All language subtitles for The Truth About Jim S01E02

Jim Mordecai is...

...a human that chose
the wrong path.

You have
to know that, at one point,

he probably was a victim,

and somewhere along that line,
he became the perpetrator.

He was a very hot
football player, apparently.

He would
talk about it all the time.

In Half Moon Bay,
he was definitely a leader.

It was
really his identity.

And he got a full-ride
scholarship to UCLA

to play football for them.

The Mordecais,

they were kind of this,
like, you know,

good old American family.

And then he went and got
his girlfriend pregnant.

And he lost the scholarship
because of that.

And then he had
to get married,

had to support a family,

and that wasn't
what he wanted.

He didn't want that.

And I'm wondering if that's
when he lost it, mentally.

There's a lot of people that still to this day

look up to him,
but on the interior,

it's far darker.

I think
Jim held it against women

that he wasn't able
to have the life

he thought he should have.

And all the other women are the ones that are gonna pay.

He was playing out
his pain, his rage

on all of them.

So I brought my yearbooks.

I thought we could just
look through 'em

- and see what
it was like when... - Okay.

...I was here.

Hey.

This still looks
pretty much the same.

Here's Jim.

Yeah, so the FFA,

you know,
Future Farmers of America.

That's a big portion
of our high school.

That's a big club.

And I didn't know
anything about FFA.

In the very beginning
of school,

you can go to these tables
and figure out...

- What club you want to be in.
- ...what club you want to be in.

- And people were
definitely recruiting. - Mm-hmm.

So Jim would have been at

- the recruiting table.
- He would have been recruiting for sure.

Hypothetically, he could
see cute girls and be like,

"Oh, you should join."

Yeah.

And I'm thinking...

- He did that to you?
- May... Yeah.

So there were rumors that he was sleeping with students.

But what I'm realizing now is

he started rumors
about students.

He would talk about
one girl that

I'm pretty sure
he had groomed and...

He would talk about
how she smelled.

Like, she smelled like fish.
This is in class.

That she's just a whore.

And the rumors were
anything from actual

full-blown rape in there to,

"If you want an A,

you're going to

perform sexual acts on me."

When I got out
of high school, like,

one or two years later,
all of a sudden, Jim,

he just was gonna retire
and do landscaping.

He just quit. He's not gonna
teach anymore.

You know, usually
when people retire

after such a long career
somewhere with,

you know, being

the revered teacher
that you are

at that point in your career,
you would have, like,

some fanfare.

There was nothing.

I remember
kind of asking, like, "Wasn't there a party or,

like, what,
aren't you excited?"

No, he's just gonna
pursue landscaping.

I just started asking
everybody I know,

"Do you know anything?
Do you know anything?

Do you know anything?"

And one of my friends said,

"Hey, get in touch
with this girl.

Something happened with her."

I get in touch with her and...

she says,

"I had this
experience with him."

They end up at Jim's ranch.

And he...

starts chasing her around.

She had to, like, outsmart him

and get him to snap out of it

and take her

back to where her car was.

She went to a school counselor

and told him
what had happened.

He said something like,
"Hey, now we have it.

We have something
and we can get rid of him."

And they went to him
and asked him to leave.

And he never taught again.

So I'm on a Half Moon Bay high school alumni page.

I thought that it would
be good to post something

with the intention
of letting other

victims know that
they weren't alone.

"Over the years,
it has come to light

that my stepdad, Mr. Mordecai,

made some students'
high school experiences

a traumatic one.

Mordecai passed away
about ten years ago,

and since then,
female students

from varying classes
over the decades

have come forward with
extremely similar stories,

where it appears Mordecai had

a pattern of abuse
and manipulation.

If anyone here
was affected by him

and wishes
to share their story

and find a group of women who
share their experience,

feel free to DM me."

I felt like I was
doing a good deed.

And apparently,

according to many people
in town, I was not.

"He's not alive
to speak for himself. This is so inappropriate."

"Mr. Mordecai
was a great teacher,

and I was in class
with him for four years.

A professional.
A really nice guy."

"Not the platform,
especially when he's not here

to defend himself
against any allegations."

"He was a great teacher
and mentor.

Nothing but respect for him."

Capital letters,
"No problems at all."

"This is so inappropriate
to put on Facebook."

People agree, agree, agree.

I mean, it just was like
poof, poof, poof, poof, poof.

I was surprised at
how awful it felt.

