shootings; four were fatal. Tana Smith, 32, was shot on the sidewalk, only six blocks from her home. Ten minutes later, and eight blocks away, Vincent Wollin, 69, was shot twice in the back while digging through trash cans for items to repair and sell to supplement his Social Security checks. He died just a few feet from his home, where friends were waiting for him to arrive to celebrate his birthday. John Bambic, 87, a man known for his funny hats, was shot twice in the back, just an hour later, and died immediately. Jane Holly, 45, was doing her laundry when a gunman ran through the door of the laundromat and shot her twice in the back. She died just before she could celebrate her 25th wedding anniversary. Minutes later, Roxanne McMillan, 23, survived being shot twice, as she was removing clothing from her car, by the same man who had just greeted her on the street.On April 1, 1974, Tom Rainwater, 19, and Linda Story, 21, both Salvation Army cadets, were shot while on their way to grab something to eat at a restaurant. Only Story survived the attack.
On April 14, 1974, Terry White, 15, who was waiting for a bus, and Ward Anderson, 18, who was hitchhiking just a few feet away, were each shot twice. Both teenagers survived.
On April 16, 1974, Nelson Shields IV, 23, was making room in a friend's car for a rug he had just purchased when he was shot in the back three times. He died grasping a lacrosse stick.
Operation Zebra
The murders caused widespread panic in San Francisco. The city suffered losses in revenue by a dramatic drop in tourist traffic; many hotel, nightclub, restaurant, and theater owners reported a decline in business. Streets were deserted at night, even in North Beach, a neighborhood with seven-night-a-week nightlife.A manhunt, dubbed "Operation Zebra" due to the "Z" police frequency used for communication, was launched immediately following the murders on January 28, 1974.
Initial evidence related to the killings revealed a common pattern. In a hit-and-run shooting, the gunman would walk up to his victim, shoot the victim repeatedly at close range, and flee on foot. Another link among the shootings was the killers' preference for a.32 caliber pistol, based on the slugs recovered from the victims and the shell casings found at the crime scenes.
A stop-and-search program was instituted on April 17, 1974, following the shooting of Nelson Shields. The next day, a grid of six police combat zones were set up in the city of San Francisco, and more than 150 officers were deployed into the area. Each officer carried a composite sketch of the suspect, prepared by Homicide Inspector Hobart Nelson, based on the descriptions given by the many witnesses he interviewed. During the searches, field interrogation cards were filled out when officers deemed further questioning necessary. Recorded on the cards were the individuals' names, ages, addresses, and drivers license and social security numbers. Those cards were turned over to homicide detectives, and ultimately kept on file at the Hall of Justice.
Vocal and widespread criticism from the black community emerged immediately following the start of the program. Black Panther party leader Bobby Seale described the program as "vicious and racist." The general counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union, Paul Halvonik, stated that the measures taken by Mayor Alioto and police "are totally unprecedented in their scope and clearly indefensible in view of the Constitution." The Officers For Justice group, led by Nation of Islam associate Jesse Byrd, described the policy as "racist and unproductive".
A week after the program began, Cinque, the black leader of the Symbionese Liberation Army, said, "If we look closely, we begin to see the truth that Operation Zebra is a planned enemy offensive against the enemy to commit a race war," also claiming that it was a means to get "black males to submit to FBI classification and identification."
In response to the public backlash about the program, Alioto compared the interrogations to that of the Zodiac murders, in which hundreds of white people were also stopped, and defended the searches as constitutional. Dr. Washington Garner, the first black Police Commissioner for the city of San Francisco, urged the city's black men, "If you are stopped, don't resent it. Show your identification and, if necessary, permit a search."
Two lawsuits were filed; one by the NAACP, asking that stop-and-search tactic be declared unconstitutional, and another by the ACLU, on behalf of six young black men, asking that the searches be stopped. Nathaniel Colley, an attorney for the NAACP, told the judge, "By admission, the police are engaged in a wholesale violation of every black male's rights if he happens to be what they think fits the description of the Zebra killer."
On April 22, 1974, Alioto was spat on and struck on the head with protest signs as he walked through a crowd of about 1,000 demonstrators, organized by a group called, "Coalition to Stop Operation Zebra."
During the hearing for the lawsuits, which began on April 24, 1974, Chief of Inspectors Charles Barca reported that of the 567 black men that had been stopped, 181 field interrogation cards were submitted, and that the searches produced, "no effective leads." A memo from Barca, disclosed that day, revealed directions to police that stated, "be more selective in making stops. Make them when the individual is acting, or appears to be out of the ordinary."
On April 25, 1974, U.S. District Judge Alfonso Zirpoli issued a court order ruling that the searches unconstitutionally violated the rights of young black men, and said officers must have probable cause to conduct such searches, and that a likeness to the composite drawing was not by itself justification. Following the order, the police cut back interrogations to just over a dozen per day, and on April 26, 1974, the city filed an appeal to Zirpoli's order.