Trace Evidence: The Hunt for the I-5 Serial Killer

by Bruce Henderson

  In the old days, all available detectives would be assigned to a single murder case until it was solved. The team’s boss, whether a lieutenant or captain, would lead the investigation and know as much about the case as anyone. But by the mid-1980s, cases were assigned to field-grade detectives who became the department’s experts on individual cases. When Wallace insisted on being briefed in detail about unsolved murder cases, briefings were held. Sometimes they were the cause of much friction. The detectives weren’t able to take the time to tell the captain everything, so they hit the surface. Soon, the captain was posing questions and challenging the detectives. The adage that a little information was more dangerous than none proved true. On one occasion involving a fire-related death, Wallace formed an opinion totally different from that of the detective who had investigated the crime scene. The detective thought it was arson-murder, the captain did not. A heated argument ensued, and the loud confrontation added to the tension the detectives already felt about the top brass. Biondi’s detectives, accustomed to full autonomy over their cases and knowing that they worked more murders in a few months than Captain Wallace did in his entire career, came to resent the grillings. They soon had Wallace grouped with the rest of the department’s administration, which didn’t seem to place priority on murder unless the victim was somebody important or the case was otherwise putting heat on the department.

  Captain Wallace formed an opinion on the I-5 investigation. To Biondi’s disbelief, the captain was openly skeptical that the murders were connected.

  For Wallace’s benefit, Biondi went over the list of similarities that caused him to conclude that a serial killer was on the loose.

  “Even if it is a series, a lot of them are operating in other counties,” Wallace said matter-of-factly. “We’ve got our own major murders to work.”

  Biondi could feel the steam venting. Women had been abducted and murdered—so they shouldn’t work the cases because some damn political boundary was crossed?

  Wallace may have seen the eruption coming.

  “Look, don’t misunderstand me,” Wallace added quickly. “I think we should give some attention to these murders. I just see all the other cases that need your attention, too. I don’t know how much more you can handle.”

  Feeling defused, Biondi said, “My point exactly.”

  KAREN FINCH, age twenty-five, was a true California blonde.

  Her sun-bleached hair cascaded several inches below her shoulders, framing a long face that a wide smile warmed instantly. A dedicated sun-bather with a golden tan, she had little need for makeup. On weekends she favored shorts and sleeveless tops, and leather thong sandals when she absolutely couldn’t go barefoot. Her eyes were a rich mahogany brown, and her teeth as perfectly straight and white as a movie starlet’s. Although only 5-foot-5, she seemed taller—it was probably the long legs. Her well-proportioned 122 pounds were ample proof of hours spent at the gym and her daily 3-mile jogs.

  A people person, she tended to lead with her heart, and had endured her share of life’s disappointments. In fact, she was going through a divorce, and shared custody of her two-year-old daughter, Nicole. But she was also in an exciting new relationship with a twenty-three-year-old man she’d met a few months earlier. She was beginning to feel that they might have a future together; they had already talked of marriage, and about the logistics of finding a place midway between their jobs and close enough to Nicole.

  On the morning of Sunday, June 14, 1987, Karen picked up Nicole at her ex-husband Steve Higgins’s place in Twain Harte, situated on the western slope of the Sierra only 20 miles as the crow flies from the entrance to Yosemite National Park. Karen had spent the previous night at her boyfriend Larry Blackmore’s house in nearby Sonora. A state correctional officer at the Sierra Conservation Center, Larry had to work that day, so it would be just Nicole and her.

  Karen was excited about her new job; she had the added responsibility of handling bookkeeping for a dentist as well as working with patients. She had started only a week earlier, and would be making more money than ever before. She loved her new apartment, which she’d been in only two weeks; the complex had a pool and hot tub. With a forty-five-minute commute to and from work and much longer drives to Tuolumne County to Nicole’s father’s place and to Larry’s, Karen had two weeks earlier bought a year-old sporty Plymouth Turismo coupe to replace her older El Camino, which kept breaking down.

