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San Francisco Police New Sketch of Doodler Serial Killer · Murder Files Unsealed

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: So I want you to picture a predator, but someone
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: who's just hiding in plain sight. Okay. He is sitting
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: right next to you at a diner counter. He's maybe
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: sipping a cup of black coffee under those really harsh,
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: buzzing fluorescent lights that just make everyone look kind of exhausted.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Right. That late night diner vibe.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Exactly. It's late. The bars have all closed for the night.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: But here is the most unsettling part about this guy.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: His primary weapons. aren't what you would expect at all.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, we're so used to the typical true crime weapons,
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: you know.
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: Right. There is no switchblade palmed in his hand. There's
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: no gun tucked into his waistband. He is armed with
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: literally nothing more than a cheap sketchpad and a PEM. Wow.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: And with those incredibly simple everyday tools, he completely dismantled lives.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: So we are unpacking a chilling 50-year-old cold case out
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: of San Francisco today.
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's a really intense one.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: It really is. It's a case that has just been
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: brought back from the shadows by a brand new police investigation,
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: along with this fascinating piece of reporting from People magazine
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: by Kristen Pelisic.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Which is such a great piece of journalism, by the way.
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, absolutely. And this is a story that forces us
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: to basically question everything we think we know about how
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: a killer actually operates in the real world.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: It really does. I mean, it subverts the entire idea
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: of a threat, right?
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: Totally.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Because when we think of danger, especially in the context
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: of the 1970s, which was, you know, this massive serial
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: killer epidemic, we think of overt violence. We think of
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: aggression or like someone lurking in a dark alleyway.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the guy in the ski mask jumping out of
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: the bushes. Exactly.
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: We definitely don't think of quiet, creative observation. We don't
• 1:48
  Speaker 2: think of an earnest young artist sketching animals on a napkin.
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: It's almost too wholesome, right? Right.
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: But that camouflage of innocence is exactly what allowed this
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: individual to become one of the most prolific yet historically
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: overlooked serial predators of that entire era.
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: So we're going to pull this case completely out of
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: the archives today. Our mission for this deep dive is
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: to unpack the terrifying psychological machinery of the killer the
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: media dubbed the doodler.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Such a bizarre nickname.
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: I know. We'll get into that. But we are going
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: to look really closely at the incredibly diverse lives of
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: his six known victims.
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: And that diversity is key.
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: It is. And we also have to explore the societal
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: blind spots, like the actual mechanics of the cultural prejudices
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: in the 1970s, because that is what allowed a man
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: who was actually interviewed by police way back in 1976
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: to remain the prime suspect who is walking free to
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: this day.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Which is just wild to think about.
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: It's maddening. Okay, let's unpack this. I want you to
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: put yourself in the shoes of a homicide detective in
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: San Francisco in 1974. Okay.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: Setting the scene.
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: To catch a predator, you obviously have to understand who
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: they are hunting. But when you look at the victims
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: in this case, the puzzle pieces just, they do not
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: seem to fit together at all.
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: Well, that's because victimology is usually like the Rosetta Stone
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: for investigators, you know?
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: It's the study of the victims themselves, their habits, their backgrounds,
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: their physical traits. Often, a serial killer has a very strict,
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: rigid type that they go after.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Like Ted Bundy targeting women with long, dark hair parted
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: in the middle. Exactly.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: They might only target young men of a certain age
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: bracket or sex workers or hitchhikers. The victims usually share
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: this common denominator that acts as like a beacon for
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: the killer's specific compulsion.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: Makes sense.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: But in this case, over an 18-month span, starting in
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: early 1974, this killer murdered six gay white men. And
• 3:49
  Speaker 2: if you look past that basic demographic description, the sheer
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: variance in their lived experiences is just absolutely staggering.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: It's all over the map.
• 3:57
  Speaker 2: It completely defies traditional profiling.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Well, let's look at who these men actually were because
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: the differences are huge. The first known victim was a
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: man named Gerald Cavanaugh.
• 4:07
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: He was 50 years old. He worked as a furniture finisher.
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: So he's a blue collar guy who had emigrated to
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: San Francisco from Canada. Okay. He was attacked on January 27, 1974,
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: and his body was found out at Ocean Beach. Just,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, just imagine his life for a second.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: He's 50 in 1974, which means he was born in
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: the 1920s. He's lived a whole life, moved across borders,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: and is doing manual labor for a living. Right.
