My thoughts and theories, by Stanley
Jan 22, 2015 21:10:24 GMT
portofleith, albion, and 10 more like this
Post by stanley on Jan 22, 2015 21:10:24 GMT
Hello all. I originally posted the below on the AETV board about a year ago. I recently read Shelby’s book which has had me thinking about this case more recently. I decided to repost this to keep it in circulation. Feel free to ignore it if you don’t think it’s helpful.
A little about me: I currently work in the law enforcement field. I don’t claim to bring any real expertise, however, as I have never dealt with a case even remotely resembling EAR/ONS. However, I am familiar with modern law enforcement techniques, some of which sadly appear to have been developed after EAR/ONS disappeared. This is not meant to criticize the investigators who worked on the case. No doubt they gave their heart and souls in what was ultimately a fruitless endeavor. In fact, at the very least, it seems that we have learned from their mistakes. I am confident that it would be next to impossible for EAR/ONS (or similar criminal) to operate in the same way today as he did back then. Or at least not operate anywhere near as profligately.
With that in mind here are my observations:
1. The most striking feature of this case is this guy’s ability to get inside houses undetected. In fact, it’s astonishing. And frightening. He achieved a level of skill in his chosen discipline (burglary) that rivals the level of skill exhibited by athletes or other professionals operating at the top of their profession. (Think triple crown winning hitters or MVP winning quarterbacks.) I’m certain that June 18, 1976 was not the first time he broke into a house. He had to have had a LOT of burglary practice before he began his raping spree. And not just burglary practice but silent burglary practice. It’s one thing to kick in a back door when no one is home. It’s another to get inside a house silently and unobserved. He was able to detect and exploit individual vulnerabilities particular to each house with ease. More on this below.
2. During the height of his sprees, this guy had to have spent a LOT of time prowling. I figure at least 2 nights prowling for every deliberate attack and probably closer to 3 or 4 nights prowling for every deliberate attack. (1 or 2 nights finding a target and 1 or 2 nights observing that particular target.) In fact at times, he had to have been out EVERY SINGLE night. (See 10/76, 2-3/77, 5/77, etc.) Because of this I think it unlikely that he led a normal family life or even had a normal relationship with a female. In fact I’ve come to the conclusion that at least for the second half of 1976, all of 1977 (except the summer) and all of 1978, Prowling, burglarizing, and raping WAS his job. He took just enough money and jewelry to sustain himself. He seems to eat every time he’s in a victim’s home. Why? Because he’s hungry. With the amount he was out at night, I don’t think he could have held a regular daytime job. At least not with any consistency. I think that he’s out every night, from maybe a couple of hours after dusk until just before dawn. He goes home and sleeps during the morning. He spends his afternoon doing daytime scouting (probably from a vehicle). Because of all this I think he was the ultimate loner. He lived in the cheapest apartment he could find. When he was short of cash to pay rent he may have done day labor. Or more likely, he did straight burglaries in which he took things of value. He would pawn these valuables in cities other than Sacramento. These burglaries would have looked “normal” and would not have been connected to EAR/ONS. One other possibility is that he lived with his mother (as many have suspected.) If so, he probably told her that he had a night time job. She was probably all too trusting (or deliberately ignorant) and believed his story. Unlike a wife, for example, she wouldn’t have demanded to see a paycheck. This whole equation probably changed by the time he started killing in SOCAL. His family, occupation, and living situation was probably different by late 1979. See below.
3. Many have speculated that he was in the military. I spent several years in military before going into my current profession, and I can tell you that during the height of his spree, there is no way he was on active duty. No simple way. If he was on active duty in June 1976 he was kicked out shortly thereafter. No way he could have lived the lifestyle I described above in paragraph 2 and been on active duty. Just not compatible. However, it is possible he spent some time in the military prior to June 1976. Or was in the reserves.
4. His attacks seem to fall into two broad categories that I label pre-planned (or deliberate) and targets of opportunities.
