by Robert Scott
Apparently, Annette did recognize Darrell, so she accepted. When she got into the car, Darrell pulled away from the curb. He may have recognized her at that point. This would become very sketchy, even in his own mind later. He did say that everything started out fine, and he really didn’t have any plans to molest her. Very shortly, however, everything went off track. Darrell claimed later, “I don’t know why. I didn’t plan it. I just couldn’t stop myself.”
He drove right past her house and to his own home. He couldn’t even recall later what he said to her. Maybe they watched television, and Annette was not afraid of him at that point. Or he may have assaulted her as soon as she was in his house. The whole situation drifted into a dreamlike state for him. He almost felt like he was outside of his body, looking down at his actions.
He said later, “I couldn’t stop myself!” He would say this over and over again. What he “couldn’t stop himself” from doing was raping Annette, even though he knew her and liked her and she was only eleven years old. He tore off her clothes and pinned her down and raped her either on the couch or on the floor. She struggled, but he was too strong for her. He kept on with the rape. In fact, he was in a frenzy. The sex was so rough and brutal that he bit her on the thigh, leaving teeth impressions there. She was a virgin, and he hurt her during intercourse. He even admitted to this later. But despite that fact, he wouldn’t stop his savage assault.
When he was sated, his mind was in a whirl. He would describe it as a dreamlike state, where he barely knew what he was doing. He hustled Annette back into his car. However, instead of taking her home, or out into the woods, or even to the Igo dump, he headed north.
Darrell drove up through the city of Redding and the communities of Shasta Lake and Mountain Gate on Interstate 5. He headed across the Pit River Bridge on Shasta Lake and to the wooded area that was north of the main section of the lake. Then, by some unexplained force, he suddenly stopped near a place named the Johns Creek Bridge. This was an area of pine trees and oaks, with no residences for miles.
Darrell pulled Annette out of the car, and dragged her onto the span. It was dark and quiet at that time of night. For a short moment they just stood there, perched above a hundred-foot drop. His mind was reeling by now.
Suddenly, without warning, he picked up the young girl and flung her over the edge. It was a 105-foot drop to the mud and rocks below, but Annette Selix did not die instantly. Instead, she crawled a few feet, rolled up into a fetal position and then expired.
After Darrell had raped Annette Selix, he drove her to this bridge near Shasta Lake and threw her over the side to her death. (Author’s photo)
The next day the whole episode seemed like a bad dream to Darrell. He was uncertain if it was real; he even drove back to the Johns Creek Bridge in the daylight hours. When he saw Shasta County Sheriff’s Office vehicles near the bridge, he knew it had been real. Darrell Keith Rich knew that Annette Selix had been his latest victim.
David Tidwell and his brother Buddy Wayne Tidwell fell asleep in the living room on the night of August 13. The other brother, John, rode his motorcycle home. Before he fell asleep, David didn’t check to see if Annette had come back. Instead, he had just assumed that she had done so. Meanwhile, Sharon Selix got home at around 1:45 A.M., August 14, and went straight to bed. She, too, assumed that Annette was asleep in her bedroom.
It wasn’t until morning that both Sharon and David learned that Annette had not returned home from the market. Her bed had not been slept in and she was nowhere to be found.
While all this was going on, a boater on Shasta Lake spotted a strange sight on the shoreline near the Johns Creek Bridge. He went over to investigate and was stunned by what he saw. It appeared to be the mostly unclothed body of a girl, situated right at the water’s edge. The boater hurried as fast as he could to a phone and called the Shasta County Sheriff ’s Office.
An SCSO deputy was the first to the scene. When he arrived there, he noted the boater had been absolutely correct. It was the body of a girl, and the deputy contacted the homicide division to come up to Shasta Lake.
Sergeant Dick Newsome, of SCSO, was told that there was a body discovered beneath the Johns Creek Bridge up on Shasta Lake. Since the water can rise and fall in that area, the drop from the bridge can sometimes be forty feet to the water. In August 1978, however, it was around 105 to 110 feet to dirt and rocks below.