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: So you have this older immigrant establishing himself in a trade.
• 4:38
  Speaker 2: He represents a very specific subset of the population.
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: Definitely.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: He's settled, likely quiet, perhaps a bit solitary given his
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: recent immigration status. Now, contrast Gerald's profile with the very
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: next victim investigators linked to this case.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: It's a massive pivot. I mean, six months later, in
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: July of 1974, a young man named Joseph J. Stevens
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: is discovered.
• 4:59
  Speaker 2: And he was completely different.
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: Completely. He was only 27 years old, and he was
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: this rising star in the local drag queen scene. His
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: body was found in Golden Gate Park. Wow. I keep
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: getting stuck on this jump, honestly. You have a 50-year-old
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Canadian furniture finisher and a 27-year-old vibrant local drag performer.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: I mean, they are worlds apart socially, economically, and generationally.
• 5:23
  Speaker 2: It just completely shatters the idea of a standard victim profile.
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: And the timeline just keeps adding confounding variables, you know?
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't get any clearer.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Because that exact same month, July 1974, a 31-year-old named
• 5:36
  Speaker 2: Klaus Christmann is killed. So now we have victims in
• 5:39
  Speaker 2: their 20s, their 30s, and their 50s.
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: And it gets even more complex. The next victim in
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: the timeline is Warren Andrews. Now, he was 52 years old.
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: Okay, back to an older demographic. Right.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: He was assaulted in April of 1975 at Land's End, which,
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: for anyone who doesn't know, is this really rugged, beautiful
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: park right on the cliffs near the Golden Gate Bridge.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: It's very secluded, especially at night.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: Extremely. Now, Andrews actually survived the initial attack. but he
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: tragically died several weeks later in the hospital from his injuries.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: But what I found so shocking about his case is
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: that he was only officially identified as the sixth victim
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: of the doodler in January of 2022.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: Wait, really? 2022? Yes.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: For nearly 50 years, his murder wasn't even connected to
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: this serial killer.
• 6:28
  Speaker 2: See, that phenomenon is known in criminology as linkage blindness.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Linkage blindness. What exactly does that mean?
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: So when a killer crosses jurisdictional lines or if they
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: slightly alter their method or, as in this case, they
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: target victims with wildly different backgrounds, detectives basically fail to
• 6:45
  Speaker 2: link the crimes together.
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see. They don't realize they're looking at the
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: same perpetrator.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The paperwork just stays in separate filing cabinets. In
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: the 1970s, before we had computerized databases like FICAP, if
• 6:57
  Speaker 2: one detective was working a blunt force trauma case on
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: a 52-year-old at Land's End and another was working a
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: stabbing of a 27-year-old in Golden Gate.
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Park, They never talked to each other about it.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: Right. There was no algorithm to tell them they were
• 7:09
  Speaker 2: hunting the same ghost.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: That makes total sense. Without a computer flagging the similarities,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: they are just relying on, like, water cooler talk at
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: the precinct to connect the dots.
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: Pretty much, yeah.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Well, let's finish out the tragic roster here because it
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: keeps varying. After Warren Andrews, we have Frederick Capon.
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: Right, Capon.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: He was 32 years old, killed on May 12, 1975.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: And Capon wasn't just anybody. He was a highly decorated
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: Vietnam War hero.
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: Which implies a certain level of physical capability and situational awareness, too.
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Exactly. And finally, less than a month later, on June 4th, 1975,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: Harold Goldberg is murdered. He was 66 years old.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: So just look at that entire spectrum.
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: It's huge.
• 7:54
  Speaker 2: We have an age range spanning from 27 to 66.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: We have a young drag performer, an immigrant laborer, a
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: middle-aged man... an elderly gentleman, and a battle-tested military veteran.
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: They have almost nothing in common on paper.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: Right. If you are a behavioral analyst trying to figure
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: out what this killer is looking for, you are just
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: left scratching your head. He clearly isn't hunting a specific
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: physical type.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: It's like casting a net in a very specific pond,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: but not caring what type of fish you pull up,
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: as long as they are swimming in those specific waters.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: That is exactly the mechanism at play here. The common
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: thread wasn't their age or their occupation or their physical vulnerability.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: So what was it?
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: The thread was their social vulnerability. He was targeting a
• 8:40
  Speaker 2: very specific ecosystem. He was hunting gay men who were
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: navigating a society that actively marginalized them.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: He was looking for individuals who were seeking connection, companionship,
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: or just, you know, a moment of understanding in a
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: world that often forced them to find those things quietly,
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: in the shadows, or late at night. Wow.
