by Mark Hewitt
The foster brother knew that Jim was living on a ranch in the Watsonville/Santa Cruz area—a large hippie commune—and was wanted for writing bad checks in Watsonville, and also in the Reno/Tahoe area. He believed that Jim was also involved with illegal narcotics, and recommended that Lynch contact Judge Dan Reynolds of the Central Valley Justice Courts in Central Valley, California, to inquire about his foster brother’s background.
Lynch wrote the judge a letter. Captain Richard Welch of the Redding Police Department returned a call to Lynch, and promised to collect some of Phillip’s handwriting by researching a previous check-writing case.
On January 23, 1970, Mulinax, who would eventually inherit the Ferrin murder case from Lynch, re-interviewed Mrs. Suennen. He desired to learn what she had told the psychic that led him to declare that Phillips was responsible for Darlene’s murder. If she had provided information about Phillips that implicated him in the murder, he wanted to know. She could offer the officer nothing new, however. She admitted that she did not spend time around her daughter’s first husband. He had emotional problems, she believed, because she had heard that he had been treated for them. She made it patently clear that she did not like Phillips, but had no information that linked him to the murder.
That same day, Mulinax attempted to gather information on Phillips at The Daily Republic in Fairfield. No employment records were found, and very little was known about him by those who worked there. The business manager promised to forward any federal tax forms he had filled out, if they were located. When Mulinax contacted the Fairfield Police Department, he learned that there was an outstanding warrant dating to December 4, 1967 for a James Donald Phillips, a photocopy of prints, and a mug shot. He concluded that these likely did not match the James D. Phillips he sought: the mug shot pictured someone much older and without glasses.
Three days later, Mulinax placed a telephone call to Special Agent Mel Nicolai of CII, leaving a message requesting information from his files on James D. Phillips. He asked that it be forwarded to him with a mug shot and rap sheet, if found. Nicolai returned the call the next day and shared the suspect’s current address. Mulinax had received the mug shot and rap sheet in the morning mail.
On January 28, 1970, Mulinax made the long drive to picturesque Santa Cruz with Deputy District Attorney Charles Meyerherm. Once there, the two liaised with Lieutenant Gangloff, in charge of the Investigation Division at the Santa Cruz County Sheriff’s Office, and Detective George Foster. The Santa Cruz records revealed that Phillips had been booked on January 19 on traffic warrants. Phillips had quickly posted a bail of $390 cash and had left. Mulinax opted to wait to confront the suspect until after his scheduled court appearance on February 2. Instead of searching for the man, he made plans to return to the area and collar him at a time and place he knew he could be found.
While waiting for the days to pass, Mulinax, together with Detective Chuck Hess, approached the District Attorney’s Office in Fairfield on January 29, and had Chief Deputy District Attorney Neal McCaslin draw up the necessary Declaration of Affidavit, with bail set at $10,000, an amount that Mulinax was certain that Phillips could not produce. It was signed by Judge Curtis G. Singleton and retained by Mulinax. In the interest of due caution, he also met with Ferrin’s mother earlier in the day to confirm that the photograph he possessed was indeed Darlene’s ex-husband, the correct James D. Phillips, aka Jim Crabtree.
When Phillips appeared for his hearing at the appointed time on February 2, Mulinax was present, along with VPD Officer Zander, to arrest the fugitive on the warrant from Fairfield. He was taken into custody as he left the building. His common-law wife, Shirley, and his infant son, Jacob, were also present, and taken in a separate car to the Santa Cruz Sheriff’s Office. The officers informed Phillips that he was also being investigated for murder, and read him his Constitutional rights under the Fifth Amendment.
Phillips readily agreed to cooperate, and answered everything posed to him. Shirley was questioned at the same time in another room and confirmed the details he told the officers. He denied any knowledge of his ex-wife’s murder, and consented to a search of his home. After he was transported to Vallejo, he provided handwriting samples, was photographed standing—both front and profile shots were taken—and questioned further. Sparks collected finger and palm prints. It became readily apparent to the officers that Phillip’s writing did not match anything from the letters collected in the case. Samples were nevertheless forwarded to the CII for further examination.
