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The Doodler: San Francisco’s Forgotten Serial Killer · Crime Night

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I want you to picture a scene. It's two point
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: zero am, January nineteen seventy four, and you are standing
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: on a freezing, pitch black stretch of ocean beach in
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: San Francisco.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: Oh that sounds miserable.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: It really does. The wind just howling off the Pacific,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: biting through your clothes, and the only light is whatever
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: the moon can manage to bleed through this really dense
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: heavy fog.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Setting a very eerie stage here, right.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: So, a frantic nine one one call comes into dispatch.
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: The man on the line absolutely refuses to give his name,
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and his voice is just shaking.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: It's terrified completely.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: He tells the dispatcher there is a body on the
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: sand right at the water's edge, but he explicitly states
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: he will not get any closer to check on the
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: victim because, and this is a quote, you know what
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: could happen?
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: Wow, that phrase alone says so much.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: It really does. So when patrol cars finally arrive, they
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: find a man who hasn't just washed up, he is
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: actively being pulled back out into the dark by the tide.
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: Oh my god.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the officer's literally have to wade into the freezing
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: surf to drag him back to dry land. And this
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: wasn't a drowning, No, he was covered in defensive wounds,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: stabbed to death.
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: It's an incredibly visceral, chilling image. I mean that anonymous
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: caller too terrified of stepping out of the shadows to
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: even help a dying man. It just perfectly encapsulates the
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: atmosphere of fear exactly. That night on the beach was
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: really the moment a shadow fell over San Francisco that
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: in many ways has never lifted.
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: And that brings us to what we're looking at today.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: Today's deep dive takes us into a massive stack of
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: case files, investigative reports, and old articles about a nineteen
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: seventy serial killer when the press dubbed the Doodler a.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Bizarre name for such a brutal killer.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: It is. But our mission today isn't just to walk
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: through the timeline of some terrifying unsolved murders. We are
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: going to look at the actual mechanics.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Of a tragedy, right, how it all went so wrong?
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: Exactly. We want to understand how intense social prejudices, combined
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: with some truly baffling systemic failures, allowed a prolific killer
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: to operate in plain sight, to slip right through the
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: cracks and remain free to this very.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: Day, and to really grasp how that happens. You know,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: we have to strip away our modern perceptions.
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: What do you mean.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Well, today, if you picture of San Francisco, you think
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: of this ultimate progressive haven, right, But if you were
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: part of the queer community in nineteen seventy four, it
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: was a deeply dangerous.
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Landscape because of the police.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: Yes, you had police actively posing as gay men in
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: bars and parks just to entrap and arrest people. Morality
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: laws were strictly and sometimes brutally.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: Enforced, so there was zero trust.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: Zero. The fundamental reality was this, if you were a
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: queer victim of a violent crime and you went to
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: law enforcement for help, you were highly liable to find
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: yourself in handcuffs.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: Or worse, outed to your employer and your family.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: Exactly.
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: So, if you're listening to this, I'm wondering, like, why
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: wouldn't witnesses just talk to the police. You have to
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: understand that historical context.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: It's crucial.
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: The animosity wasn't just some background detail. It was dark,
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: heavy curtain that made the killer's entire reign of terror possible,
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: and you know this scene on that beach was just
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: the opening act.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah. The man pulled from the surf was fifty year
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: old Gerald Kavanaugh. He was a World War II veteran
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: originally from Canada.
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: And the coroner found he'd been stabbed seventeen times.
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: Seventeen I mean that level of overkill usually suggests intense
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: rage or a deeply personal motive. It's not a standard robbery.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: Right Then, just five months later in June, another body
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: is found, this time just a mile and a half away,
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: dragged deep into the bushes of Golden Gate Park.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: This is Joseph Stevens right, who went by Jay Jay.
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: He was basically drag royalty in the city and incredibly
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: beloved master of ceremonies at a famous club. And he
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: was stabbed five times.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: And it doesn't stop there.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: No. Twelve days after that, a thirty one year old
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: German national named Klaus Crisman is found on the beach
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: really close to where Gerald was discovered.
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: And Klaus wasn't a stab He was nearly decapitated.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Which is the physical force required to do that. It
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: is just terrifying. It's staggering, and when you lay out
• 4:08
  Speaker 1: the profiles of these three men. The connecting threads shouldn't
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: just be visible, they should be blinding.