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: So put yourself in the shoes of those early investigators again.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: You've got a file on your desk for a 50-year-old
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Canadian found on a beach. Next to it, a file
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: for a 27-year-old drag queen found in a park. Then
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: a 66-year-old.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: You'd never link them.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: Never. You aren't putting those Polaroids on the same bulletin
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: board with red string connecting them. The lack of superficial
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: similarities basically acts as a smokescreen, giving the killer this
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: massive head start.
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: It provides tremendous camouflage. And to understand how one predator
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: managed to trap such a diverse group of men, from
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: a street-smart local to a hardened war veteran, we really
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: have to look at the environment where these encounters began.
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: The geography.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, we have to map the geography of 1970 San Francisco.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: And the geography really is the engine of this story,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: isn't it? Because investigators mapped out where these men were
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: likely encountering the killer, and it comes down to diners
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: and gay bars in three very specific neighborhoods.
• 9:56
  Speaker 2: Right. Polk Gulch, the Tenderloin, and the Castro. Exactly.
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: Polk Gulch, the Tenderloin, and the Castro.
• 10:03
  Speaker 2: So we need to mentally transport ourselves back to that
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: specific era for a minute.
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: Okay. Let's do it.
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: Today, we think of San Francisco as this massive global
• 10:12
  Speaker 2: hub of LGBTQ plus culture, right? Oh, yeah.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: It's iconic for that.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: But in the early to mid-1970s, it was still a
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: community in profound transition. The Stonewall Riots had happened just
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: a few years prior in New York. The gay liberation
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: movement was really just gaining momentum, and San Francisco was
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: becoming a beacon for that. Right. Neighborhoods like Polk Gulch,
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: the Tenderloin, and the Castro were emerging as rare, vital
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: sanctuaries for these men.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: They were the only safe havens they had.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: Precisely. During an era of intense, systemic social discrimination, which...
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: We will get into later. These neighborhoods were the few
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: places where gay men could go to simply exist openly.
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: Yeah, without fear of immediate harassment.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: Exactly. They could find community, acceptance, and just safety in numbers.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: These were vibrant, crowded social hubs full of neon lights,
• 11:04
  Speaker 2: loud music, and a dense concentration of people who were
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: all looking out for one another.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: But the killer didn't strike in those safe spaces, did he?
• 11:11
  Speaker 2: No, he didn't.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: The victim's bodies were discovered in incredibly remote, desolate locations.
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: I mean, we are talking about Ocean Beach, the depths
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: of Golden Gate Park, and the cliffs of Land's End.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: What's fascinating here is the sheer psychological and geographical transition
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: the killer forces upon the victim.
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: What do you mean by that?
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: It is a calculated removal from safety. The killer is
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: infiltrating these established sanctuaries. He is walking into mansions. A
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: brightly lit, crowded diner in the Castro, identifying a target
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: who feels relatively secure because of their surroundings. And then
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: he orchestrates a massive shift.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, I see.
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: He moves them from a place of dense community and
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: light to a place of utter isolation and darkness. I mean,
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: the foggy, crashing expanse of Ocean Beach at two in
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: the morning is the exact opposite of a crowded diner.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: It's literally the most isolated you can get in the city.
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: And the violence that took place in that isolation was brutal.
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: It was. Almost all the victims were stabbed to death.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: But there's that anomaly with Warren Andrews, remember? He wasn't stabbed.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: He was beaten with a rock in a tree branch.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Right, the Land's End attack.
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Why would a killer who clearly has a strong
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: preference for a knife suddenly switch to a rock in
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: a branch?
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Well, that kind of deviation in a serial offender's modus
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: operandi is highly significant. Usually the method of murder is
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: a compulsion. It's tied deeply to the killer's psychological fantasy.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Like a signature.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Kind of, yeah. Stabbing is a very specific type of violence.
• 12:38
  Speaker 2: It is intimate, it requires close physical proximity, and it
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: requires the killer to consciously bring a weapon to the
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: crime scene. It's planned.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: Gotcha.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: So when we see a sudden shift to blunt force
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: trauma using weapons of opportunity, like literally a rock and
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: a branch found on the ground at land's end, it
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: suggests a major disruption in the killer's script.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: Like, things didn't go according to plan. Exactly.