Why would you ever
come forward if you have this?

You know?

Nobody would chime in.

Nobody except for Trish.

Trish was
the best friend of Christi.

And Jim told me that

in high school,
Trish had a crush on him,

and he had
to really work hard to,

you know, keep her at bay.

I think he would
watch for a while

and kind of see what girls...
Like, he'd learn.

Maybe they didn't have
a good thing going on at home.

I'm cool.
I'm the school teacher.

He's gonna gain that trust.

A lot of the girls
that he was rumored to have

"relationships" with,
which were not,

didn't have dads
in the picture.

So he kind of, like,
filled that in.

He provided mentorship.

You could tell
he was grooming people.

Hi!

When they put it out
on social media,

and everyone was
bashing the fact

that he couldn't
stand up for himself.

Before you are a survivor
of this type of situation,

it's easy to look at it
from that angle and say,

"Well, this is
really a witch hunt,

and this guy
can't protect himself."

Fact of the matter is,

none of his victims
could protect themselves.

Jim was a predator.

- Mm-hmm.
- And he should've been doing

jail time.

There were a lot
of people in the ag culture,

the FFA culture,

that had had Jim,
that had never been

taken advantage of,

and perceived him

in a lot of ways like I had

previously to his
actions with me.

High school, those were
kind of tough years for me.

I had a really hard home life
with my stepmom,

and I really was
trying to figure out

which friend group,
you know, I fit in with.

And, uh, the ones that were
the kindest to me were

all the FFA kids.

Christi and I hung out.

She had
a great sense of humor.

And I met Jim,

who was Christi's stepdad.

I thought he was a clean-cut,

handsome guy,
albeit my dad's age,

but, you know, a handsome,
good-looking older guy.

I thought he was just
very responsible and very stable.

I was very naive.

By the end of my junior year,

my home life was
so bad with my stepmom.

And so Jim knew this.

I don't know
where the family went,

but they all
took off somewhere.

He asked me if I wanted
to come over.

He said,
we'll go in the hot tub.

And so I had my bathing suit,
I had a towel.

And he told me
when I got there,

"Oh, let's have
a little cream sherry."

And then as I relaxed
with the cream sherry,

then he said,
"I can go get some weed."

So I remember clearly
sitting in the hot tub,

pretty inebriated.

And then he looked at me,
and he said,

"I want to make love to you.

And I will be really,
really gentle with you."

And I thought,
"I got to get out of here.

I'm in a really
dumb position now."

And so I got up
out of the hot tub,

and I was running through
the house, grabbing my things.

And he was running after me.

You know,
"It's okay, just relax."

And I'm petrified. I'm just,

you know, a teenager
trying to get out of there.

I just kept going.

I couldn't see anything
but getting the hell out of there

and getting into my car.

And I get into my car,
and I'm wet.

And I'm sitting on a towel,

and I'm driving home,
and I'm shaking.

I count myself
so grateful and blessed

that it didn't happen to me,

because I know other people
were not so lucky.

The sign is still
the same, huh?

Yeah, we were cougars.

So...

All right.

See where that
big green building is?

- That brown building?
- Behind the green building?

Yeah,
that's kind of where the greenhouses were.

And it was kind of
in the trees, too.

But, like, he, like,

cornered girls
in the greenhouse.

Christi,

you know, she starts
when she's

pre-teen, basically.

- And he was revered
in the town. - Yeah.

Who's she gonna tell?

I started high school in '79.

Jim, of course, is a teacher
at the high school, so,

I had to

pretty much
go into his classes.

And we were in the greenhouse,

and he had cornered me
in the back part of the greenhouse.

And he grabbed me
and threw me on the ground.

And, again, I was fighting,
and he pulled my pants down,

sexually assaulted me.

And it was a switch
of him turning on, like,

"Oh, okay,
let's go back to, like,

bringing the flats
of ground cover."

And I'm standing there,
like, "What is going on?"

And I thought, "I cannot
believe that he did that

on school grounds."

Christi and Trish
aren't the only girls that Jim victimized.

There were
other women that I found

who also reached out to me

that had stories,

but they didn't
to appear on camera.

But we found
a woman named Val Richey

who now lives
in Bellingham, Washington,

and she is an alumni of
Half Moon Bay High School.

She graduated in 1982.

I've had a few
phone conversations with her,

and I know she has
a story with Jim

that she's been kind enough
to want to share with me.

- Hello.
- Hi.

