For the record, I am not a cold case investigator with sufficient amount of time tracking down suspects. I am a researcher looking into the mystery of the Santa Rosa hitchhiker murders. By this said I spent a number of years going back to the 1990s in trying to unravel these unsolved murders that had caused so much frustration and cost me an considerable amount of money wasted. I even spoke to one of the Sonoma County sheriffs investigator in person regarding the Sonoma homicides, this same person I had an conversation with gave me the notion the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office did not want to reopen the investigation at that time. Forty-five years have gone by since the last known victim-Therese Diane Walsh-was found in a river on Mark West Springs in December 1973.
The name Arthur Leigh Allen was mentioned as an possible suspect in the Sonoma killings from a suspicious reason. Allen had been an chief suspect in the Zodiac murders. He preferred young children, mainly young boys; he was fired from a teaching position in Valley Springs for molesting a child, that gave suspicious to the Sonoma Sheriff’s Office that Allen had reasons to kill these girls other that his profile as being an sexual deviant. Allen also owned a house trailer on 29763 Santa Rosa Avenue in which by using the tool of geographical profiling, his residence in Santa Rosa was in the surrounding vicinity where both ypthe victims had been seen alive and later discovered in remote areas in and around Santa Rosa. During their investigation into the suspect, the Sonoma Sheriff’s Office had found traces of hair belonging to species of chipmunks, that were found on some of the victims. Providing the same hair fibers found in either instance does not immediately define Arthur Leigh Allen as the culprit did all the Santa Rosa hitchhiker murder victims.
Allen didn’t become an suspect at first when the murders in Santa Rosa came to an halt in 1973. In fact, he was looked upon seriously as the perpetrator, only after Allen was incarcerated at Atascadero state hospital due to the fact his trailer was in the Center geographical location where the victims were last seen and found. This does not prove any concrete evidence linking him to the killings, only that he possessed freakish strength to toss down bodies down a road embankment. Besides not all the Santa Rosa victims for murder in consistently pattern. Carolyn Nadine Davis was poisoned with strychnine; Yvonne Weber and her friend Maureen Sterling died of any unknown cause, it could be theorized their deaths were attributed to exposure or poisoning. No rope were on or near their skeletal remains. In all cases, each earring was missing from each victim. The first two girls: Weber and Sterling had been found about 60 feet from the Franz Valley Road embankment which an earring and an gold cross was found. The girls families identified those items as belonging to them, they were last wearing the night they both disappeared 11 months prior.
These unsolved murders have become an immense obsession for me.
In 1975, Sonoma Sheriff Don Streipeke had received ,ore than 130 tips around the country from people who may of held information of the murders in his own territory and suspects of interest . In the years that followed, the number of sourceful information to the Sonoma county sheriffs office encourage to an average 300 suspects and newer leads would eventually sent off sheriff’s detective Erwin “Butch” Carlstedt around the country in attempt to solve the cases. After his retirement, the fervent Carlstedt felt an person of interest whose name he did not want to disclose, was responsible for the murder for at least the murder of Santa Rosa Junior College co-ed, Kim Wendy Allen , when there was some sort of evidence found during the time of this suspect’s death. The only thing he couldn’t prove the suspect was the killer in spite of the circumstances as the detective told Santa Rosa Press Democrat staff writer Randi Rossmann. I was able to correspond with the staff writer, Rossmann. She had told me she would try to dig through the original news file by The Press Democrat on the Santa Rosa Hitchhiker Murders and her 1989 interview with Butch Carlstedt. On my end of things of my research, getting in contact with retired Carlstedt was proven unsuccessful, thus, not fulfilling my entire research.Undeterred, I did not allow the Sheriff’s Office from stopping me in looking further into the Santa Rosa homicides.
Not all the 49 slain females linked to be the victims of the zodiac killer in Robert Graysmith’s yellow book Zodiac are not connected. I know for a fact, Betty Marie Cloer, wasn’t an victim of the serial killer, due to the fact, the perpetrator of her murder, Philip Arthur Thompson, was apprehended years ago. Betty was sexually assaulted and this not coincide with an Zodiac m.o., besides it would’ve been obvious to trace the spermatozoa found on Betty’s bra and panties through an offensive criminal databank. Cossette Ellison, a then 15-year old missing girl , whose body was discovered in Clayton, California, had been thought to be considered a Zodiac victim by Robert Graysmith. An serial killer, Philip Hughes Jr., murdered 4 east bay women between 1970-1978 had been looked into by the Contra Costa Sheriff’s investigators as the killer of Cosette Ellison. Elaine Davis and Leona Roberts, both of Contra Costa County, we’re found murdered in 1969 were also included in Zodiac book as possible victims. The boastful slayer might of taken credit for those murders and listed both girls as his 7th and 8th victims in his December 20,1969 missive.
Not all of these cases have been officially established as anything zodiac related though some people felt he changed his modus operandi.
I feel as though a bloodthirsty experimental killer was responsible for several or more of the unsolved Santa Rosa hitchhiker Murders. This methodical slayer used implements of rope, poisoning, bullets and torture tactics to eliminate his victims. I have thought about what the killer had used as tools of death. What not the killer leave a pentagram or some ancient symbols at the recovery sites? The witchcraft symbol made of sticks and stones found at the Franz Valley Road area during the Carolyn Davis murder investigation could’ve been fixed to confuse law enforcement of any occultism involved. Butch Carlstedt dropped the satanic theory and concluded the symbol as to be an teenage prank, which supposedly a boy was shaping out the sticks and stones of an configuration of his family’s vehicle in order to show it off to his girlfriend. I am doubtful about Carlstedt if his theory even to the point of it isn’t substantial.
During the Carolyn Davis investigation, Sheriff Don Streipeke and his leading detective, Carlstedt , involved a platoon elite of sheriff deputies dispatched to area along Franz Valley Road. An surveillance team was planted near the area where three young girls had been discovered at Franz Valley Road. Camping overnight, the 10-12 deputies had staked out the area, awaiting for the perpetrator to dispose another victim. As darkness shadowed the region at the nocturnal hours, the scene would’ve been an perfect ambush should the killer(s) return. Guns drawn out of the holsters from the deputies, with their gunsights in view of the killers, ordered to surrender and placed under arrest. In the grim outcome, the sheriffs deputies would’ve been finding a dead body inside the culprits vehicle.
Due to the hesitant idea of returning to his favorite area, the killer never resurfaced to Franz Valley Road.
When the unidentified skeletal remains found several years later on July 2,1979, sheriff officers in Sonoma County initially thought “Jane Doe “ might be the remains of missing Jeanette Kamahele.Through dental charts obtained from her dentist, the results turned out negative. Jeanette Kamahele has been missing since April 25, 1972. As of March 12,2024, she has been declared still as missing. Sonoma “Jane Doe” was established to be between 16-20 years of age when unearthed. She had been stuffed inside a laundry bag. And the fact, Jane Doe was found 100 yards from where Lori Lee Kursa was found near Calistoga Road.
Internet links of these cold cases remains open to the public. These sites online for exploring and researching the texts of these Santa Rosa hitchhiker murders. Because of limited information out there on the web, some of these websites also contain semi-facts m some shoddily researched material and errors combined and not to be absorbed as complete accurate.
cuaresma44 