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: It implies a loss of control. Perhaps the killer just
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: forgot his knife that night. Or perhaps Andrews, who was 52,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: fought back fiercely and disarmed him.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Yeah. Forcing the killer to grab whatever was
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: nearby in a panic.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Right. Or perhaps the situation escalated before the killer could
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: even draw his primary weapon. But whatever the reason, the
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: core objective remained exactly the same. Lethal violence in an
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: isolated environment.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: Which brings me to a huge logistical hurdle I keep
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: tripping over with this case. What's that? How does a
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: stranger actually pull this off? I mean, we're talking about
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: cautious people who belong to a marginalized community, meaning they
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: are likely already on high alert for, you know, undercover
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: cops or bigots. Oh, absolutely.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: They had to be on guard constantly.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: Right. So how does this guy convince a Vietnam War
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: hero like Frederick Capon to leave a bright, safe diner
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: and go walk into the foggy darkness of a massive park?
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: You can't just muscle someone out of a diner without
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: causing a huge scene.
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture of predatory behavior,
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: the answer is that he didn't use force to move them.
• 14:08
  Speaker 2: He used psychological disarmament.
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: And this brings us directly to the terrifying signature that
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: actually earned him his nickname.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: The Doodler. Yes. I have to be honest. When you
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: hear true crime monikers, they're usually designed to project terror, right?
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: The Night Stalker, the Golden State Killer, the Son of Sam.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they sound like horror movie villains.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: Exactly. But the Doodler... Just sounds whimsical. It sounds like
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: a bored kid in the back of a math classroom.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: It sounds utterly harmless.
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: It sounds harmless because that was the precise illusion he weaponized.
• 14:40
  Speaker 1: That's chilling.
• 14:42
  Speaker 2: The nickname stems directly from his hunting behavior. Witnesses and
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: survivors told police that this man would sit at the
• 14:48
  Speaker 2: counter in these late-night diners, wait for a target, and
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: then begin drawing animal figures on a napkin for them.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: He would tell them he was an art student studying
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: to be a cartoonist. And apparently, he was actually quite talented.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: He was, yeah.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: One of the victims, who had a background in art himself,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: noted that the suspect was genuinely skilled. It wasn't just
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: scribbling stick figures. He was producing real art right there
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: at the counter.
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: So let's break down the mechanics of what is actually
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: happening in that interaction.
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Think of it like a street magician who uses misdirection
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: to pick your pocket. The magician gives you something fascinating
• 15:24
  Speaker 2: to look at, a card trick, a coin disappearing, so
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: that your brain hyper-focuses on his hands and your peripheral
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: threat detection completely shuts down.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: That is exactly what the sketchpad was. It was psychological misdirection.
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: Here's where it gets really interesting. Because drawing someone, or
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: drawing for them, forces a very specific kind of intimacy.
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: It forces stillness. Think about it. If someone is sketching you,
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: or if you are leaning in to watch them sketch
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: an animal on a napkin, you have to be stationary.
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: You are quiet. It fosters this hushed, focused conversation. It
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: completely bypasses the amygdala, the part of the brain responsible
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: for detecting threats. Furthermore, it flatters the ego. You know,
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: someone is taking the time to create something beautiful just
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: for you.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: It's a psychological Trojan horse. Exactly. He didn't need a
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: gun or a knife to abduct him. His weapon was
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: the napkin and the pen. It's the ultimate camouflage of
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: innocence because art is an act of creation.
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: Yes, beautifully put.
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: Our brains are hardwired to associate creation with safety, not destruction.
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: You think you're talking to a sensitive, quirky art student.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: You lower your guard entirely.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: Precisely. He basically manufactured trust out of thin air. By
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: the time the sketch was finished and handed over, a
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: real rapport was established. The stranger danger instinct was just gone.
• 16:49
  Speaker 2: So when he eventually suggests, hey, let's get out of here,
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: let's go for a walk down by the beach, it
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: doesn't trigger any alarm bells. It just feels like the
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: natural continuation of a pleasant, serendipitous evening with a sensitive artist.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: It is weaponized empathy.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: It's chilling how effective that is. But as effective as
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: this Trojan horse strategy was, it wasn't bulletproof. No, it wasn't.
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: Because the only reason we know about the napkins, the
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: animal sketches, and the art school alibi is because he
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: didn't kill everyone he lured. Some men survived.