- How are you?
- Good.

- Nice to finally meet you.
- I know.

- Nice to meet you.
- Uh, so,

- can I ask you some questions?
- Well, welcome to Bellingham. Absolutely. Yeah.

- You want to come
meet the dogs? - Oh, God, yeah.

Hi, guys.

- Hi. Come on in.
- Hi. Oh, my gosh.

Yep.
This is the gang.

So I wanted
to ask you, like,

more... I'm trying
to understand more about

Jim and Half Moon Bay.

So what was it like
growing up there?

He was the person
or the instructor

that I took my courses from,

and he was the instructor
that I also TA'd for.

He seemed
like a really nice teacher,

and he was pretty laid-back.

He was very much a part

of my daily life.

Between my junior
and senior year,

I was involved in FFA.

So FFA is
Future Farmers of America,

and he knew I was horse crazy,
and he said,

"Hey, you know, if you want
to help take care

of Christi's horse,
you can ride him."

And so I was like,
"That would be amazing."

So I felt privileged
and maybe special,

not ever thinking that

there would be a price

for these privileges.

I guess I want to
know more, I guess, details,

- if you don't mind
sharing them. - Yeah.

So what happened?

Yeah. So Jim

had invited me to go with him

to take our horse with
her new foal to this farm,

and I'd never seen
a breeding facility.

This was, like,
you know, like,

a great opportunity.

It was a Saturday.

My mom dropped me off
at the school,

where I was supposed
to meet with Jim,

and we were gonna
drive to Dixon.

And Dixon, California, is
I think about...

- Like, what, two hours?
- Yeah, maybe two to...

- A little more.
- More.

Anyway, we got
to the breeding facility,

and there was no tour.

None of the things happened
that I...

So I was kind of
bummed and disappointed.

Like, we literally
dropped her off, and then...

- So he had built
this whole story... - Yes.

- Yes. Right.
- ...that you guys were gonna go get a tour

- and watch this happen.
- Right.

Absolutely. Yeah, that's...

Yeah, unfortunately,
none of that happened.

We had lunch.

And I was naively thinking,

"Oh, good,
now we'll just go home.

But then he wanted to
take me to his family cabin.

It became apparent that

the tour of the farm was
never actually on the agenda.

- Mm-hmm.
- It was the motive to get me to go with him.

You know, I knew then that

it was not gonna end well.

And I remember thinking
at the time...

"Well, let's see,
I have no money.

I have no way to get home.
I have no idea where I am.

Like, I guess

I am just going
to do my best to survive."

And my focus was just
getting home.

He became aggressive
and was trying to, like,

herd me into
the living room and...

And at that point,
he was like, you know,

"I want to have sex.

I just knew,
for whatever reason,

if I fought with him on that,

it was not gonna
end well for me.

- I just knew.
- Mm-hmm.

He could hurt me. And there's
not much I could do about it.

I was shattered.

My whole life,

everything that I had thought
about things was over.

If somebody is capable
of doing that to you,

you don't really know
what else they're capable of,

and why would you want
to find out?

So I think he knew that
I wouldn't say anything.

I don't know how he knew that.

- Mm-hmm.
- And it was true.

And I thought, literally,
I was the only one.

If I'd known
there were others,

maybe I would have
been more brave,

but I was, yeah,

I just kept it to myself.

Unless he had gone to jail,

- which I don't think would
have happened back then. - Yeah. Yeah.

- I don't think
he would have stopped. - Yeah.

Listening to Christi,
Trish, and now Val's stories

has been really,
really difficult for me.

In 2018, I was
sexually assaulted again.

This time, by a friend.

And being somebody
who came forward

about my own sexual assaults

and was traumatized

and people believed,

but objectively didn't
give a shit,

I get it.

I spoke up.

And every single time,

nobody cared about me
but my mom.

Nobody.

When you do speak up...

the onus is somehow put on

the victim rather than
the person that did

that action.

Why didn't you go to
the police when that happened,

you think?

Because I was drunk,
and I didn't think that they would believe me.

Oh.

I get why
women wouldn't want

to come forward
about this stuff.

And I used to
judge people for not

speaking up,
but I didn't realize... I didn't understand.

I didn't understand

where when things like that
were happening to girls,

they didn't talk about it.

You couldn't 'cause it
would automatically...

I mean, you would have
everybody against you.

They're manipulated to think

that it was their fault.

I ask myself all the time
why I didn't go to the cops.

