Santa Rosa hitchhiker murders

Maureen Sterling and Yvonne Weber Maureen Louise Sterling, 12, and Yvonne Lisa Weber, 13, disappeared around 9 p.m. on February 4, 1972, after visiting the Redwood Empire Ice Arena. Both girls, like other young people in that era, often hitchhiked. They were last seen hitchhiking on Guerneville Road, northwest of Santa Rosa. The friend was also interviewed in the 2024 HBO Max documentary The Truth About Jim and said she saw the man in profile as he stood in the lobby watching the skaters on the ice. She said he resembled a photograph of suspect Jim Mordecai, the subject of the documentary, taken in the early-1970s. There were rumors that the girls might have previously been in contact with a man who lived along the Russian River, but police could not confirm that connection either. Classmates of the girls were questioned about their whereabouts at school the following week, but none of the leads police received proved fruitful. Police had believed the girls were runaways. Their bodies were found on December 28, 1972, north of Porter Creek Road on Franz Valley Road, down a steep embankment approximately off the east side of the roadway. The cause of death could not be determined Kim Wendy Allen, 19, was also a frequent hitchhiker despite hearing warnings from her mother and one of her college professors about the danger of rape and/or murder for young female hitchhikers. Allen, like many other young women during that era, did not believe she was at risk. She was given a ride by two men on March 4, 1972, to San Rafael. The two men who gave her a ride, one of whom was given and passed a polygraph test, were ruled out as suspects. Her checkbook was deposited in a drive-up mailbox across from the Kentfield, California Post Office sometime on the morning of March 24, 1972, 20 days after she was murdered. Police thought two fingerprints on the checkbook might belong to the killer. When she was found, Allen also had an oily substance on her right side that authorities said was similar to the oil used in a machine shop. Lori Lee Kursa Lori Lee Kursa, 13, a Lawrence Cook Middle School student, had been reported missing by her mother on November 11, 1972 Authorities speculated that Kursa was kidnapped, forced into the van, stripped of her clothing, and that she opened the passenger door of the speeding vehicle in an attempt to escape her captor or captors, fell or jumped or was pushed out and broke her neck in the fall into the ravine. Her captor or captors left her by the side of the road. The broken neck would have prevented Kursa from moving, but it would have taken some time for her to die from the injury. and spent the next five months traveling. She had left her mother a note that said: “Dear Mom. Don't worry too much about me, the only thing I'm gonna be doing is keeping myself alive. Love, Carolyn.” She posted a letter to her mother and stepfather shortly after she ran away in which she wrote that she had left voluntarily and never planned to return home. Her older sister told an interviewer in 2022 that Davis actually stayed with her in her duplex apartment in Garberville, California after she ran away. Davis claimed she had witnessed a double murder in Shasta County and that she was afraid for her life. in Garberville. Her body was discovered on July 31, 1973 in Santa Rosa, just from where the remains of Sterling and Weber had been recovered seven months prior. The cause of her death was strychnine poisoning 10 to 14 days before discovery. A pathologist determined her probable date of death was July 20, 1973, five days after her grandmother had last seen her. Police reported in 1975 that it was “a rectangle connected to a square, with bars running alongside” constructed of twigs or sticks. It was identified as an occult symbol dating back to medieval England and suggested a possible connection to the Zodiac Killer. The symbol was located on the roadway above the site where Davis was found. After Davis was found murdered, while her sister was working as a hotel maid at the California Motel in Anderson, she found a map in a room she was cleaning that had belonged to Davis and had been in her possession when she left Garberville. It had been written on by both Davis and her older sister who gave the map to the local police and also spoke with investigators in both Shasta and Sonoma Counties. in the winter of 1973 to spend time away from her husband and young son. She hitchhiked her way across California, often catching rides along Highway 101. She had never before had any difficulties or thought she was in danger while hitchhiking. In late December 1973, she was in Malibu, California but wanted to go home for Christmas to see her mother and son. She was last seen on December 22, 1973, at Zuma Beach in Malibu, intent on hitchhiking to Garberville. She had been hogtied with clothesline rope, sexually assaulted, and strangled, and was determined to have been dead approximately one week. High water marks contemporaneous with heavy rains in the area suggested the body could have drifted several miles. Due to the age of the remains, authorities initially believed them to be those of Jeannette Kamahele and her arm fractured around the time of her murder, and her corpse had been stuffed into a laundry or duffel bag before being dumped in the ravine, == Possible victims ==