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: Oh. Absolutely, All three victims were white men, all were
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: part of the queer community, All were last seen at
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: gay bars or known cruising spots, and.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Notably, all of them were found without a wallet or
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: any ID.
• 4:24
  Speaker 2: Let's pause on that detail for a second, because taking
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: the wallet is a really critical piece of the psychological
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: puzzle here. How so well, often taking an ID is
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: about forensic awareness. The killer is trying to delay identification
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: to buy himself time to escape.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: To get a hit, start right.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: But it can also be a form of trophy hunting,
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: like literally stripping the victim of their identity.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: But despite those glaring similarities, the San Francisco Police Department
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: completely failed to link these murders, and the reason why
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: is almost hard to believe.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: It comes down to a shocking level of systemic negligence.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that time, SFPD homicide cases were worked by shift,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: not by dedicated assignment.
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: It's bureaucratic indifference at its finest. If you were the
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: detective on shift when a body was found, you worked
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: the case until your eight hours were up, and then
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: then you clocked out and literally handed whatever scribbled notes
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: you had to the next guy clocking in.
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: It's like trying to read a complex mystery novel, but
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: a different person reads each chapter and none of them
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: are allowed to talk to each other.
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: That's a perfect way to put it.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: It makes it completely impossible to see the plot unfolding
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: right in front of them, Like, no single detective is
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: living and breathing these cases. No one is pinning photos
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: to a corkboard and seeing the overlapping geography or the
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: missing wallets.
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: They were treating homicides like assembly line work. And you know,
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: you have to ask whether that bureaucratic laziness was amplified
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: by who the victors were.
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, definitely. The career community was already whispering about a
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: serial killer. People were terrified to go out at night, but.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: The police were entirely in the dark because the system
• 5:56
  Speaker 2: was basically designed not to care.
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: But momentum finally shit in May nineteen seventy five. The
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: streets have been quiet for about ten months. Then a
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: hiker finds a set of bloody drag marks leading through
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: the sand. Oh, they lead to the body of Frederick Kappan.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: He was a thirty two year old registered nurse and
• 6:15
  Speaker 1: a highly decorated Vietnam War.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: Hero, and he had been stabbed sixteen times.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: Suddenly, it's so blatant that even the fractured SFPD realizes
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: they have a massive problem on their hands.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: It took the brutal murder of decorated military nurse to
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: force their hand, but they finally abandoned the shift system
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: for this string of murders and assign a dedicated.
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: Team Inspector Rotea Guilford and Inspector Earl Sanders.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: Yes, these two men were affectionately known in the department
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: and actually the whole city as the soul Brothers.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: They were sfpds first and second black homicide investigators.
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: Right they were. They had a stellar track record, but
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: more importantly, they understood what it meant to be marginalized
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: by the system.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: They had that lived experience exactly.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: They realized immediately that the standard police playbook just wouldn't
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: work here. You can't just put up flyers and expect
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: a community that inherently fears you to come forward.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: So they hit the pavement. They went directly into the
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: gay bars, took off their detective hats, sat down, showed
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: genuine respect and just listened.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: And that ground level empathy is what finally cracks the case.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Open because the patrons start telling them about this legend
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: circulating the community.
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: Right. They talk about a quiet, handsome young man who
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: sits alone in the bars. He doesn't drink much.
• 7:30
  Speaker 1: He just holds a notebook and he sketches the faces
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: of the men in the bar, and he uses these
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: really impressive portraits as an icebreaker.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: It's a brilliant predatory tactic. Honestly, sketching someone requires them
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: to hold still, you know, to look at you.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: It forces a connection.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it creates this false sense of intimacy and flattery.
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: It's the perfect way to lure a victim into a
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: false sense of security before suggesting they go somewhere more.
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: Private, which is how the press eventually gives him the
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: moniker the do. But what I find fascinating from the
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: case files is that as soon as the detectives get
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: this lead, the killer's mo starts drastically changing.
• 8:09
  Speaker 2: It takes a very dark, chaotic turn. In June of
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: nineteen seventy five, investigators find the mummified remains of a
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: sixty six year old sailor named Harold Goldberg hidden in
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: the bushes near a golf course.
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: And then they link a cold case from earlier that April,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: a man named Warren Andrews. But Warren wasn't stabbed.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: No, he was beaten brutally with rocks and a tree
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: branch on a remote cliff side.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: That shift from a knife to rocks and branches that
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: feels really significant. I mean, a knife implies calculated stalking,
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: a weapon brought with intent exactly Bludgeoning someone with a
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: tree branch implies messy, frantic improvisation.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: The psychological profile suggests the killer is unraveling here. He's
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: losing that methodical control he exhibited during the early stabbings.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: The rage is just spilling over into sheer, chaotic violence.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: And that unraveling sets the stage for what I think
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: is the most heart stopping encounter.