And I think for a long time,

and maybe even now,

I had some sort of shame.

I'm just...

It's just disheartening
that it's...

Not much has changed.

I don't know
what the answer is.

I don't either.

And unfortunately,
change is slow, and...

- This is gonna...
It might be slow. - Mm-hmm.

But when I see you...

hopefully, you'll be
part of the change.

- I'm proud of you.
- I'm trying.

I saw firsthand what happens when you silence people.

And Jim was a man who
saw things that he wanted,

stole it from people...

and intimidated them
into silence.

And I want my family
to be free of that.

I want them to be
free to speak up.

I want us to exist, and I want

all the women
to exist outside of him.

How's it been for everyone
talking about Jim again?

- Oh, boy.
- Mm-hmm.

- A lot, huh?
- Mm-hmm.

You know, there were
a lot of things that I

came across as I was thinking.

Everything that he said,
it wasn't true.

Yeah.

I have this memory that
you were bathing me,

and he was, like, watching.

And then the minute that
we, like, started to go out,

he just, like,

- whoop, disappeared.
- Oh.

Maybe it wasn't so much to see
a little girl's naked body,

but more because
he was listening in. - Yeah.

Yeah, he did listen
in on lots of stuff.

Like, I would call her.

"Are you safe? Are you safe?
Are you okay? Are you okay?"

After I'd heard about Christi,

'cause Jaime told me
about Christi.

He raped Christi.

Did you know
that he raped her?

Well, when I first heard
about it,

Janae told me.

- Wow.
- But he told me it's not true.

And he had built up your mom

as being this
horrible, horrible person.

- And I go, "Really?"
- 'Cause back then, we didn't even know that.

...making these lies
to get us.

I believed him when he said
he didn't molest Christi.

He said Janae had made it up.

And I believed him,

because it's so hard
for me to even imagine

that he could have
done something like that.

What did you tell me
when he was

in your apartment

and you guys were
looking at the view and...

'Cause I'm only, like,
remembering pieces of this.

He just,

out of the blue, said,

uh, "You know,

Christi and I,
Christi and I had an affair."

She was a little kid.

How can a little kid
have an affair?

Exactly. And that's where
we went with it.

And he said,

"Well, you know,
you were young,

your mom was
really distracted.

She was just kind of,
you know...

We lost our way." Or whatever.
It was something like that.

And he's like,
"Christi was there. We connected."

And I said,
"Well, wait a minute. If I was young,"

I said, "How old was she?"
How old was Christi?"

And he said,

and I could
see him get, like, "Mm."

He was, like, "13."

Part of me was,
like, he got out of this world

without anyone ever
standing up and saying,

"This is what you did to me."

I don't know what he had
on people in that town

to get away with what
he has gotten away with.

I think,
given all the facts that we know,

we know he was
a serial rapist. - Yeah.

And we know he was abusive.

And he would disappear.

I just think that...

the reality of
someone like that

not having ever escalated

- Yeah.
- ...past rape,

potentially to killing people,

I think it's not out of
his wheelhouse at all.

Well, I agree
with you on that.

I mean, if you're a,
like, serial rapist,

like, raping women for fun

or whatever the hell
you're doing it for,

I mean, you gotta...

There's certain situations
that have to go wrong.

You can't be
a successful serial rapist

and not have some
damage happen sometimes.

If you're out there
purposely hurting people,

how could you
get away with not

taking it
to a different level?

Hey, so I have

something that I found
when I was looking.

- Mm-hmm.
- Um,

obviously, I was looking
for pictures and things like that, and, uh...

I found this, and I think
it's important enough

- to pass on to you.
- Okay.

It was...

We had a couple
of Bibles, but this

is the Bible
that creeped me out.

I had this, uh...

in my "dad's stuff,
this little box."

I never thought
to even open it.

It was just, like,
stuck in there.

Something told me to keep it.

I opened it
for the first time,

and I didn't realize these are
little page markers.

And he's literally

underlined or highlighted...

Like
a favorite verse? - ...random,

- like, a little random verse.
- Okay.

I mean, obviously, if this is
something that he was

taking the time
to highlight and save,

- it meant something to him.
- Yeah.

So it's kind of like
a little glimpse into...

- his mind.
- Yeah.

Exactly.

And some of them kind of
don't make sense.

"For all have sinned

and fall short
of the glory of God."