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: And those survivors are the absolute anchor of this entire
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: half-century investigation. Without them, this would just be a series
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: of unconnected bodies in parks.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: We'd know nothing about the sketches.
• 17:31
  Speaker 2: Nothing. These men became the architects of the memory map
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: that police are still using today.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: The timeline of these survivals shows a really intense shift
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: in his behavior, too. In July of 1975, two men
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: were attacked within two weeks of each other.
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: But they weren't attacked at a beach or a park.
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: They were attacked at the Fox Plaza Apartments. They both survived,
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: thank goodness. And one of them told police he met
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: the attacker at the truck stop diner near Market and
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: Church Streets.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Let's analyze that behavioral shift for a second because it
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: is massive.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: It really is.
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: Up until July 1975, the killer's operational zone was strictly
• 18:08
  Speaker 2: outdoors and remote. Parks, beaches, cliffs. Suddenly, the attacks move
• 18:13
  Speaker 2: indoors into a populated residential building. Yeah. And he strikes
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: the exact same apartment complex twice in 14 days.
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: That's what I don't get. Why would he do that?
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: Attacking someone in an apartment building where neighbors can hear screams,
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: where people are walking down the hallways.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: It's very risky.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: Does that mean he was feeling invincible? Or does it
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: mean he was losing his mind and just couldn't control
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: himself anymore?
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: In criminological terms, this points heavily toward decompensation.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: Decompensation.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: Yes. Yes. Serial offenders usually operate within a very strict
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: set of internal rules, a comfort zone that keeps them
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: from getting caught. They have a cooling-off period between murders
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: where they return to their normal lives, process the fantasy
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: of the crime, and lie dormant. Right.
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: Like BTK going years between crimes sometimes. Exactly.
• 19:03
  Speaker 2: But over time, just like any addiction, the high wears
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: off faster. The cooling-off period shrinks. The compulsion to act
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: out the violence begins to override their logical survival instincts.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: So they get sloppy.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Very sloppy. Abandoning the isolated beaches for a populated building
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: and hitting it twice in two weeks is incredibly reckless.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: It shows his internal discipline was breaking down entirely.
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: The addiction was basically taking over the steering wheel. And
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: that recklessness is ultimately what gave investigators their biggest break
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: in the case.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: It did.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: Because this escalation led to another encounter in October of 1975.
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: Another man survived, and he spent a significant amount of
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: time with the suspect.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: And time is everything in memory encoding.
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, for sure.
• 19:47
  Speaker 2: This October survivor wasn't just ambushed in the dark from behind.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: He had prolonged exposure to the killer's face under non-threatening conditions.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: He sat with him. He watched him sketch.
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: He had a real conversation with him. Exactly.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: He studied his features in the harsh light of a diner,
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: engaged in conversation, all before the trauma of the violence
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: erupted and messed with his memory.
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: We have to acknowledge the incredible courage it took for
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: these men to walk into a police precinct in 1975
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: and report this. Oh, absolutely. We will dig deep into
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: the culture of the 70s in a bit, but just
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: know that as a gay man, going to the cops
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: back then was an incredibly dangerous thing to do. Yet,
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: this October survivor did. He was incredible. He sat down
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: with a forensic artist and provided the specific, detailed information
• 20:35
  Speaker 1: that generated the very first composite sketch of the doodler.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: He essentially launched a 50-year visual manhunt from the confines
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: of his own memory.
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: That's amazing.
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: But you know, human memory is static. It freezes a
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: person in time. The suspect, if he is still alive today,
• 20:51
  Speaker 2: has aged 50 years since that drawing was made. Right.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: And that is the biological and forensic hurdle the police
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: are currently trying to overcome.
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the science of facial evolution. Because
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: the police have refused to let this go. That 1975
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: sketch has had to evolve.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: It's a fascinating process.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: The progression of these police drawings is such a cool
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: look at how forensic art adapts. We start with that
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: original 1975 sketch of a young, lean man. Then in 2018,
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: an updated forensic sketch was released.
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: The 2018 update was likely an attempt to refine the original.
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: Forensic artists will often revisit old sketches using modern software,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: or they will re-interview witnesses using cognitive interviewing techniques.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Like trying to unlock more details. Exactly.
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: To clarify features that might have been ambiguous or poorly
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: rendered in the 1970s. It's really about cleaning up the data.
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: But the reason we are talking about this right now,
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: the reason it is back in the headlines today... is
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: because of the brand new composite released in January 2023.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: The age progression sketch.