  After a rough period—Karen had written her mother a while back: “Please keep praying for me as I’m going through some trials”—things were looking up in her life.

  When Karen and Nicole arrived at Larry’s house, they both changed into their swimsuits and went out back. They had stopped at Kmart and bought a wading pool, which Karen now inflated and filled with water from a garden hose. She positioned herself under the sun and stretched out on a beach towel, watching as Nicole squealed happily in her new pool.

  After lunch, Nicole took a short nap. Then, they went back outside until around 4:00 P.M., when they came in and changed. Karen had promised Steve to have Nicole back by 5:30 P.M. When they pulled into Twain Harte, they stopped for yogurt cones.

  When they got to Steve’s—he had kept the house and most of their furniture—Karen mentioned that her car had been running hot. She asked him how to check the coolant level. While Nicole rested on the couch, they went out front. He popped the hood and showed her where to check the coolant without removing the radiator cap. The level seemed fine.

  Saying good-bye was difficult, as usual, for mother and daughter. The little girl, in her daddy’s arms at the curb, waved weakly, then began to whimper.

  “Bye, Nicki. I love you,” Karen said, fighting back her own tears.

  It was 5:30 P.M. when Karen pulled away. She was facing better than an hour’s drive to her new apartment in Lodi, some 30 miles south of Sacramento. A friend had asked her the other day how she could cope with all the driving she did. Driving was therapeutic for her, Karen explained. She especially enjoyed using the long stretches of country roads, but she also used busier U.S. 99, which ran through Lodi, and nearby I-5, which she used to get to work in Sacramento.

  At 10:30 P.M. that night, Larry Blackmore came home to find Karen gone. When he’d called her that afternoon to say he was going to work an extra shift, they had left it that she would stay over. Obviously, she’d changed her mind and headed home. He wasn’t surprised, given that Karen had to be at work in Sacramento in the morning. He tried calling her apartment, but there was no answer.

  He next called his mother, who lived nearby. As it happened, Karen and Nicole had stopped by around 4:30 P.M. to say hello. Sure enough, Karen had mentioned that she was going to head back home that night to rest up for work.

  Larry tried Karen’s number again around 10:45 P.M. but there was still no answer. He stayed awake awhile hoping she would call, but eventually he fell asleep.

  He woke up at 8:30 A.M. Monday, which was his day off. He called the dentist’s office where Karen worked, but was told she had not showed up or called in sick or late.

  Larry telephoned Karen’s parents to get Steve’s number. Steve wasn’t home, and it took some effort to track down his work phone. When Larry finally reached him, Steve explained that Karen had dropped Nicole off the previous afternoon and left about 5:30 P.M. She hadn’t said where she was going but Steve said he assumed she was heading to Lodi.

  At 9:45 A.M., Larry called the Tuolumne County Sheriff’s Office. A sheriff’s deputy arrived at 11:00 A.M. and took a missing persons report.

  A worried Larry got in his car and cruised between his house in Sonora and Twain Harte to see if he could spot Karen’s car, but came back shortly when he realized he should stay by the phone in the event she called.

  The phone rang at 1:30 P.M. It was Larry’s sister, Marcia, calling from a pay phone at the Stockton Airport. Marcia had driven their mother to the airport for a trip to visit a relative. Larry had originally planned to do so but had elected to stay home
in case Karen called. His sister, who had heard from their mother about Larry’s growing concern for Karen, said she could have sworn she saw Karen’s car parked on a country road near the airport. She had even jotted down the license number.

  Larry didn’t know Karen’s new license number. He figured it was a long shot—his sister, who had seen Karen’s white Plymouth only once or twice in the two weeks she’d had it, had probably seen a similar-looking car. But he took down the number she gave him and called the sheriff’s office anyway. He asked them to run the number, which they did while he remained on hold. The license number came back no good; there was no such number on file.

