Season of Madness

by Robert Scott

  It was noted that Annette had started working at Redding’s Martin Luther King Jr. Center two days before she went missing. Captain Henry said that investigators were searching for a brown purse she might have been carrying when assaulted; it was now missing. Whether she had been beaten with fists or some other object couldn’t be determined yet. All that could be determined was that she’d been very badly beaten in the face and on her body.

  Even though Annette’s boyfriend, friends and family were questioned regarding her disappearance, no new clues came back as to who the perpetrator might have been. It was looking more and more like a random act.

  A short obituary was printed in the newspaper stating that Annette Edwards had been born in the small eastern Sierra town of Lone Pine, California, in 1959. She was survived by father James Edwards, of Fallon, Nevada; mother Florence, of Redding; sister Elaine, of Redding; half sister Peggy Eastwood, of Oklahoma; and stepsister Alicia Chiesa, of Lakehead. Burial was to be at Lawncrest Memorial Park in Redding, California.

  In fact, Annette was buried not that far away from where she had been murdered. And the roads and parks along the Sacramento River, and especially up near Hilltop Drive, were becoming places to avoid after dark—especially if a woman was walking alone.

  None of the various rapes—and now murder—had been linked together by authorities, but there was a definite sense of unease in the area.

  Chapter 6

  A Terrible Place to Die

  By now, the whole city of Redding was fearful of the shadowy figure they had dubbed the “Hilltop Rapist.” He was beginning to be the suspect in three rapes, and one of them had led to murder. (The rape of Jeanne Maddox in Anderson had not as yet become part of that equation.) Daughters were kept inside, and women were afraid to go out at night, especially in the area of Hilltop Drive. The police presence in the area became more pronounced and vigilant.

  One girl, who many years later would work for the superior court, recalled, “We were all afraid to go out at night. Especially alone. Even with a group of friends, it was scary. You never knew when he was going to strike again. We didn’t even have a clue of what he might look like or how old he was. We were sure he’d strike again in the area.”

  The Hilltop Rapist, however, had other ideas. If it was too hot in Redding, he’d just shift his base of operations to other areas. And the next area he decided on was about twenty miles down the road near the city of Red Bluff.

  Like Redding, Red Bluff sat astride the Sacramento River. It, too, saw a lot of travelers pass through, going north and south on Interstate 5, or east and west on Highway 36. Even more than Redding, Red Bluff was surrounded by agricultural land.

  Fifteen-year-old Shannon Rodriguez, of Red Bluff, rode her bicycle to a cousin’s house on July 9, 1978. The scare that was going on around Redding about the “Hilltop Rapist” seemed to be confined to that area, and Shannon felt safe in Red Bluff. On the way back home around 10:00 P.M., a young man in a car stopped and asked Shannon what time it was. When Shannon stopped to tell him the time, he suddenly grabbed her, hit her in the eye and pulled her into his car by her hair.

  The man ordered Shannon to take off her clothes. At first, she tried to brazen things out. She told him, “Knock it off!” To this, he replied, “Well, you know you have no choice.” Afraid to make him angry, Shannon complied. She then asked him, “Why are you doing this?” The man responded, “Because I want your body.”

  The man drove down Interstate 5 and turned off near Cottonwood. Even while he drove, he unzipped his pants and told her to “go down on it.” She didn’t want to, but she was too scared to resist, so she finally complied.

  Perhaps to make her less nervous, the man told her she should drink a beer, which he had in his car, but she refused to do so. Then the man said as he drove along, “If a police officer shows up, I’ll just blow him away.”

  The man stopped near Balls Ferry Park and got her to drink a little water he had with him. Her head was still lower than the dashboard, and he told her not to raise up or he’d bash in her head with a flashlight. Then he said he had a pistol under the car seat and a dead body in the trunk. (This was actually a lie.)

  There were too many people in the park for the man’s liking, and they took off once again. Shannon felt they were going deeper into the countryside, because there were no lights around and it was pitch black. She also felt they were going up into the hills somewhere. The vehicle felt as if it was climbing an incline, although in which direction from Red Bluff she couldn’t tell.