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: Yes. This isn't just a cleaned up version of a
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: 20-something art student. It is a full age progression sketch.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: They have manipulated the drawing to show what the doodler
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: might look like today, walking around as a man in
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: his late 60s or 70s.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: It's incredible work.
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Walk me through the mechanics of that. How do you
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: accurately draw 50 years of aging on a face you
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: literally haven't seen?
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Age progression is just this incredible intersection of art, anatomy,
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: and biological science. It's not just drawing wrinkles on a
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: young face.
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Right. It can't be that simple.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: No. Forensic artists deeply study craniofacial aging. They know that
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: as we age, we actually lose bone mass in our
• 22:35
  Speaker 2: jaw and cheeks.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. Bone loss.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Yes, which changes the entire structural foundation of the face.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: The scaffolding shifts. Also, cartilage continues to grow throughout our lives.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: So the ears and nose get bigger. Exactly.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Ears and noses become larger and subtly change shape over decades.
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: And of course, skin loses elasticity, leading to specific patterns
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: of ptosis, or sagging, around the eyes and the jowls.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: That is so detailed.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: The artist takes the foundational geometry of the 1975 face
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: and systematically applies the universal laws of gravity, bone loss,
• 23:09
  Speaker 2: and cartilage growth to mathematically extrapolate the modern face.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: It's literal biological math. Exactly.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: And the psychological strategy behind releasing it is brilliant. They
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: know they can no longer ask the public to look
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: for a young man in a diner.
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: That guy doesn't exist anymore.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Right. They need to trigger a very specific modern recognition.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: They want someone to look at that elderly face on
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: the news and recognize their retired neighbor who always keeps
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: to himself.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Or like their uncle who has like a dark past.
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: Or an old co-worker. Yeah. They are trying to pierce
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: through the mundane reality of a normal aging man to
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: reveal the predator hiding underneath.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: So what does this all mean? The San Francisco Police
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: Department is putting massive financial weight behind this strategy right now.
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: And they recently raised the reward money from $ 200, 000 to
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: a quarter of a million dollars. $ 250, 000 for information leading
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: to an arrest and conviction.
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: That is a lot of money.
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: Right. And they've even got a 24-hour tip line set up.
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: It's 415-575-4444. I mean, you know, they are practically begging
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the public to look at this face.
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: You really have to consider what that kind of money
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: signifies to.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 24:18
  Speaker 2: Well, police departments operate on strict budgets. A quarter of
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: a million dollars is a staggering allocation of resources for
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: a 50-year-old cold case.
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: That's true. You don't just throw that kind of cash around.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: You do not authorize that kind of money unless you
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: believe two things. One, that the suspect is still alive.
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: And two, that you are incredibly close.
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: Wow.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: They believe there is someone out there who knows the truth.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: And $ 250, 000 is enough money to pry loose 50 years
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: of loyalty or fear.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: They are agonizingly close. And honestly, for anyone listening, this...
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: Brings us to the most mind-bending, pull-your-hair-out frustrating part of
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: this entire story.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: The suspect.
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, the suspect. The reason the police are pushing so
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: hard right now, the reason they are spending hundreds of
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: thousands of dollars on rewards and forensic aging, is because
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: they aren't chasing a phantom.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: No, they are not.
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: They have been staring at the exact same suspect since
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: the very beginning. The prime suspect has been hiding in
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: plain sight for nearly 50 years.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: And this is the absolute crux of the frustration for investigators.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: Soon after that original 1975 sketch was published in the
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: local papers, the tip lines rang. Right. And this wasn't
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: just like a psychic calling in with a vague feeling.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: A tipster provided a very specific name and a matching
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: vehicle license plate.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: And it wasn't an isolated tip either. More calls came
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: in from the public pointing to the exact same man.
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: The police took it seriously. They tracked him down, they
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: hauled him in, and interviewed him in January of 1976.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: And the police at the time explicitly stated they believed
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: him to be a strong suspect.
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: I mean, a strong suspect with a matching vehicle, identified
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: by multiple members of the community, matching the physical description
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: generated by a survivor.
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: It sounds like an open-and-shut case, but listen to this
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: quote from a 2022 police press release. It says verbatim,
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: This same person, interviewed by police in 1976, is still
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: the focus of our investigation in 2022. Unbelievable. When I
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: read that, my jaw dropped. How does a prime suspect,
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: known to the police by his actual first and last name,
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: linked by a license plate, walk out of an interrogation
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: room and remain free for almost 50 years while still
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: being the primary focus of the Homicide Division?