  Shortly after 6:00 P.M. Larry made another quick trip to Sonora to see Karen’s ex-husband. Not wanting to believe that Steve had anything to do with Karen’s disappearance, he was relieved to see that Steve seemed genuinely concerned. They were careful not to discuss the situation in front of Nicole; neither wanted to needlessly upset the little girl.

  The phone rang a few minutes after Larry returned home. He raced to it hoping that it would be Karen. She would be all right and have some explanation and that would be the end of it. But it was her parents, Glen and Naomi Finch, who lived in Oroville—where Karen had been raised and graduated from high school—about 60 miles northeast of Sacramento. Both were worried sick, and took turns talking to Larry about what else could be done.

  Larry asked if they happened to know Karen’s new car license plate number. Her father, who was a minister, said he did. He went to look it up, then recited it to Larry.

  It was only one number off the license number Marcia had given him for the car parked out by the airport.

  Larry told the Finches about his sister’s call.

  “Marcia must have taken it down wrong,” he said. “I’m going out there myself. I’ll call you later.”

  Larry took Highway 120 west out of Sonora for nearly 50 miles, then turned on French Camp Road, a shortcut to Highway 99 and, just west of the highway, the Stockton Airport. It was pitch-dark by the time Larry reached the car at the intersection of French Camp and Ripon roads. He pulled up behind it, and kept his motor and lights on as he got out.

  He shined his flashlight into the car. With a sinking stomach, he realized it was Karen’s car—he recognized the things in the backseat that she’d brought to his place.

  He tried the driver’s door—locked.

  That was typical Karen; she always locked her car.

  The passenger door was locked, too.

  As he peered inside, Larry couldn’t detect anything out of the ordinary. He checked the tires, but they looked fine. He walked around the car looking for visible body damage, but there was nothing to suggest an accident.

  This was a plausible route for Karen to have taken. Highway 120, three or four miles on French Camp, then Highway 99 north for about 15 miles to Lodi. He wanted to believe she had had engine trouble, pulled over, locked the car, and gone for help. But even as he ran that scenario through his mind, he knew it was wishful thinking. If she’d had engine trouble, Karen would have called somebody within the last twenty-four hours.

  But she hadn’t.

  THE FOLLOWING Sunday, a family of four was out for a drive on picturesque Jackson Highway east of Sacramento.

  It had been a particularly warm day, and Alex Gutierrez, a campus police officer and reserve deputy for the Amador County Sheriff’s Department, had promised his young son they would stop and take a walk along Deer Creek before going home to dinner.

  Gutierrez pulled off the highway onto a narrow, shady lane and continued on about a half mile before parking some 30 yards short of a small bridge that crossed the creek.

  The entire family got out. Gutierrez was in the lead—his son was busy collecting flat rocks for skipping in the creek—as they approached the bridge.

  Gutierrez saw something in the road that looked like a big stain. As he came closer, he saw an article of clothing next to it that had what looked like blood on it. His first thought was that someone had gotten into a fight.

  He glanced over to the side of the road. Down in a ditch about 10 feet away was a naked woman lying on her back. She was obviously dead.

  Gutierrez spun around and ordered everyone back into the car before they could see anything. He drove to the first house they came to, but no one was home. Farther down the road was a trailer used by an extension school, and attached to it a pay phone. He called 911, and was put through to the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department.

  The first patrol unit arrived at 8:00 P.M. After the deputy took one look in the ditch, he went back to his car and radioed for Homicide to respond.

  Detective Stan Reed arrived first, his partner Bob Bell five minutes later. Lt. Ray Biondi, who had the farthest to drive from home, showed up ten minutes later with two of his sons along for the ride.

  Throughout the years, Biondi had made a point to take each of his five sons to at least one murder scene. He did so not only to show them what Dad does and why he has to work such long hours, but also to give them a reality check; unlike what they saw on TV or in the movies, there was nothing glamorous about murder. Rather, it was ugly, invasive, sickening. It was thirteen-year-old Greg’s first trip, and one of his older brothers, Mark, twenty-one, had come along for moral support. His sons took one look at the scene from the bridge, then stayed out of the way and didn’t say much. (Eventually, two of Biondi’s five sons went into law enforcement, including Mark, who joined the Sacramento County Sheriff’s Department.)