• 9:02
  Speaker 2: In all the files, the diner incident.
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: Yes, I need to take you to a two point
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: year am truck stop diner in July nineteen seventy five.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: A European diplomat whose name has been heavily protected for decades,
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: so we'll just call him the diplomat.
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: Fair enough.
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: He's grabbing a late night bite. He notices a young,
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: handsome guy sitting alone sketching animals on a napkin. The
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: diplomat has some art training, so he strikes up a
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: conversation and they hit it off. They do. The artist
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: mentions he's studying to be a cartoonist, and eventually the
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: diplomat invites him back to his apartment.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Up to this point, it's a perfectly normal late night encounter.
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: They take a cab back to the apartment, but once
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: they get inside, the artist asks to use the bathroom.
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: And then he doesn't come out. Put yourself in the
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: diplomat shoes for a second. You're in your own home
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: and the dead of night. You're waiting. Five minutes go by,
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: then ten.
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: It's unsettling.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: You knock on the door, ask if everything is all right?
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: You here muttering. Thirty excruciating minutes pass. The tension of
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: daring at that closed wooden door, knowing a complete stranger
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: is just standing on the other side. It's unbearable.
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: And when the door finally swings open, the artist steps out,
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: looks the diplomat dead in the eye, growls the words
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: you guys are all alike, and plunges a steak knife
• 10:16
  Speaker 2: into his back.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: Just horrifying. A struggle ensues. The diplomat is fighting for
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: his life, bleeding out, stabbed six times, and the only
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: reason he survives is sheer miraculous luck.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: The knife.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, during the attack, the blade of the steak knife
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: actually snaps off inside his body.
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: Oh my god.
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: The killer panics, drops the broken handle on the floor,
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: and just runs out the front door to the night.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: The diplomat barely survives the attack, but the story doesn't
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: end there, because two weeks later, another man.
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Is attacked same kind of setup exactly.
• 10:45
  Speaker 2: He brings a guy home from a bar. The guy
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: suddenly snaps starts beating him savagely, and right before the
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: attacker gets spooked by neighbors pounding on the wall, he
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: snarls the exact same phrase, all you guys are.
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: Alike, but the detail that will keep you awake at night.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: This second victim lived in the exact same apartment building,
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: on the exact same floor as the diplomat.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Which is insane.
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: They didn't even know each other. I have to ask you,
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: is this just some astronomical coincidence because they drank at
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: the same bars, or is this the psychology of a
• 11:16
  Speaker 1: killer who intentionally returns to his hunting grounds.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: In criminal psychology, returning to the scene of a previous crime,
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: especially the literal hallway of a previous attack, often points
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: to a staggering level of predator arrogance.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: You thought he was untouchable.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: It's a display of absolute invincibility. He likely felt that
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: the police were so incompetent in the queer community, so marginalized,
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: that there was simply no consequences for his actions. He
• 11:42
  Speaker 2: viewed that neighborhood as his personal hunting ground.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: But here is where this story becomes a true tragedy.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Guilford and Sanders finally have survivors. They have eyewitnesses who
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: have seen the killer in the light, who have spoken
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: to him, who can help make a composite sketch.
• 11:57
  Speaker 2: But the victims absolutely refuse to cooperate.
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: This is the trap of silence we talked about, yeah,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: and we have to view it with deep empathy.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: We really do for these men, especially a high ranking
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: European diplomat. Cooperating meant testifying an open court, it meant
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: being publicly outed. In nineteen seventy five.
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: It's like being trapped in a burning building, but the
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: firefighters outside are aiming their hoses at you instead of
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: the fire.
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: That's sadly accurate.
• 12:24
  Speaker 1: The societal homophobia was so toxic that surviving a serial
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: killer felt less dangerous to them than the truth of
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: their own identity becoming public. They knew they would instantly
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: lose their careers, their families, and their social standing, so.
