The doodler

As Doodler ( de .: The scribbler ) designated press and police the unidentified perpetrators of a series of murders in San Francisco mid-1970s. With a total of 14 deaths, it is still one of the numerically most significant unsolved serial murders.

The crime

The crimes began in January 1974 with the murder of a drag queen from the Tenderloin residential and commercial district , who was found stabbed and brutally mutilated in an apartment. The investigation revealed that she had previously been seen in a bar with a young white, dark-blonde man. In the course of the next few months, four other travesty artists died in the same way, which is why the police initially assumed a perpetrator with an explicit hatred of transvestites . Police work was made more difficult, among other things, by the fact that all victims had frequent changing partners; therefore, it was almost impossible to determine who had last seen her before she died.

At the beginning of 1975 the police had hardly any usable information left that could have been followed up. In addition, the police were faced with a new series of murders in the spring: six homosexual members of the sadomasochistic scene (including the prominent lawyer George Gilbert) disappeared from the corresponding bars and clubs. They too were stabbed, mutilated, and slashed - but the degree of mutilation was not as high as the drag queens. Both series of murders received little media attention. Only about the death of Gilbert, who had been killed in his apartment in a posh high-rise, the press reported in more detail. Representatives of the lesbian and gay movement accused the police of inactivity and demanded the same investigative care that is shown in the case of heterosexual murder victims.

In early autumn 1975 the final act of crimes came when six middle-class businessmen disappeared from bars in The Castro ; three of them were murdered with knife wounds in the same way; the other three survived seriously injured. After more intensive investigations it turned out that these men - contrary to what was initially assumed - were homosexual and known in the scene. The survivors unanimously reported that the perpetrator had stolen their trust by offering to draw them. Because of this, the killer got the name we use today. After the sexual intercourse was carried out, the violent attacks occurred. This group of victims was wealthy and highly valued by society, which is why these acts were discussed more extensively in the media for the first time. The police assumed that the perpetrator may have acted out of shame about suppressed own homosexual feelings. The murders ended in September.

Further investigation

Due to the heterogeneity of the choice of victims in the three groups, the authorities assumed for a long time that they were hunting three different murderers. Only gradually, as the leads and suspects could be narrowed down more and more, it was discovered that there must be a single serial killer. The head of the now bundled investigations was Inspector Rotea Gilford (1927-1998), the first African-American homicide investigator of the San Francisco Police Department . In the course of 1976, the suspicion finally concentrated on a man who, according to the authorities, was mentally ill, who had already been in therapy several times for sexual offenses. He was interrogated several times and willingly testified. The suspect repeatedly made hints about the murders and appeared to be playing with the officials, but always denied any involvement in the crimes. The three surviving victims - among them a "famous entertainer" and a diplomat, according to the police - refused to identify their attacker in several interviews because they feared that they would lose professional prospects and social respect if they came out. Therefore, on July 7, 1977, the investigators announced in frustration that an unnamed suspect had been linked to the attacks, but that an indictment would be impossible without the cooperation of the survivors. This is the status quo to this day .

Individual evidence

1. ^ Michael Newton: The Encyclopedia of Unsolved Crimes . New York City 2009, page 111. Retrieved October 26, 2013.
2. ↑ Exerpt from Reagan Martin: Young, Queer, and Dead: A Biography of San Francisco's Most Overlooked Serial Killer, The Doodler . 2013. Retrieved October 26, 2013 from absolutecrime.com .