When I got to the end here,

as I read through them,

this one says,

"Purge me with hyssop,

and I shall be clean.

Wash me

and I shall be whiter
than snow."

And...

that one sent chills.

Just 'cause it's
in that vein of, like--

It's the vein of, like,

- um, repent in a way.
- Yeah. Uh-huh.

I can ask God for forgiveness,

- and I can get away
with these sins. - Yes.

I can do these awful things

and I'll be forgiven.

He had
several personalities.

And when he'd start talking
in tongues, he'd say,

"I'm talking in tongues.

I'm getting in touch
with God."

Just made up words.

Things that I couldn't
even repeat

'cause I don't even know.

Jim really felt

he was
on a higher spiritual plane.

As I was
playing Barbies one time,

he came into my room

and he, like, put
his hands out like this.

And he goes like this.

And I'm like, "Okay,
this is weird.

And he's like,
"Do you feel my power?"

And I knew--
I was, like, okay.

So if I say yes,

he'll leave me alone

so I can continue doing
what I'm doing.

But if I say no,
there's going to be a problem.

So I'm just going to agree

that I feel his power.

'Cause I know that if I agree
to this, he's going to leave.

So I was like, "Yes, Dad,
I feel your power."

And then he, like, stood there
for another minute,

and then he smiled,
and then he, like, walked out.

He also believed that
he had many other lives.

He really felt like
he was Moses reincarnated.

He was like a messiah.

It's like
there were things

that Jim was doing
that were so...

wacky.

All right.

"Romans 23.
For all have sinned

and fall short
of the glory of God."

So, I'm just going
to google that.

"Romans 23 means

Paul sums up
this section of his letter

and the entire gospel
in this one famous verse.

He compares the two types
of lives

he has been describing.

Those without Christ are
slaves to sin.

Their work of sinfulness earns
a paycheck of death.

No matter how good
a person may think they are,

their work can never
be good enough.

And ultimately, they have
only themselves to blame

for sinning against God."

There's a common theme
of him--

He knows
he's battling an evil.

And he is, like...

I mean, desperate

to be saved from that evil.

And it shows me

that...

you know, he knew
what he was doing.

He knew exactly
what he was doing.

He had this, um, presence.

I mean, he'd walk into a room,
and the room was altered.

He changed the feel of a room.

And depending on his...

mindset, I suppose,

he either was
the most charming man

you were ever going to meet,

or he was
your worst nightmare.

So I had seen some of the,
like, mental instability.

I had seen these kind
of morphs of personalities

popping in once in a while.

One time, he starts talking
about this woman that...

Everything-- He hates
this woman. And he would...

He wanted to hogtie her

and throw her in a ditch.
And I'm like,

"That's specific."

He would always say,
"I'm gonna slit your throat.

I'm going to slit
your mom's throat, too.

Oh, I'm going to hogtie you."

When we'd wrestle, like,
that was one of the things

that he'd say to us.

It's just too weird.

Who says this?

Who says this?

So we google
"Santa Rosa hogtie ditch."

Santa Rosa
hitchhike murders pop up.

And I was like, "Oh, shit."

This is, like, him.

Six, maybe seven
young hitchhiking girls were

slain in Sonoma County.

Several were picked up
on Santa Rosa City streets.

We used to hitchhike,

but now it's not real safe
to do it, so we don't.

Why did you quit?

Um, because
of all the weird things

that have been happening

with the girls.

Thousands
of man hours have gone

into solving
the bizarre murders

in Santa Rosa.

We've got
six unsolved homicides

in Sonoma County,

and we're looking
for some assistance

from the good people.

They're offering
a $10,000 reward

for the arrest and conviction
of the killer of those girls.

So far, no takers.

The Santa Rosa
hitchhiker murders.

They're a series
of unsolved murders

of presumably forgotten
young women

that took place in Santa Rosa

in the early 1970s.

Some of them are
sexually assaulted.

All of them are
thrown into ditches

in remote areas of Santa Rosa.

A lot of them are
hogtied, which is

particularly interesting
for Jim

because he talked about,

when he would be
upset at women,

how he would want
to hogtie them

and throw them in ditches.

The similarities are
just too weird.

All
these murders have

so many connections to Jim,

in particular
with the geographic locations that Jim was living in

and where
these murders took place.

Whoever the person
or persons are

that are
responsible for this...

have an affinity
towards young girls.

Most of these women were
the age demographic

that we know
Jim liked to assault.