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: The detectives practically have to beg The diplomat finally agrees
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: to sit with a sketch artist, but only under the
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: strictest condition of anonymity.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: And the SFPD finally releases the composite sketch of the
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Doodler in October nineteen seventy five, and.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Almost immediately the tips start rolling in.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: One of those tips is from an anonymous woman. She
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: calls in and gives a name, but she feels the
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: police aren't moving fast enough, calls back furious and practically
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: hands them the killer on a silver platter.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: She gives them his full name, his address, his exact age,
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: and his license plate number. Incredible, and that wasn't even
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: the only major break. Shortly after, a secretary at Highland
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: Hospital in the East Bay calls depectives.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Okay, this is the part that blows my mind.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she says her boss, a psychiatrist is treating the
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: man from the sketch. Three days later, the psychiatrist himself
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: calls the police. He confirms it his patient is the doodler.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Wait, I need to stop you there. A doctor just
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: calls the cops and breaks patient doctor confidentiality. Like, is
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: that even legal?
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: It's a massive ethical and legal gray area. But you
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: have to look at the era. Around this same time
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: in California, the famous Terrosov case was establishing the duty
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: to warn, which is the legal obligation a therapist to
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: breach confidentiality if a patient poses a serious imminent threat
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: to others.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Ah okay, so he felt he had to.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: This doctor clearly felt that moral obligation. He told police
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: his patient was in therapy to cope with intense crippling
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: self loathing regarding his own same sex attraction, and.
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: During these sessions, the patient explicitly confessed to the murders.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: Yes, the doctor told the detectives, I believe this confession
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: beyond a shadow of a doubt. This is your guy.
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: So armed with that, In January nineteen seventy six, Guilford
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: and Sanders bring the suspect in for an interrogation. The
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: incredible part is he comes in completely voluntarily.
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: He doesn't even bring a lawyer, and he matches the
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: psychological profile to a t.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: He's quiet, intelligent, middle class. He admits to having quote
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: problems with his sexual identity since he was thirteen, but
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: he claims his therapy sessions had cured him.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: That phrase cured him. Heavily implies he underwent some form
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: of conversion therapy. It perfectly explains the misdirected self hatred
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: that likely erupted into violent outbursts against other gay men.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: He was killing the very thing he hated about himself.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: He denies being the killer to the detectives, of course,
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: but the police know.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: They have him, they absolutely know.
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: But it's a dead end because even though they found
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: a third survivor, a famous actor whose encounter only ended
• 15:09
  Speaker 1: when a knife accidentally slipped out of the killer's pocket,
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: spooking him, nobody will testify.
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: It's devastating.
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: The diplomat actually comes into the station. He looks through
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: a one way mirror at a physical lineup. He points
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: right at the suspect and says, that's him, that's the doodler.
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: But then he looks up Gilford and Sanders in the
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: eye and says he will never repeat that in.
• 15:30
  Speaker 2: A courtroom without a star witness willing to take the stand.
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: The district attorney refuses to touch the case. You can't
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: prosecute a homicide on a confidential therapy confession and anonymous.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: Tips, so the police are entirely powerless.
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: Completely the suspect stands up and walks out the door
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: a free man, And immediately after that January nineteen seventy
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: six interrogation, the murders in San Francisco abruptly start.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: The case basically sat in a freezer for four decades.
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: Files were lost in basement floods, records were fragmented, But
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: in twenty eighteen, Sergeant Dan Cunningham takes over the cold case.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: He really breathes new life into it.
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: He does. He releases an age progress sketch. He releases
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: that chilling nineteen seventy four nine one one called the public,
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: hoping someone recognizes the voice, and crucially, he starts submitting old,
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: bloody evidence for modern DNA testing.
• 16:20
  Speaker 2: Cunningham also zeros in on the psychiatrist's confession. The original
• 16:24
  Speaker 2: nineteen seventies case notes were so sloppy. They only referred
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: to a doctor Priest at Highland Hospital Briest right, but
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: there were no records of a doctor Priest ever working there.
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: It wasn't until twenty twenty one that a reporter and
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: a private investigator dug through archives and uncovered the real spelling,
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: doctor Howard Priest Prcee.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: And the doctor had passed away in two thousand and five.
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but his daughter confirmed that the Doodler suspects sounded
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: exactly like the troubled patience her father treated.
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: So Cunningham goes to a judge in twenty twenty one
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: and asks for a court order to unseal doctor Priest's
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: old hospital records. This is their golden ticket. The confession
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: is in.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Those files, and the judge denies the request.