When he was formally questioned in room 28 of the VPD at 3:00 p.m., Phillips explained to the investigators that he had met Darlene in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco in August of 1965 following his discharge from the Army. They wed after living together for a while, but the marriage was doomed from the start because Darlene was inclined to run around with other men. They lived a gypsy existence, he noted. Phillips admitted to owning a 1963 Corvair, which he had purchased in October of 1966 or 1967—he couldn’t remember which—for $90 down with a balance of $210. He had gotten rid of it three months later because he was unable make the payments. He had left it in a public lot in Los Angeles, and telephoned the registered owner to go and retrieve it. A search of his home 20 miles outside of Santa Cruz produced nothing incriminating.
Phillips denied ever saying that if he couldn’t have Darlene no one could. The truth was, he told them, that he was not too concerned when she terminated the relationship. He had gone to Mexico for a couple of weeks and had spent a weekend with Darlene in San Francisco following his return. It was there that they had decided to part ways, he explained, since nothing remained to keep them together. He then wandered the country being part of the “social revolution” with the “hip generation.” He met Shirley, his current muse, in January of 1969, and lived with her in San Francisco for a few months. They moved to Santa Cruz after they became disenchanted with the San Francisco scene. Shirley had become pregnant in May, and her father had bought them the house in which they now lived, paying $11,000 in cash for it.
Jim had heard the story of the couple shot in Vallejo, he told the investigators, but had not immediately associated it with his former wife. He did not know that Darlene had remarried and changed her name to Ferrin. He recalled that on July 4, the date his ex-wife was shot, he had gone to a hippy encampment in Boulder Creek to listen to some music. He had spent that evening at home. He had no transportation at the time; their truck was inoperative.
During the tense questioning, Mulinax noticed that Phillips wore thick glasses that did not appear in his mug shot. The suspect could not see without them, unlike the assailant in the Blue Rock Springs Park on July 4 who, according to Mageau, wore no eyewear. Jim explained that the Santa Cruz officers had asked him to remove his glasses for the photograph when he was arrested on traffic charges.
On February 3, Detective Mulinax confidently concluded that Phillips was not involved in any way in the murder of his ex-wife and turned him over to the Fairfield Police Department on their warrant.
With Phillips cleared, the investigation now had to look elsewhere for promising suspects. Questions loomed large: Where had the murderer gone and why had he killed?
***
In addition to the psychic, many citizens, some trying to be helpful, others apparently drawn to the case on other motives, approached the VPD with names and stories. Everyone, it seemed, had their suspicions, or thought they knew who was responsible for killing Darlene Ferrin and wounding her friend, Michael Mageau.
On July 9, Officer W. Barber took a statement from a Vallejo resident named Odell. Odell had been driving around town with his two-year-old son in a convertible MG with the top removed on July 4, and had noticed a woman who he thought resembled Darlene. He noticed her while he was stopped for a couple of minutes at a stop sign near Terry’s Restaurant because she was wearing a white uniform, which stuck out to him. Odell noted that a brown, sporty 1963 Corvair was backed into a parking space. Behind it, parked len
gthwise, was a faded gray, two- or three-year-old van with a slanted windshield. He was unsure of the make, but was certain that it wasn’t a Chevrolet or a Volkswagen. A six-foot-tall, Caucasian man, standing across from the woman at the rear of the Corvair, was talking with her. She had the hood of the Corvair raised and appeared to be showing the man the motor. Odell described the tall man as approximately 30 years of age with a heavy upper body. His hair was combed straight back, the sides of which were Champaign white, with darker streaks running through the light hair on the sides.
One suspect brought to the attention of the VPD had purchased a box of 9mm Winchester Western bullets from the Solano Gun Shop less than two weeks before the attack. When confronted, he admitted that they were for a friend in San Francisco who was on parole, and was therefore not able to buy his own ammunition. Detective Lynch cleared both the purchaser and the parolee of involvement in Ferrin’s death.