So, Lori Lee Kursa, 13.

Yvonne Weber, 13.

Maureen Sterling, 12.

Carolyn Davis, 15.

All were
discovered nude

with clothes missing
and never found.

All were white,
of small to medium height,

wearing casual clothing.

All had long hair
parted in the middle.

All had pierced ears.

Each girl was
from a broken home.

Each was hitchhiking.

I do remember
Jim saying,

"Don't hitchhike
'cause you could end up dead.

You could end up raped."

I don't know that
he actually did pick up

hitchhikers.

But my assumption would
be that...

he definitely would,
especially if it was

a cute girl.

They also occur

in a really interesting time
in Jim's life.

In 1972,

when these murders
start happening,

Jim is going through a divorce
with his first wife.

And everything
that I've heard is

that this divorce was
not good.

It was very tumultuous.

Jim was in a very dark period
of his life

right when
these murders start happening.

And his ex-wife moves up

to Santa Rosa and he continues
living in Half Moon Bay.

And he is traveling on the 101
to Santa Rosa

to see her, to stalk her
in the middle of the night.

And what's interesting is

that all of these girls are

last seen either hitchhiking
near or on the 101.

He believes
women to be garbage.

And that's the reason
that he dumps them

just like someone would dump
litter alongside the road.

He knows Santa Rosa

like the back of his hand.
He grew up there.

A mad killer has
been at work.

He will probably kill again.

He would know exactly
where to dump a body

and not get caught.

So there's one woman.

She's dedicated
huge chunks of her life

to keep the memory
of these girls alive,

to fight
for the justice for them,

to seek answers.

And that's Deb Silva.

She runs this website called

SantaRosaHitchhikeMurders.com.

and she is
the unofficial gatekeeper

of the Santa Rosa
hitchhike murders.

I'm very excited
to talk to her.

She's got an amazing archive.

And I really want
to see what she knows

that might help me figure out

if Jim was this guy or not.

- Hi.
- Hi. Sierra?

Yeah, Deb.

- Good.
- So nice to meet you.

Yeah, it's nice
to meet you too.

Yeah, I would
love to talk to you

about my mom's stepdad.

Okay.

There's a lot of things
that he said or did

or places that he lived

that really connect

to the Santa Rosa
hitchhike murders.

I'd love to hear
what you have to say

and see if we can get
anything to mesh together.

Yeah. I'm very excited.

I certainly want to see

- these cases solved.
- Me too.

I had lived here
for about a year

before a neighbor asked me,
he says,

"Well, how do you like living

where all
those bodies were found?"

And I was like, "What?"

This is
Franz Valley

where they were found.

Three of them.

Three young women
brutally murdered.

There may be a trail
that links these murders

with others throughout

Three girls were
found on the property.

Maureen, Yvonne, and Carolyn.

And I was just amazed.

There were a total
of eight girls killed

in two years.

So my grandfather's name was
Jim Mordecai.

- He grew up here
in Santa Rosa. - Uh-huh.

He was a serial rapist

and his demographic of--

- like, the age group was--
- Mm-hmm.

...12 to about 19.

Well, okay. That's about
the same age as the girls...

- Yeah.
- from the Santa Rosa hitchhiker murders.

And he loved to talk

about hog-tying women.

That must have been scary

for whoever was
listening to him.

Yeah. So, my mom had heard it

and then my uncles
and my aunts.

It was a common theme
in the house

that he would, like, take them

and grab them by the feet.

"I'm hog-tying you"

or "You're old enough.

You need to learn
how to hog-tie."

Theresa Walsh was
hog tied.

She was found underwater

in Mark West Springs Creek.

The Jane Doe,

who was found in a ravine,

there was evidence

that she too had
been hog-tied.

In March of 1972,

Kim Allen went missing.

She left work

and hitchhiked a ride

to the freeway on-ramp

so she could hitchhike
to Santa Rosa.

That was the last
anyone had ever seen of her.

Kim was found about
20 feet down an embankment,

face down, nude,

with one earring.

There was marks
that she had been tied

around her wrists and ankles.

The jewelry that is found--

or missing or found--

- Right.
- ...at certain crime scenes,

that's something
that has always been

a really big interest to me,

because when Jim died--

- Mm-hmm.
- ...they were going through his house

and my mom found a box,

like, a little box full
of one-off pieces of jewelry.

Really?

And in that box of jewelry,

I'm like, "Whose is this?"