5. Deliberate attacks. This was EAR’s bread and butter. He scouts a neighborhood ahead of time. Both at day and at night. He finds particular houses and victims he’s interested in. He scouts those locations both inside and out. He attacks. At first he targeted females alone. Later he targets couples. Many have been puzzled by his habit of leaving gates open. I think this was his way of marking a neighborhood. At night in the dark the houses and yards tend to run together. So when he is interested in a particular house he leaves a gate open. When he drives through the neighborhood the next day he can see exactly where he had been the night before. This isn’t a foolproof method, however, as an observant homeowner might close the gate the next morning before EAR had a chance to drive through the neighborhood. We know that EAR probably hit the wrong house on at least one occasion. A lot of times, a couple of weeks will pass between when EAR identifies a potential target on a scout and when he focuses in on the target to plan for attack. What follows is a speculative timeline of a typical EAR deliberate attack: Day one: EAR is prowling a neighborhood. In all likelihood he is focusing his prowl on a particular target that he will hit in a couple of days. During the prowl, he identifies another potential target. He leaves the gate open on this new potential target. Day 2: he drives through the neighborhood and sees the open gate. Gets the address. Looks up the phone number for the house. Days 3-10 or so: starts making hang up phone calls. He uses this method to identify the number and kind of people living in the house. Whether a younger female of his liking lives there. He establishes who was in the house and when. Also during this timeframe he may pass the house on his nightly prowl, but isn’t particularly focused at first. By Day 11 or so, knowing more about who lives there he begins to focus his prowl on this target house. He identifies points of entry and what is locked or unlocked. He probably enters the home when no one is there, looking for weapons, staging ligatures, etc. By day 14 or so he is ready for the attack. With all this going on, EAR is no doubt stalking several homes at once. They are all in different stages of his cycle. I feel that he divided his nightly prowls into focused scouting of upcoming targets, and more general prowls for new targets. With all this going on he’d had to have kept copious notes to keep things straight. By the, end he probably had several notebooks full. Today he’d probably use a computer, but back then it had to have been by hand.
6. Targets of opportunity: I believe that EAR’s real turn on was teenage girls. It appears that the only time he broke his script to attack was when he saw a young girl and couldn’t resist. He’s out on a nightly prowl and sees a teenager playing piano. Or carrying clothes to her car. He couldn’t resist. Janelle Cruz probably fit into this category.
7. I feel strongly that EAR’s name came up at some point in the investigation. Reading ST is painful because the original investigators seemed way too willing to rely on their “gut”. They were too willing to eliminate suspects based off nothing but their gut, and not more scientific methods. I’m also troubled by how investigators would eliminate a suspect simply because he was slightly outside the accepted profile. When it comes to heights and weights witnesses are invariably unreliable. I would expect them to be almost completely unreliable in the EAR case, because the victims were all under extreme stress and they all saw him shortly after being woken up in the dark. Those conditions don’t make for reliable observation. So I think it’s entirely possible that the EAR may have been a little larger than most think. Was he 6-5? No. But he could have been 6-0 or even 6-1. I definitely wouldn’t eliminate someone simply because he fell a little outside the common EAR height/weight profile. Please don’t take this as a criticism of the original investigators. Back in those days before the advent of many of our modern tools, cops had little else to rely on than their gut. Tragic.
8. To me the most compelling thing that makes me think that EAR was the VR is the fact that I mentioned above—EAR had to have a LOT of time to practice his burglary skills. The shear volume of burglaries in the VR case lends itself to this pattern. The most troublesome thing about the VR case is the round face composite. This sketch, to me, looks nothing like the later EAR/Maggiore sketches. If it is the same guy, one possible explanation: shortly after the Mcgowan incident he enters the military and goes to boot camp, a place that can lend itself to rapid weight loss. If he made it through, he didn’t make it very far past boot camp and by June 1976 he was out of the military.
9. One possible avenue of investigation is EAR’s access to a seeming large variety of cars. He may have been associated with a used car lot in some way. He also may have frequently traded in.