  By the time Biondi arrived, Reed and Bell were already doing their look-don’t-touch close-up of the scene, with Reed dictating into a micro–tape recorder.

  “Approximately 8 feet south of the bridge, just adjacent to the dirt shoulder area, are spatters of blood on the blacktop. These spatters encircle an area about 1 foot in diameter. Continuing approximately 2 more feet in a southerly direction, there is another area that appears to be blood, which is approximately 12 inches by 5 inches.

  “Where the blacktop meets the dirt area, there is a pair of what appears to be women’s shorts, blue in color. Approximately 2 feet to the east of the shorts is a bush. Hanging on the bush are pink panties.

  “At this point the shoulder of the road drops off at approximately a 45-degree angle, down about ten feet into the ditch area. There is a pathway adjacent to the blue shorts which leads down the embankment to where the body is located. There are a number of areas going down the embankment that have a red substance which appears to be blood.

  “Laying at the bottom of the steps, in the ditch area, is a white female with blond hair. She is laying on her back. Her nude breasts are visible. She has a blouse on that is open in the front. This blouse is white and blue in color. The victim is nude from the waist down and shows a bikini tan line. There are a large number of active maggots around the throat area. I now see that the victim is wearing a pink tank top. The top appears to have been cut up the center. Further description of the body to follow after the coroner arrives.”

  When Biondi had gotten the call from Dispatch concerning a “female body dump” in a remote area, he had immediately wondered if it could be number four in the unsolved series. When he arrived at the scene, he found Reed and Bell with the same thoughts. After the coroner arrived and the body was pulled onto a stretcher and all the clothes were collected and inspected, they felt even more strongly about it.

  They ticked off several similarities:

  Clothes cutting

  Nude or partially nude victim

  Scattering of clothes about the scene

  No purse found

  Body transported to rural crime scene

  Personal identification missing

  Although not on I-5, certainly in the general area

  Reed had his own entry: The latest victim had large breasts like all the others. “This guy knows what he likes.”

  It was difficult to tell whether the victim had been strangled. More than likely there had been some type
of open wound in the front of her neck, as maggots usually went for the first blood they could find on soft tissue before invading other orifices. Further analysis of the neck wound and two puncture-like wounds on the upper torso would have to await the autopsy, but, based on what he’d seen, Reed thought the victim had been stabbed.

  Given the amount of blood found on the roadway, it seemed likely she’d been mortally attacked, if not killed, up above and her body rolled down the embankment to the ditch. That the victim had bled extensively was not similar to the other crime scenes.

  “He may have cut her throat,” Reed said.

  They knew he hadn’t been a slasher before, but they had also seen plenty of cut clothing, meaning he carried a sharp instrument—likely scissors.

  “He gets mad at this one,” Biondi said, speculating. “Maybe she was able to put up a good fight. He uses what he has in hand to overcome her resistance.”

  Biondi knew that serial killers generally stuck with what had worked before, but sometimes the manner of death could be dictated by the circumstances.

  In collecting the victim’s clothing, it was noted that her panties and shorts were stained with fecal matter. As violent death almost always resulted in an involuntary bowel evacuation, Biondi thought it likely that these items of clothing were removed postmortem, or in the very least while she was suffering severe trauma immediately preceding her demise.

  The detectives found a 3- or 4-inch length of silver-colored duct tape stuck to the back of the victim’s head. To remove the tape and preserve it as evidence, it was necessary to cut her long hair.

  Reed and Bell talked about the tape having been used as a gag, due to its position on the head.

  Biondi, who had been stooped over the body, suddenly stood up. “Brown’s hair was cut, remember?”

  “Just below the ears,” Reed said.