  The man parked again somewhere and suddenly pushed her out of the car. There were no buildings around anywhere that she could see. He took off his own clothes, pulled out a bottle of Vaseline from the car and used it on her. Then he inserted his penis into her rectum. Shannon hated this, but she endured what he was doing.

  When he was done with that, he inserted his penis into her vagina, and later also put his mouth in the same area and used his tongue. At various times he sucked her nipples; and during all the sex acts, he had a rag draped over her face. The sexual molestation seemed to go on and on.

  Finally, when he was through, he wiped off the area of Shannon’s vagina, then rectum and finally his own penis. He then threw the rag into the bushes. A physical thing Shannon noticed during all of this: He had a scar near his navel.

  Shannon was afraid he would kill her. He didn’t kill her, however. Instead, he forced Shannon back into the car and drove down a dirt road until he suddenly stopped and let her out near a trailer park. She had no idea where she was. He also threw her clothes out near her. Just before he took off, he said the car was stolen and he was going to ditch it in the river. Then suddenly he peeled out and vanished into the night.

  Shannon ran to the nearby mobile-home park and banged on a door at the first residence she came to. When a woman answered the door, Shannon said she had just been kidnapped and raped. The woman allowed Shannon to call the sheriff’s office, as well as her aunt. And then while waiting for the sheriff’s deputy to arrive, Shannon told the woman at least ten times, “I was sure he was going to kill me!”

  At about 1:30 A.M., Tehama County Sheriff’s Office (TCSO) deputy Ron Scott arrived at the residence where Shannon was. Even by that point in the early-morning hours, Shannon was still hysterical. She told Deputy Scott what had happened, while almost gulping for air between sentences. She also said that he had “smeared some Vaseline on my rear end and told me he was going to butt-fuck me. And he did.”

  Deputy Scott drove Shannon around in the area for quite a while, trying to find the area on the hill where she had been sexually assaulted. They were unable to find it, so he then drove her to Mercy Medical Center in Redding. Soon thereafter, Shannon’s mother and aunt arrived. Even though it was hours after the attacks, she was still visibly shaking.

  Dr. Anthony Borschneck examined Shannon in the emergency room. He noted she was still very upset and had bruises on her right cheek and a lump on the left side of her forehead. Her clothing was very disheveled and stained. Dr. Borschneck also noted that a “patch” of Shannon’s hair had been pulled out. Shannon said this had happened when he first pulled her into the car by her hair and held her down on the seat by her hair.

  Dr. Borschneck’s examination revealed vaginal bruising. He also used a vaginal swab and it was positive for spermatozoa. Indications were that there had been sexual intercourse not too long previous to the exam.

  Because of all her struggles, Shannon had lost an earring and one sandal in the assailant’s car. She gave her remaining earring and sandal over to Lieutenant Harold Schoelen, of the Red Bluff Police Department (RBPD), in case the other earring and sandal were ever found.

  Shannon went with Lieutenant Schoelen to an area where she thought the assailant had parked his car. In fact, she was right. After a bout of searching, she actually found the assailant’s rag and told Schoelen, “That’s the rag that he used to wipe me off and threw away.” Lieutenant Schoelen noted they were in a
very remote location.

  Shannon also had a vague description of the man, thinking that he was probably in his late twenties. He had dark hair and a dark, thick beard. His car was small, but she didn’t know what type it was. At the moment there was no connection to the rapes that were happening up in Shasta County, especially along Hilltop Drive in Redding. The assailant had been correct in his thinking that if he perpetrated a crime down the road from Redding, he might leave no direct trail to the crimes he’d already committed.

  Hilltop Drive in Redding was still too dangerous for his exploits, but the young man couldn’t stop his impulses by now. It was just too good an area for snatching young women and girls. There were several motels along Hilltop Drive, as well as gas stations and fast-food restaurants, where young women hung out. And if he was lucky, he could find some young woman who was hitchhiking alone.