When Sergeant Newsome got there, he noted that it was the body of a girl, which was cold and had no pulse. She was obviously dead at that point and “the girl was in a fetal position.” According to Newsome’s report: A portion of her hair was in the water, and her legs were underneath her. Her left lower leg had a compound fracture and there were numerous abrasions on her back.
The girl was not wearing a skirt or pants, but rather only bloodstained white underwear. She also wore no top, but only underpants. There was a pair of tennis shoes right at the water’s edge, and a blouse, brassiere and some cutoffs near there as well.
More and more officers kept arriving on scene, including SCSO detective Ben Lambert. Shasta County deputy coroner Leo Gatos arrived after a while, too. Gatos determined early on that the victim had either been pushed off the bridge or had jumped. She had not died by some other means right at the water’s edge. In his report Gatos also noted there had been some bleeding from wounds. He surmised from this evidence: She was possibly alive when she ended up in the position she attained. If the person had already been dead when pushed off the bridge, there would not have been weeping wounds. The blood flow would have stopped and there would have been no bleeding.
In the area there was a steep incline down to the water’s edge of rocky hard dirt. It was apparent that the girl had hit the ground somewhere up the incline and then rolled to the spot where she was found. She had been alive there for an undetermined amount of time, and then she had died.
A later autopsy revealed acid phosphates in the oral and vaginal areas, indicating that she had been sexually molested. Acid phosphates came from male ejaculation. The hymenal ring at the entrance of the vagina was reddish, discolored and swollen, indicating that the victim had been a virgin. There were also abrasions and contusions present. All of this was consistent with forcible rape.
There were also numerous large abrasions on her back, shoulders, flanks, buttocks and lower legs. A large three-inch laceration was on the left side of the skull above the ear, and it tore the flesh right down to the bone. There was also a compound fracture of the left ankle with complete separation of one of the large bones in the leg. X-rays revealed fractures of the left pubic bone, a pelvic bone, the right wrist and lower right leg.
There was “free blood” in the lung tissues, which also indicated that the victim was alive for a while after hitting the ground. There was also more than a pint of blood in the abdominal cavity from a ruptured spleen and ruptured liver.
Cause of death, according to Gatos’s findings: Shock and hemorrhage due to multiple traumatic wounds. Dropping from the high bridge, the impact set in motion the process of dying.
The Redding Record Searchlight ran an article on August 15: KIDNAP-MURDER VICTIM? BODY OF GIRL FOUND AT LAKE. SCSO captain Jim Carter said that a fisherman found Annette Selix’s body at eleven in the morning. It was apparent that she’d suffered a fall from the bridge.
Carter was also giving out details of a timeline about the girl who had gone missing all night long. The girl had left her home on Chestnut Street in Cottonwood at around 9:30 P.M. She was last seen walking toward home between 9:45 and 10:00 P.M., carrying a sack of groceries. She had been seen just one block from her home when last spotted.
Captain Carter said, “When last seen, the girl was wearing white cutoff denims with ‘Billy the Kid’ embroidered on a rear pocket. She wore a blue-and-white–patterned blouse, with a blue swimming suit top underneath, blue tennis shoes, and she wore glasses.”
The next day, there was an obituary in the newspaper, just as there had been one for A
nnette Edwards. Annette Selix had been born in 1966 in Pinole, California, and lived with her mother in Cottonwood since 1973. She would have been in the seventh grade in September. She had been active on the Cottonwood girls softball team. Annette was well liked and was a friendly girl.
Annette Selix left behind a mother, Sharon, of Cottonwood, California; a father, Glen, of Richmond, California; sister Bridgette Thompson, of West Point, California; and sister Sharlotte, of Cottonwood. Burial was scheduled at Cottonwood Cemetery.
Darrell Rich read those articles in the newspaper. On the night of August 19, 1978, he had a terrible dream. A young woman, bloody and flayed, appeared at his bedside and stared down at him. She didn’t say a word. She didn’t have to. Her eyes accused him of everything he had done to her. Thoroughly frightened by the apparition, Darrell got up and turned on every light in his house. Then he slept on the couch.