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: It's maddening the legal reasoning. The judge states the record
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: should remain sealed because there is no indication that the
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: suspect has quote posed a threat since nineteen seventy six.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: It is a stunning, deeply frustrating legal roadblock that prioritizes
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: a fifty year old expectation of medical privacy oversolving multiple homicides.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: I have to push back on that judge's logic because
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: it is infuriating. That is like letting a bank robber
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: keep millions in stolen money and go free simply because
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: they haven't robbed a bank recently.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: It makes no sense.
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: It completely ignores the concept of justice for the lives
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: that were already violently taken. Six men were brutally murdered.
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: Since when does a statute of limitations on a person's
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: current threat level negate justice for a past homicide.
• 17:48
  Speaker 2: You're entirely right to be outraged. It highlights a recurring
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: theme that haunts this entire story, which is the legal
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: and systemic structures constantly failing the victims decade after decade. Yeah,
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: and we have to remember the true cost here. When
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: we talk about true crime, it's easy to reduce victims
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: to data points, you know, a name, a date, a location.
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: But these were human beings whose murders sent devastating generational
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: ripple effects through their families.
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: Because a murder doesn't just end one life, it shatters
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: the entire family tree exactly.
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: Take j Stevens, the beloved drag performer. The trauma of
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: his brutal murder triggered a full blown psychotic break in
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: one of his sisters.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Oh wow.
• 18:27
  Speaker 2: She became convinced his death had unleashed evil spirits into
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: their home. Just three months after Jay was killed, she
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: attacked her own family, murdering and dismembering their mother and
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: severely injuring her other sister.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: That is horrific.
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: That family was utterly obliterated, not just by the Doodler's blade,
• 18:44
  Speaker 2: but by the psychological shockwave of his actions.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: And think about Frederick Kappan. The nurse his knee spoke
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: out recently because she refuses to let him be reduced
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: to a crime scene photo. She wants her uncle remembered
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: for the good he put into the world as he
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: should be. He saved former means under heavy fire in Vietnam.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: He dedicated his civilian life to caring for his community
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: and hospitals, But instead his historical legacy is tied to
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: dying alone on a cold beach.
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: It underscores exactly why cold cases like this must be
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: relentlessly pursued, regardless of how much time has passed or
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: how many judges say no. The trauma of the families
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: doesn't just evaporate with time.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Which brings us to the chilling reality of where we
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: stand today. The prime suspect, the man the diplomat pointed
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: out in that lineup, the man who confessed his self
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: hatred to his psychiatrist. He is still alive.
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: It's hard to stomach.
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: He is living freely right now. Reportedly is an outgay
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: man in the East Bay Area. He escaped justice entirely
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: because the societal homophobia of the nineteen seventies effectively muzzled
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: his surviving victims.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: It is a haunting conclusion. The very community he preyed
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: upon was too terrified of the society they lived in
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: to put him behind bars. The prejudice of the era
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: was his greatest accomplice.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: Before we wrap up, I want to leave you with
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: one final provocative thought. As Sergeant Cunningham has dug deeper
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: into the fragment of files of this case, he has
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: developed a mind bending theory. We've spent this whole time
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: talking about the doodler, the quiet artist lurking in the
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: corner holding his notebook.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: The defining characteristic of the killer. It's how we conceptualize him.
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Well, Cunningham isn't convinced the killer was ever actually a cartoonist. Wait,
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: really think about it. The only solid proof of the
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: sketching comes from the diplomat's encounter. The killer was drawing
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: animals on a napkin at a diner. Cunningham theorizes that
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the sketching might have just been a one time pickup
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: line oh wow, a random improvised icebreaker used on the
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: diplomat that night, which then leaked into the terrified community
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: and spiraled into urban legend.
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: Take that a step further. If that's true, it means
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: the very miaker, the defining trait we use to identify
• 20:49
  Speaker 2: the serial killer, might be entirely fabricated by collective fear
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: and rumor. We've been looking for a phantom artist who
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: doesn't even exist.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: It leaves you to wonder, when we look back at
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: these infamous crimes, how much of what we think we
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: know is hard fact, and how much of it is
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: just a terrifying myss that takes on a life of
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: its own, obscuring the very real, very mundane monsters hiding
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: in plain sight.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: That's deeply unsettling.
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: We started this deep dive on a freezing pitch black
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: beach in nineteen seventy four, staring at a body washing
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: into the surf, and fifty years later, we are still
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: standing in the dark, watching the tide come in, wondering
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: if it's going to wash the truth away into myth forever.
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: A deeply sobering.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: Thought to end on. That's all for today's deep dive.
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: Stay curious, keep asking questions, and we'll catch you next time.