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: It's baffling.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: How does the system fail to nail him?
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: If we connect this to the bigger picture, to understand
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: that failure, we have to look at the mechanics of
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: the legal system in 1976. Okay.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Let's break that down.
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: We live in a world of CSI and DNA, so
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: it's really hard for us to grasp how difficult it
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: was to build a case back then. The legal threshold
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: for a conviction is beyond a reasonable doubt.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Right. Which is a high bar. Very high.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: In 1976, there is no DNA profiling. You cannot match
• 27:13
  Speaker 2: a microscopic flake of skin under a victim's fingernail to
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: a suspect. There are no cell phone towers to prove
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: the suspect was at Ocean Beach at 2 in the morning.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: No ring cameras.
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: Exactly. No ubiquitous street cameras to capture a license plate
• 27:26
  Speaker 2: leaving the scene.
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: So without a confession, what do you actually have?
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: You have circumstantial evidence. You have an anonymous tip and
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: a sketch.
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: Unless you recover the murder weapon with the suspect's fingerprints
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: on it, or unless you have a victim who is
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: willing to stand up in open court, point at the
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: defendant and say, that is the man who stabbed me.
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: The prosecutor has nothing.
• 27:46
  Speaker 2: The prosecutor has almost nothing they can take.
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: To a jury. And the survivors wouldn't testify.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: No, they wouldn't.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: But the reason they wouldn't testify isn't just about being
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: afraid of the killer, right? The reason the doodler slipped
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: away is deeply rooted in the cultural prejudices of the 1970s.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: He exploited a massive societal failure.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: This raises an important question. And honestly, it is the
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: most critical contextual lens of the entire case. Institutional homophobia
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: functioned as the serial killer's greatest accomplice. Wow.
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: His greatest accomplice. That's powerful.
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: To understand his impunity, we have to look at the
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: insights from Kevin Fagan. He is a Pulitzer Prize-nominated reporter
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: for the San Francisco Chronicle, and he hosted a massive
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: eight-part podcast on this case in 2021 alongside private investigator
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: Michael Taylor.
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: Fagan's research is so eye-opening. Mm-hmm. He states plainly in
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: the article, the doodler hunted in gay bars, took them out,
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: and killed them actually for being gay. Right. This wasn't
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: a robbery gone wrong. This wasn't a crime of passion.
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: It was targeted, identity-based slaughter.
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: And yet, there was almost no media frenzy. I mean,
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: think about it. If a serial killer had been pulling straight, white,
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: middle-class college students out of diners and stabbing them on
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: beaches in 1974... It.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: Would have been on the front page of every paper
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: in America. The National Guard would have been called in.
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: Absolutely. But the lack of media attention wasn't an accidental oversight.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: It was a systemic disregard for the lives of gay men.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: We have to talk about the mechanics of the laws
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: at the time to really understand this.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Let's do it.
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: The article points out that sodomy laws were still fully
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: on the books. Men could literally be arrested, prosecuted, and
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: have their lives utterly destroyed simply for engaging in consensual
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: same-sex relationships.
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: Let's explain how that legal reality functioned as a literal
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: shield for the killer. When a society criminalizes a specific demographic,
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: it inherently makes them vulnerable to predation.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: Killers seek the path of least resistance.
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: Always.
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: The doodler knew that his victims were effectively silenced by
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: the very institutions that were supposed to protect them.
• 29:55
  Speaker 2: Right. Think back to the survivors we talked about earlier,
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: the men at the Fox Plaza Apartments. If you are
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: a closeted gay man in 1975, maybe you have a
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: corporate job, maybe you have a family that doesn't know,
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: and you are attacked by a guy you met at
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: a gay bar, you have an impossible choice.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: It's a horrible dilemma. If you go to the police,
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: you risk being outed in the police report.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: Exactly. You risk losing your employment, your housing, and your family.
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: But it's actually even worse than that.
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: How so?
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: Because your existence is technically criminalized under those sodomy laws,
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: going to the police means you risk becoming a suspect yourself.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: The police could literally arrest you for the circumstances surrounding
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: your own assault.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: That is insane.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: When victims fear the police as much as they fear
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: the criminal who attacked them, predators operate with total impunity.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: It's like these men were fighting a two-front war. In
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: the shadows late at night, they had to survive a
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: literal serial killer. a guy you might be sitting next
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: to them at a diner counter sketching a dog on
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: a napkin before pulling a knife.