Chapter 11
A Gruesome Discovery
Because of the apparent murder of the eleven-year-old girl, investigators in the area were now in high gear. As of yet, there was still no link to all the rapes in the area, or the other three murders. Bit by bit, however, those connections were coming closer together.
Known sex offenders were questioned, and males who knew Annette Selix as well. Alibis had to be checked out and stories corroborated. And because of all this activity, Darrell Rich began to get very nervous. In fact, he had been nervous about things ever since the murder of Annette Edwards on July 4.
About a week and a half after the disappearance of Edwards on July 4, Darrell had gotten into an argument with Darlene and pushed her down on a couch. For whatever reason, he blurted out, “I killed that girl!” (He meant Annette Edwards.)
Darlene thought he might be talking about Edwards, but she didn’t believe him. She said, “Knock it off! Why did you say that?”
To this, Darrell responded, “I don’t know. The look on your face was like you thought I did.”
On another evening, Darrell was angry at Darlene once again and left the house in a bad mood. He called her from Hinkle’s Market in Redding. He then asked her, “Do you want me to come home?”
She replied, “You can come home. It’s your home.”
Then, out of the blue, he lied. “The police stopped me at Hinkle’s Market and questioned me about the murder (of Annette Edwards).” In fact, the police had not done so at this point.
When Darrell got home, he lied to Darlene once again. Darrell said, “They asked me what kind of car I drove. I told them a brown Hornet. They said that was the kind of car described. A Hornet or Capri would match that description. They’ll be coming over sometime to question you, too. Tell them I was driving the Chevrolet on July fourth and I was at Anderson Park.”
All this conversation did was make Darlene more suspicious than ever that Darrell had been up to something illegal on that date. But she still didn’t think he was capable of murder. And before she left the area, Darlene didn’t tell any law enforcement officers about Darrell’s comments.
A few days after the murder of Annette Selix came out in the newspapers, Robert Severe was hitchhiking back to Redding after leaving his car at a repair shop outside of Redding. Darrell Rich happened to be driving down the road. He knew Robert and picked him up. As they headed down the highway, Robert suddenly asked Darrell if he’d read about the murder of Annette Selix, since Darrell worked with Annette’s mother, Sharon.
Darrell seemed surprised that the murdered girl was Annette, and then he started telling Robert a very strange story. He said that he’d gone to bed with some young girl. “I was so physically large that I hurt her when we started to have sex,” Darrell said. He added that the whole experience had been “kind of bad,” but he didn’t mention the girl by name, or any name at all.
On August 20, 1978, Darrell showed up at his neighbor Carl Frank’s place and said he wanted to go motorcycle dirt-bike riding out at the Igo dump. This was about eighteen miles from Carl’s place. Carl generally liked to ride dirt bikes at the closer Cottonwood dump, so he declined to go with Darrell.
Darrell was only gone about twenty minutes, and then he came back “all shook up,” in Carl’s estimation. Darrell said he’d just found a human body at the Igo dump and that he didn’t want to be the one to tell the police about it.
Carl convinced Darrell to take him to where he’d found the body, and Darrell agreed. The two men rode their motorcycles to the dump and Darrell showed him what he was talking about. Carl looked down on the unclothed body of a dead woman, who had been there for some time. The only thing she had on were some glasses on her face and one sandal.
Darrell and Carl rode back to civilization and Carl phoned the sheriff’s office. SCSO deputy Arthur Wooden was the first to arrive. He met with Darrell and Carl, who accompanied him back to where the body was located. When Deputy Wooden saw the body, he called for assistance.
Apparently, before assistance arrived, Deputy Wooden spotted another body only twenty-three feet away from the one who wore glasses. They were both badly decomposed and partially mummified.
While waiting for detectives to arrive, Deputy Wooden showed the two men a composite drawing of what the Hilltop Rapist might look like. Carl took a look at it and blurted out, “Darrell, this looks like you!”