10. So what happened to EAR? I think the most likely possibility is that he killed invading someone’s home. He may have moved on to new turf, even a new state, when this happened and therefore it was never connected to EAR. The shear volume of burglaries this guy made means that sooner or later his luck was bound to run out. Unfortunately for many victims, it was later. But one night this guy chose the wrong house and ran into a homeowner who was armed, awake, and prepared. Good night. The case was open and shut for the cops and therefore was soon forgotten. A second possibility is that he was caught while attempting one of his crimes in another jurisdiction/state and went to prison for a number of years. By the time he emerged he changed his MO (everyone seems to agree on his intelligence) and continued his killing. Another possibility is that his family circumstance changed and this caused his level of activity to drop off. A married man couldn’t spend as much time out at night. Or at least be married for very long. I don’t think this scenario is likely however. If he did get married, he continued his career but maybe changed his MO and none of his later crimes have been connected. (he no longer left DNA behind in obvious manners). A good example of this is Denis Rader, who deliberately changed his MO later in life. EAR also probably stopped hitting couples as he aged. Denis Rader talked about having to be more careful when he got older because he wouldn’t be able to handle a male victim who fought. Of EAR’s last 9 attacks he appears to have lost control of the male in 4 of them. Danville/Goleta 1/Offerman/Sanchez. 2 of the others were female only attacks. Perhaps he was older than most thought and was already losing his game. Another factor is that the astonishing skill at burglarizing I discussed in paragraph 1 above is a perishable skill. Meaning that if he’s not out regularly practicing it, his skill level will decline. That may be why was caught or killed sometime after 1986.
11. So to sum up my confused rambling in the above paragraph what I think happened to EAR in descending order of probability:
a. He was killed attempting a break in. This was probably in a different state (I would look to the NW first, as EAR definitely likes foliage, at least judging by the pictures of the neighborhoods he frequented). He was probably killed because he got unlucky and his burglary skills were degraded.
b. Same as above, except he was caught and imprisoned.
c. His life circumstances changed and his crimes diminished after first changing his MO. He is probably still offending somewhere, but under a different MO and on a much reduced basis. (years between attacks)
Well that’s it. Thank you for allowing me to post this.
A little about me: I currently work in the law enforcement field. I don’t claim to bring any real expertise, however, as I have never dealt with a case even remotely resembling EAR/ONS. However, I am familiar with modern law enforcement techniques, some of which sadly appear to have been developed after EAR/ONS disappeared. This is not meant to criticize the investigators who worked on the case. No doubt they gave their heart and souls in what was ultimately a fruitless endeavor. In fact, at the very least, it seems that we have learned from their mistakes. I am confident that it would be next to impossible for EAR/ONS (or similar criminal) to operate in the same way today as he did back then. Or at least not operate anywhere near as profligately.
With that in mind here are my observations:
1. The most striking feature of this case is this guy’s ability to get inside houses undetected. In fact, it’s astonishing. And frightening. He achieved a level of skill in his chosen discipline (burglary) that rivals the level of skill exhibited by athletes or other professionals operating at the top of their profession. (Think triple crown winning hitters or MVP winning quarterbacks.) I’m certain that June 18, 1976 was not the first time he broke into a house. He had to have had a LOT of burglary practice before he began his raping spree. And not just burglary practice but silent burglary practice. It’s one thing to kick in a back door when no one is home. It’s another to get inside a house silently and unobserved. He was able to detect and exploit individual vulnerabilities particular to each house with ease. More on this below.
2. During the height of his sprees, this guy had to have spent a LOT of time prowling. I figure at least 2 nights prowling for every deliberate attack and probably closer to 3 or 4 nights prowling for every deliberate attack. (1 or 2 nights finding a target and 1 or 2 nights observing that particular target.) In fact at times, he had to have been out EVERY SINGLE night. (See 10/76, 2-3/77, 5/77, etc.) Because of this I think it unlikely that he led a normal family life or even had a normal relationship with a female. In fact I’ve come to the conclusion that at least for the second half of 1976, all of 1977 (except the summer) and all of 1978, Prowling, burglarizing, and raping WAS his job. He took just enough money and jewelry to sustain himself. He seems to eat every time he’s in a victim’s home. Why? Because he’s hungry. With the amount he was out at night, I don’t think he could have held a regular daytime job. At least not with any consistency. I think that he’s out every night, from maybe a couple of hours after dusk until just before dawn. He goes home and sleeps during the morning. He spends his afternoon doing daytime scouting (probably from a vehicle). Because of all this I think he was the ultimate loner. He lived in the cheapest apartment he could find. When he was short of cash to pay rent he may have done day labor. Or more likely, he did straight burglaries in which he took things of value. He would pawn these valuables in cities other than Sacramento. These burglaries would have looked “normal” and would not have been connected to EAR/ONS. One other possibility is that he lived with his mother (as many have suspected.) If so, he probably told her that he had a night time job. She was probably all too trusting (or deliberately ignorant) and believed his story. Unlike a wife, for example, she wouldn’t have demanded to see a paycheck. This whole equation probably changed by the time he started killing in SOCAL. His family, occupation, and living situation was probably different by late 1979. See below.