Lynch was tasked with following up on an anonymous letter received by the VPD, which he did with Sergeant Kramer. The note explained that a badly rusted and beat up brown Corvair was getting a new, bright green paint job at a local Mobile station on the corner of George Street and Monterey Street. The car’s owner, the writer had added, was 25 years of age, fat (well over 200 pounds), sloppy, strange acting, and living with his parents. When Lynch and Kramer inquired at the station, they learned that the 1963 Corvair could be started without a key. However, oil pooling under it revealed that it had not been moved after 11:00 p.m. on July 4, the owner having parked it in front of his house at a slight angle after seeing fireworks in Vallejo. “Patrick,” the subject of the letter, was actually 23, did not own a gun, and did not know Darlene Ferrin.
Another anonymous letter pointed an accusatory finger at a short, heavyset 22-year-old who lived in a pink house on the north shore of Lake Herman. Lynch obtained the suspect’s mug shot from the Sheriff’s Office and shared it with Mageau at the hospital to see if it would jar loose a memory. Mageau dismissed the possibility that the man pictured had attacked him. To the best of his knowledge, he said, the man was not the shooter.
On August 23, a teenager named Penny entered the Benicia Police Department and cautiously placed a note on the counter. But there was no evidence that the man whose name was written on the piece of paper—Perry, later identified by the nickname “Rocky,” a tugboat cook—was in any way connected to Ferrin’s murder.
The principal and vice-principal of Springstowne Middle School in Vallejo were concerned that a former student of theirs, named Christopher, was responsible for the attack at the Blue Rock Springs Park. Captain Bird sent Mulinax to investigate. On September 29, the administrators related that the former student had an anti-social attitude, and had had no contact with members of the opposite sex. He had been dominated by his mother, who had died in the past year. He was now living with his father and brother in Vallejo. Once when he was a junior high student, he had repeatedly banged his head against the side of a building. He had lost a cap off one of his teeth in gym class, and was exceedingly worried about how his mother would react. He had to be restrained by teachers in that incident. On another occasion, he had attacked a smaller student who then punched him in the face. Following the retaliation, he had become sullen and withdrawn. Christopher had a high IQ, was five feet ten to six feet tall, and had greasy-blond hair. The administrators added that he matriculated into Hogan High, Mageau’s school, after completing studies at Springstowne.
Mulinax drove to Christopher’s residence and noticed two cars parked in front. One of these, a blue, late model, 4-door Ford sedan, reminded him of the car Villarreal reported seeing at Blue Rock Springs Park just before the attack, then described as a blue 1967 Ford sedan. Mulinax requested license information from the Department of Motor Vehicles on both vehicles present at Christopher’s residence.
Mulinax and VPD Sergeant Thacker spoke with a vice-principal at Hogan High School to continue following up on the lead. Though teachers encountered problems with his parents and he was a loner, Christopher had not gotten into trouble following his graduation from junior high. He was not popular, but gave no indication that he could be responsible for violent acts. His IQ had been measured at an astonishing 175.
The VPD even received a tip by Western Union Telegram, addressed to Chief of Police Jack Stiltz. It was clear from the details offered that no follow up would be productive. None was ever initiated.
An employee of the Bay City Paper Box Company in Oakland contacted the Alameda Police Department with information about a former co-worker, named David, who resembled a composite, and was known to be a marijuana and LSD user. This information too was funneled to the VPD so that the lead could be pursued.
***
The park continued to be a focus of police attention. No one knew whether the assailant would attack the same place again. Because the two Vallejo area attacks had occurred only miles apart, there was great fear that the gunman would indeed return, and no one knew when or where. The VPD conducted a stakeout at Blue Rock Springs Park on October 18, but no credible suspects were developed. A greenish-grey Chevy Station Wagon approached the bait vehicle at 2 a.m. The five foot eight-and-a-half inch, 145-pound driver who was stationed at Treasure Island explained that he was on his way to Lake Berryessa and had merely stopped to request directions. The surveillance brought them no closer to solving the case.