Darrell looked at the drawing and became very quiet. Finally all he said was, “Yeah.” To Deputy Wooden’s eye, Darrell now looked very nervous. Darrell walked away from the two other men.
When SCSO detectives arrived, the first body was noted to be lying upon her back, while the second was in what investigators later called a “lotus position.” There was no clothing on the second body, but further inspection proved that body number one had sandals on her feet.
Not only that, there was a towel under Victim Number One’s buttocks, and there was another towel in a manzanita bush near her head. She wore a turquoise ring, and there was a cartridge casing near her left elbow. Soon another spent cartridge was found between her ankles. Both were .22-caliber Rimfire brand, with a large C on the bases of the cartridges.
Near Victim Number Two, a trail of dried blood ended in a little puddle. She lay with her head to the east and her legs were wrapped underneath her. The blood trail extended to the west behind her. Lying alongside the body was a pair of striped pants. A pair of panties was stuck to the body, as if she had been sitting on them. There was also a pair of sandals nearby. A white tank top was later found on the other side of the road, and appeared to belong to Victim Number Two.
Rocks with blood and hair on them were seized from near Victim Number Two, as well as a tooth, which was lying underneath her. It had obviously been knocked out from her mouth at some point.
Back in Cottonwood that same day, Carl Frank asked Darrell about the Annette Selix case. Darrell said he had been in downtown Cottonwood around the time she disappeared. And then he admitted he had driven up to Lake Shasta and witnessed detectives poking around there, near a bridge. Carl didn’t pass that information on to police right away.
The Redding Record Searchlight reported: 2 BODIES FOUND IN RURAL AREA. One paragraph misspelled Darrell Rich’s name. It stated: The first body was discovered by a motorcyclist riding on a dirt road near Gas Point Road dump about eighteen miles northwest of here. The cyclist, Daryl Rich, rode back to Cottonwood and summoned a friend who contacted sheriff’s deputies.
The article also stated that right after Darrell spotted the body, another cyclist, Richard Rawlins, of Platina, saw it as well. Apparently, Darrell had left the body exposed on the ground and Richard happened upon it by accident.
It was reported that deputies and investigators went to the scene. To their astonishment, they soon found a second body about ten yards away from the first body. SCSO captain Jim Carter told a reporter that the first body appeared to be that of a young woman.
There were also some tips reported in the paper, which would turn out to be false leads. Some people in the area of the Igo dump reported a suspicious
white van leaving at a high rate of speed over the previous days. False leads or not, the investigators were asking people who lived out on Gas Point Road to call the sheriff ’s office with any suspicious activity they might have witnessed in the previous weeks.
A short article also appeared in the Oroville Mercury Register, because Linda Slavik had been missing since early August. Captain Jim Carter said to their reporter that it appeared that the two individuals had been dead for about two weeks. The bodies were believed to be female, and violence appeared to have taken place. Whether they had been killed at the site, or dumped there, Carter didn’t say.
A pathologist from Humboldt County was contacted, but he could not make it there. So then a pathologist from Oakland, about two hundred miles away, was summoned. Until that pathologist arrived, it would be impossible to determine the cause of death, or even how long the victims had been there. Agencies all over Northern California were contacted about missing person cases in hopes that someone might identify Victim Number Two or at least give them an indication of who she might be.
Then being more accurate about a link than he could have known at the time, the newspaper reporter noted: Fourth body found in 6 weeks. It related the discovery of Annette Edwards’s body on July 7, and Annette Selix’s body on August 14. As of yet, however, not one law enforcement agency directly linked Annette Selix and Annette Edwards. There had just seemed to be a rash of random rapes and murders in the past few months.
An autopsy was eventually done on both Victim Number One and Victim Number Two, who had been found at the Igo dump. Victim Number One was that of a very decomposed, partially mummified female. This was in the days before all the crime scene investigation (CSI) wizardry so evident on twenty-first-century television shows. However, a report noted: There were large numbers of six-legged black-bodied beetles present in and on the tissue. The tissue of the back was covered by large numbers of white maggots.