This is like,
shitty 1970s jewelry.

Like-- but there's like

not full matches of anything.

And I started
asking everybody,

"Whose is this?"

And...

I'm thinking to myself,

why is there only one earring
in here?

Whose jewelry is this?

And she's like,
"I don't know."

It's not the girls'.

But it's random stuff.

And she didn't know
whose it was.

It freaked everybody out
so much

because they were like,
why does he have

this little girl jewelry?

Right.

She still has the earrings?

I don't know what happened
to the box right now.

- Oh.
- That's what I'm trying to figure out.

And in terms of, like,

where they're found,

I mean, how well do you think

you'd have to know Santa Rosa

to find that area?

I think you would have
to know that area fairly well.

Mm-hmm.

It would be somebody
that lived in the vicinity

or perhaps somebody
that liked to take drives

and would drive
on the back roads

all the time.

My grandfather, Jim, though,

that's something that
everybody says about him,

that he loved to go for drives

and that he would disappear
for hours on a drive.

- Right.
- And nobody knew where he went.

And he's the king
of the back road.

Yeah, yeah.

No. There was
no GPS back then.

- You had to know the roads.
- Yeah.

I would like
to take you around

to show you exactly where

all of the Santa Rosa
hitchhiker murder victims were found.

Okay.

I have spoken
to three or four

of the victims' families.

I've spoken
to Kim Allen's older sister,

who, to this day, is
completely devastated

by her sister's murder.

Kim's father,

he had an enormous amount
of guilt

because he had refused

to get her a car she wanted.

If he had bought her the car,

she wouldn't have
been hitchhiking.

And he carried that
with him through life.

The same was true
with Maureen's family.

As a parent,

of course you're
going to feel guilt.

There's something you should
have done differently.

I think, maybe
in seeing someone, um...

named and hopefully,
you know, punished

for what they have done

might bring some sort
of resolution to them.

We've had
three bodies deposited

in the same location
over the last year or so.

I think you can
draw a conclusion

that, in all probability,

the same individual
or individuals are involved.

We're headed
towards Franz Valley Road.

This is Yvonne
and Maureen and--

Yvonne
and Carolyn Davis.

...and
Carolyn Davis. - Yes.

Yvonne and Maureen were
the first to go missing

in February of 1972.

They were students together

at Slater Junior High

and they were not found
until December of 1972.

You can walk down here

and you can see
a little bit better.

Here we are.

There, you can see
a little bit of a creek

- down there.
- Mm-hmm.

And there's
a little bridge over the creek.

The bridge was not there.

Yvonne and Maureen were

the first two bodies
found here.

And they really
weren't bodies.

They were skeletal remains.

Two kids had driven up
on their bicycles.

One of the boys came
across the skull

and the boys thought
that was really neat.

So they took the skull

and they took it home.

When Carolyn was found

about seven
or eight months later,

a motorcyclist was
driving down this road.

He had been a Vietnam veteran

and he knew
what decomp smelled like.

- He knew.
- Instantly.

He knew instantly

- what that smell was.
- Mm-hmm.

And Carolyn was
ten or so feet

from where Maureen
and Yvonne had been found.

It's like you're just
throwing away trash.

- Right.
- And that's--

Exactly.

And that's how
the girls were treated,

as if they were trash.

Mm-hmm.

There were a couple
of pieces of jewelry found

at the site where Maureen
and Yvonne were found.

One was an earring.

Of course, the amount
of time that had gone by

from when they went missing

and when they were found
was quite a long time.

The second earring

or if the other girl had
a pair of earrings on,

they could be buried
in the dirt,

or an animal or a crow,

a raccoon or something
could have carried it off.

Um...

Yes, the killer could
have taken them.

Hi.

Hey.

I wanted to talk to you

because something
that keeps coming up is

that jewelry box.

Mmm.

Can you remember
what was in that box?

It just had
a random mishmash of...

of no matching jewelry.

Not costume jewelry,
but just cheap.

Like, um,
teenager, adult jewelry.

And can you remember
anything specific?

I remember some turquoise

and some orange beads.

I feel like
the orange beads were maybe, like, on a hoop.

But I definitely saw

one earring
with some orange beads.

Oh, the earring is
described

as "A circular piece

of what may have
been gold or brass

with filigree
lace-like pattern

from which several clear...

orange beads are hanging."

I just can't
see a situation

where a grown man has
jewelry like that.

No.

What happened to it?