  Unlike the other young women the young man had encountered, seventeen-year-old Patricia Ann “Pam” Moore had somewhat of a chaotic young life. She had shared a blended family—all with the same mother, but with different fathers. Pam attended Casa Grande High School in Petaluma, near the San Francisco Bay Area. By the age of fifteen, she was living part-time at home and part-time in foster homes. Younger brother Burton Adams said of her later, “She was not a model child, but my parents weren’t model parents.”

  Dressed in the popular fashions of the day, Pam often styled her hair in the “Farrah Fawcett” look. She went to live with her father in Daly City for a while, but that didn’t work out and she came back to Sonoma County. Very pretty and bright, she took second place in a Miss Sonoma County contest. After that, she went to reside in a group home in Redding. She liked it there, but for some reason transferred to a foster home in Petaluma, where she completed high school.

  After high school Pam decided to return to the Redding area. On August 2, a friend named Daniel picked up Pam at the Greyhound bus depot in Anderson. Pam and Daniel were friends and she stayed the night at his parents’ house in that town. The next day, at approximately 9:00 P.M., Daniel took her to an inexpensive motel in Redding.

  Pam got a room, and Daniel stayed there with her for about forty-five minutes. She told him she had plans to get a job and live in Redding. She said she really liked the area. Pam stayed at the motel for another day, and the motel manager recalled seeing her in the swimming pool.

  Eighteen-year-old Pam Moore decided to move up to Redding after

  graduating from high school in the San Francisco Bay Area.

  (Yearbook photo)

  On August 4, Pam was hitching a ride outside of a gas station on Cypress Avenue, near Hilltop Drive, when a bearded young man drove up in a small sedan. It was broad daylight and Pam felt safe. He asked where she was going, and Pam indicated the direction she wanted to go. The young man said he was going that way as well.

  They took off, and everything seemed fine at first. But soon it became apparent to Pam that they were not going in the direction she wanted. When she complained about this, the man told her to shut up and she wouldn’t get hurt. Pam knew that things had taken a very dangerous turn.

  The man drove south and then west, and even he would be vague later about what happened and where it happened. His memory was clouded on this, and it may have been that he took Pam to his own residence in the town of Cottonwood. Once he had secreted her into his house, it might have been there that he raped her. It’s more likely he raped Pam in his vehicle out in the orchards nearby or even farther along Gas Point Road. The area was isolated with plenty of places to pull off behind trees and bushes, where they could not be seen.

  Pam was kidnapped and taken past a small cemetery near the town of Igo.

  (Author’s photo)

  Wherever the location might have been, when the man was through raping Pam, he did not let her go. Instead, they both went driving in his car to the west, up Gas Point Road. The countryside became an area of rolling hills, oaks and stunted pines. It was a hellish landscape that had been turned upside down in past gold-dredging operations. Mounds of stones from the creek beds were strewn everywhere; it looked like a World War I battlefield. Nearby was the small community of Igo.

  Igo had received its unusual name in a very unique manner. One of the mine supervisors there in the nineteenth century used to say after breakfast, “I’m going to the mine now.” And his young son would always chime in, “I go! I go!” And so the name stuck for the small community.

  Once the man got to the “Igo dump” area, he forced Pam out of the car and into the trash-filled locale. There was something different about him this time compared to his other assault incidents. He was getting more and more nervous. He had let some of the other females go, but all of that had made things more risky for him.

  Making a quick decision, the young man picked up a large rock. Perhaps it was the excitement he had felt when he’d killed Annette Edwards, as well as what was playing on his mind. Without a word he smashed the rock into the side of Pam Moore’s head. He kept pounding her until she stopped moving. And even then, he kept pummeling her head with the rock until he caved in a portion of her skull. In fact, he killed her just as he had done with Annette Edwards. Picking up various pieces of trash, he covered her body and left it in the Igo dump.