Ballistics similarly provided few clues to the identity of the attacker. The slugs and shell casings that had been collected revealed that Ferrin’s killer had used 9mm Winchester Western bullets, a common size and brand of ammunition. The list of potential 9mm semi-automatics did little to narrow any pool of suspects or provide fresh leads. Though he had claimed in the telephone call to the VPD to have used a Luger, an examination of the rifling on the bullets indicated that the killer could have shot while holding a Browning, Smith & Wesson, Star, Astra, Llama, Neuhausen, Zebrojoka, Husqvarna, or Esperanza.
The investigators even had difficulty pinning down the exact time of the attack. It was so close to midnight that it was uncertain whether it actually took place on Saturday, July 4 or Sunday, July 5. San Francisco Chronicle reporter Paul Avery, in an August, 1971 summary, placed the attack at 12:05 a.m., likely based on the fact that the first call to the VPD had occurred at 12:10 a.m. Special Agent Mel Nicolai’s California Department of Justice report similarly placed the shooting on July 5. It is equally likely that the killer first struck just before midnight, based on Mageau’s recollection of time, the killer’s own words in future communications, and the unknown amount of time between the shooting and the arrival of the three youths who made first contact with the police: they did not telephone the VPD until after they had left the scene and traveled home. However, if the babysitter’s statement that Darlene did not leave home until 11:40 p.m. is correct, the attack may have occurred at or just after midnight, when taking into account Mageau’s description of his activities following Ferrin’s arrival at his house and the apparent timeline created by these events.
As a result of the telephone call from the killer that linked the two Vallejo-area crime scenes, the police reluctantly concluded that there was a maniac on the loose. The local police started running patrols around all lovers’ lane areas for the next few nights in an effort to stop what appeared to be a pattern. The two Vallejo-area attacks were separated by only two to three miles as the crow flies, the distance by road not terribly much farther.
***
Detective Lynch paid a follow-up visit to the hospital on July 28 to re-interview Mageau, hoping that the surviving witness could provide additional details or identify the perpetrator from department photographs. Investigators often schedule additional interviews because those affected by a crime are often too emotional right after the event and need the opportunity to get their thoughts in order. Also, Mageau was sedated for the first encounter with police, possibly affecting his memory. Unfortunately, the patient could offer no new information, and did not recognize anyone
in the VPD mug shot books that were presented to him.
***
Michael Renault Mageau moved to San Pedro to live with his mother following his release from the hospital. He wanted to put distance between himself and his father, with whom he had a strained relationship; between himself and the site of his near-fatal attack—and between himself and his assailant. Whoever he was.
In late September, Mulinax, with the approval of Captain Bird, sent Mageau a selection of additional suspect photographs with the hope that that the victim would identify his attacker. Mageau returned these from Southern California with a note. He was unable to recognize anyone in the pictures he had reviewed.
The scourge of Solano County also had his reasons for departing the town, albeit unknown, never to attack there again. But he was not finished with his wanton acts of bloodlust.
Not by a long shot.
He would first introduce a new side of himself to an outraged public. The Bay Area would never again be the same.
4 | THE CIPHER SLAYER
“In this cipher is my iden[t]ity.”
As the residents of Northern California slogged through the sultry days of July, 1969, there was little to differentiate the serial killer who was now active among them. The soon-to-be-named Zodiac had not yet distinguished himself from the killers who preceded him, nor from the many who would follow. He killed with a knife, but so had London’s infamous Jack the Ripper in 1888 (though by this time, the Zodiac’s Southern California connection was not known; some would never acknowledge it); he attacked with a gun, but so would pudgy New York City resident David “Son of Sam” Berkowitz, later in the 1970s, and many others; he corresponded with law enforcement in taunting missives, but Dennis Rader, the notorious and sinister BTK (Bind, Torture, Kill), would do the same with the Wichita, Kansas Police Department in the 1980s. And many believe that Jack the Ripper boasted with letters to the press in the late 19th century. Any similarities that the Zodiac may have had to other serial murderers both past and present would, however, be eclipsed in his next series of mailings in which he deposited pieces of a mysterious cryptograph.