Like, where did it go?

I...

I believe we intentionally
just gave it to a thrift store

or threw it away.

Then why not take it
to the police?

When somebody works
at you for so long

to tell you your truth is
not true,

even though you know

that you were terrified
by this person,

there's a part of you
that blames yourself

and questions yourself.

And then when you are
really faced with it,

it's big and it's scary.

And I think in that moment,

my mom and I just
needed it to--

just get the fuck out of here.

- Okay.
- You know? So.

Sorry I didn't keep it.

Okay.

- Well, I love you.
- Love you.

- Okay, bye.
- Bye.

I get all of it,

but it's just
super frustrating

'cause if we had that,

it would be definitive.
Yes or no, I think.

So if we don't have
the actual box,

like...

it might as well just be--
it's hogwash.

It doesn't matter.

The case is
very puzzling.

So much so, in fact,

that Sheriff Striepeke says

that his men are working up
against a blank wall.

Most of law enforcement cases
are made

because some citizen
out there gives you

the information.

That's what we're looking for.

Deb said
that if I am really serious

about this investigation,

I need to speak with Mary.

Mary was a friend
of Yvonne and Maureen's

and she was
actually there the night

that Yvonne
and Maureen went missing

at the Ice Arena.

It's nice
to see you again.

Nice to see you, too.

This is Mary.

- Hi, Mary. I'm Sierra.
- Mary, this is Sierra.

- Hi, Sierra.
Nice to meet you. - Nice to meet you.

Mary was a friend
of Yvonne and Maureen's

- and she last saw them here.
- Mm-hmm.

I think I was the last person
maybe to talk to them.

- Mm-hmm.
- I think.

So I can tell you, you know,

kind of what went down
that night.

Yeah, I would
love to hear that.

I like how it's, like,
preserved in time.

- Hasn't changed at all.
- Yeah.

So, as kids in middle school,

our parents would

- drop us off to skate.
- Uh-huh.

But what
it really gave you was

was two to three hours
of free time

to do
what you wanted to do. - Yeah.

Now, some kids skated,
for sure.

- Others just hung out.
- Mm-hmm.

And Maureen
and Yvonne and I

and our friends, we were
more the hangout crowd.

- Uh-huh.
- So a lot of kids would

hang out outside

and smoke cigarettes.

And so I was inside,

sitting on
the fireplace hearth,

and Maureen and Yvonne came in

and they said, um,

"Oh, we met this guy

and he offered
to share his pot

and we're going to smoke pot

- with this guy."
- Mm-hmm.

"Do you want to come with us?"

And, so my first thought was,

"What guy?"

'Cause, honestly,

you know, when you're 13,

if it was a cute ninth grader,

I might have gone.
I might have gone, right?

So I want to know, what guy?

So they said, "Oh, he's
waiting down the hall

in the lobby for us."

So I took a few steps,

looked down the hallway
to the lobby

- where I could see the guy.
- Mm-hmm.

And immediately I could tell
he was older than us.

- He was not our peer.
- Yeah.

He was not skating.

He had been outside

and must have talked

to them and now was
waiting for them to leave.

I didn't feel comfortable
about it.

- I said, "No, thanks."
- I'm good.

"Have fun."

And I stayed in the Ice Arena

and they were really
never seen again.

Uh-huh.

What felt really unusual was,

if you were
a pot-smoking middle schooler,

you had long hair.

- Okay.
- If you were a guy.

- Uh-huh.
- It's just the look, right?

And he had short, dark hair.

So he looked almost more
like a teacher to me.

You know?

Did he have
any other defining features?

Um, he just had short--

uh, I would call it
dark black hair.

- Uh-huh.
- Caucasian.

Slender.

5'10 or something. Um...

And he was wearing
a denim jacket.

So I wanted
to meet with you

because my mother's
stepfather was

a really terrible man

and he grew up here
in Santa Rosa.

He was born in 1941,

so around this time, he was
probably in his early 30s.

I'm trying to figure out
who exactly he was

and it's led me
to Yvonne and Maureen.

And I would love to show you

a picture of him
around 1970-71.

- Mm-hmm.
- And see, if at all,

he resembles maybe the person
you might have seen.

This is him in 1971 and '70.

So this is, like, 1970,

1970 and 71, he starts
to grow these sideburns.

And he didn't always wear
the glasses.

Oh, God,
you're really freaking me out.

Well, I have to say

he looks a lot like him.