  And then a short time later, something very strange happened. It was something he would not reveal to another for two more years. It was so odd, in fact, that he sometimes wondered if he’d really done it or not. By now, fantasy and reality had become a nightmarish blend for him. He would say later he went back to the Igo dump and shined a flashlight on Pam. Then he asked if she was all right. Of course, she wasn’t, and he learned for sure that she was dead. Once again he covered her with trash and left.

  Daniel was surprised when Pam did not contact him after August 3. He was sure that she would. On August 6, he went by the motel to see her. She wasn’t there. Her luggage was still there, but she had disappeared. Daniel eventually assumed Pam had taken off for parts unknown and she had left in such a hurry, that she left her luggage behind. And Pam Moore’s disappearance, unlike that of Annette Edwards’s, would remain a mystery for a much longer period of time.

  Chapter 7

  “Don’t Kill Me”

  Four days passed, and the urges were stronger than ever. Nervous about his recent kidnapping of a young woman in the Hilltop Drive area, the young man drove about sixty miles south down Highway 99 to the college town of Chico, California. It had been hot all over that area during the month, and Chico was no exception. In fact, on the previous day the temperature had reached an incredible 118 degrees. The average temperature for the month had topped out at 106 degrees.

  Things were so bad, in fact, that chickens were dropping dead from the heat. And that was not all—three individuals had died from heat-related incidents within the past few days. This heat wave only added to the young man’s irritability. He got a room at a Motel 6 and waited for evening to go out on the prowl.

  At least the night air was cooler, and the young man went to a tavern in Chico called Madison Bear Garden. It catered to locals and especially college students from nearby Chico State University. The place also received two other patrons that night: twenty-eight-year-old Linda Slavik and her friend Sara Pierson. Both women came from Oroville, a city about twenty miles south of Chico.

  Linda worked for the Butte County Welfare Department, and it was a treat to be going with her friend to Madison Bear Garden. It was a “happening” place, with lots of energy and a good vibe. There were plenty of college students there and good music, which Linda liked.

  Linda was married to Paul Slavik, and they had a nine-year-old son, Christopher. Linda told Paul that she and Sara were going to Chico for the evening, and he knew that she and Sara stayed out pretty late some nights, so Paul went to bed at around 10:00 P.M.

  Around the time Paul was going to bed, Linda and Sara arrived at Madison Bear Garden. Linda was wearing a white blouse, blue slacks, brown shoes and wore glasses with he
xagonal lenses. She also carried a fairly large brown purse with long leather straps.

  Upon their arrival at the establishment, the two women went upstairs, got some drinks and sat down at a table. Sara danced for a while; and when she came back, a man they had met earlier came to their table and sat down to talk to them.

  A man named Greg was also at the Madison Bear Garden that night. He met Linda for the first time and later recalled that they danced “for a while.” When he left her, he noticed later she was sitting with another young man at a table. By now, Sara had left with two men and had gone to their place for several hours.

  Greg also noticed that over the next hour and a half, Linda sat with this bearded young man and he bought her drinks. When Greg left the bar, he noticed that Linda and the man were also gone, although he did not see them leave.

  Twenty-eight-year-old Linda Slavik lived in Oroville, California. In July 1978

  she went with a friend to the college town of Chico. (Yearbook photo)

  Linda had a few drinks and danced with a young bearded man at

  Chico’s popular hangout for college students: Madison Bear Garden.

  (Author’s photo)

  Sara Pierson arrived back at Madison Bear Garden around 1:45 A.M. She was surprised to see that Linda was not there. Linda had never done anything like that before. Sara looked around the tavern, but she could not spot Linda anywhere. Finally she left on her own, thinking that Linda had already received a ride home to Oroville.

  It’s not known if Linda went to the young man’s vehicle willingly or not. Later he would say they both went there to smoke some marijuana, but just about everything he said later would be questioned for its veracity. One thing he did say fell in line with what had occurred before. He asked her to have sex with him and she refused. The refusal sent him into a sudden rage.