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: But in the daylight, they had to navigate a society
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: and a legal system that treated them like criminals. They
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: were surrounded by hostility on all sides.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: It is a devastating historical reality. Because the victims were marginalized,
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: the public didn't care. Because the public didn't care, there
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: was no pressure on politicians.
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: And without political pressure?
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Because there was no political pressure... The police department couldn't
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: justify allocating massive resources to the manhunt. The societal prejudice
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: acted as acoustic foam, absorbing the screams and silencing the alarms.
• 31:32
  Speaker 2: The doodler was able to hunt because society gave him
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: permission through its apathy.
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: And just to be clear for everyone listening, when we
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: talk about this, we are looking directly at the objective
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: historical facts as outlined by Kevin Fagan's research and the
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: legal realities of the 1970s.
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: The sodomy laws were real. The police raids on gay
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: bars were real. The danger these men faced just by
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: existing in public was magnified a hundredfold by the legal
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: environment of the era. The investigative ecosystem was fundamentally broken.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: Recognizing that broken ecosystem is the only way to logically
• 32:06
  Speaker 2: understand how a strong suspect with a known name and
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: a license plate can remain untouched for half a century.
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: The system was simply not designed to achieve justice for
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: these specific victims.
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: I want to ground this whole discussion in a date.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: January 27 marks the anniversary of the very first doodler slaying,
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: the murder of Gerald Kavanaugh.
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: Nearly 50 years ago.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: We were talking about nearly half a century of a
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: family waiting for answers. Half a century of a community
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: carrying a scar. When you look at the facts of
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: this case, it really forces you to reflect on how
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: societal prejudices dictate what makes the evening news.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: It really does.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: It forces you to ask, who gets the benefit of
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: a massive immediate police manhunt? And who's allowed to just
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: slip under the waves?
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: It strips away the illusion that justice is a blind,
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: impartial force.
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: Totally.
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: Justice is deeply influenced by the cultural vision of the time.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: The doodler found a pocket of society that the majority
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: was perfectly willing to ignore, and he turned it into
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: his own personal hunting ground.
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the ultimate duality of this deep dive.
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: On one hand, we have this terrifying psychological portrait of
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: an individual predator, a man presenting as a harmless sketching
• 33:18
  Speaker 1: art student who used empathy and creation to brutally dismantle
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: lives in the dark.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: And on the other hand.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: On the other hand, we have the portrait of an
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: entire society that preferred to look the other way, allowing
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: a killer to operate under the cover of their own
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: systemic apathy.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: The irony is profound when you think about the signature.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: What do you mean?
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: Well, here you have a killer who was known for
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: sitting and drawing faces. operating in a society that absolutely
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: refused to look at the faces of his victims.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Oh, wow. That is heavy.
• 33:52
  Speaker 2: And now, 50 years later, the police are using an
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: artist's drawing, that incredible age progression sketch, to finally force
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: the public to look at him.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: It really is a full circle moment with the art.
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: The weapon he used to disarm his victims, the sketch pad,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: is now the very tool being used to try and
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: finally trap him.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: It's almost poetic.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: It is. As we wrap up this deep dive into
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: the hunt for the doodler, I want to leave you
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: with a lingering thought. We talked extensively about how the
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: ultimate weapon of the serial killer was a society that
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: refused to care about marginalized victims in the 1970s.
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: Right.
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: But what happens when that society finally evolves and decides
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: to look back 50 years later?
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: That's the big question.
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: Does true justice have an expiration date? When the culture
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: itself was guilty of complicity? Can a modern sketch and
• 34:43
  Speaker 1: a quarter of a million dollar reward ever truly balance
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: the scales for men who were ignored while they were bleeding?
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: It is a question without an easy answer, but it
• 34:53
  Speaker 2: is precisely why we must continue to excavate these historical
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: cold cases.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: We can't just forget them.
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: Exactly. The passage of time does not erase our obligation
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: to seek the truth, nor does it erase our obligation
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: to understand how our societal failures allow predators to thrive.
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: Keep questioning the narratives you were given. Keep looking into
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: the shadows. And remember that sometimes the most dangerous threats
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: are the ones hiding behind a camouflage of innocence. Stay curious,
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: and we will catch you on the next deep dive.