3. Many have speculated that he was in the military. I spent several years in military before going into my current profession, and I can tell you that during the height of his spree, there is no way he was on active duty. No simple way. If he was on active duty in June 1976 he was kicked out shortly thereafter. No way he could have lived the lifestyle I described above in paragraph 2 and been on active duty. Just not compatible. However, it is possible he spent some time in the military prior to June 1976. Or was in the reserves.
4. His attacks seem to fall into two broad categories that I label pre-planned (or deliberate) and targets of opportunities.
5. Deliberate attacks. This was EAR’s bread and butter. He scouts a neighborhood ahead of time. Both at day and at night. He finds particular houses and victims he’s interested in. He scouts those locations both inside and out. He attacks. At first he targeted females alone. Later he targets couples. Many have been puzzled by his habit of leaving gates open. I think this was his way of marking a neighborhood. At night in the dark the houses and yards tend to run together. So when he is interested in a particular house he leaves a gate open. When he drives through the neighborhood the next day he can see exactly where he had been the night before. This isn’t a foolproof method, however, as an observant homeowner might close the gate the next morning before EAR had a chance to drive through the neighborhood. We know that EAR probably hit the wrong house on at least one occasion. A lot of times, a couple of weeks will pass between when EAR identifies a potential target on a scout and when he focuses in on the target to plan for attack. What follows is a speculative timeline of a typical EAR deliberate attack: Day one: EAR is prowling a neighborhood. In all likelihood he is focusing his prowl on a particular target that he will hit in a couple of days. During the prowl, he identifies another potential target. He leaves the gate open on this new potential target. Day 2: he drives through the neighborhood and sees the open gate. Gets the address. Looks up the phone number for the house. Days 3-10 or so: starts making hang up phone calls. He uses this method to identify the number and kind of people living in the house. Whether a younger female of his liking lives there. He establishes who was in the house and when. Also during this timeframe he may pass the house on his nightly prowl, but isn’t particularly focused at first. By Day 11 or so, knowing more about who lives there he begins to focus his prowl on this target house. He identifies points of entry and what is locked or unlocked. He probably enters the home when no one is there, looking for weapons, staging ligatures, etc. By day 14 or so he is ready for the attack. With all this going on, EAR is no doubt stalking several homes at once. They are all in different stages of his cycle. I feel that he divided his nightly prowls into focused scouting of upcoming targets, and more general prowls for new targets. With all this going on he’d had to have kept copious notes to keep things straight. By the, end he probably had several notebooks full. Today he’d probably use a computer, but back then it had to have been by hand.
6. Targets of opportunity: I believe that EAR’s real turn on was teenage girls. It appears that the only time he broke his script to attack was when he saw a young girl and couldn’t resist. He’s out on a nightly prowl and sees a teenager playing piano. Or carrying clothes to her car. He couldn’t resist. Janelle Cruz probably fit into this category.
7. I feel strongly that EAR’s name came up at some point in the investigation. Reading ST is painful because the original investigators seemed way too willing to rely on their “gut”. They were too willing to eliminate suspects based off nothing but their gut, and not more scientific methods. I’m also troubled by how investigators would eliminate a suspect simply because he was slightly outside the accepted profile. When it comes to heights and weights witnesses are invariably unreliable. I would expect them to be almost completely unreliable in the EAR case, because the victims were all under extreme stress and they all saw him shortly after being woken up in the dark. Those conditions don’t make for reliable observation. So I think it’s entirely possible that the EAR may have been a little larger than most think. Was he 6-5? No. But he could have been 6-0 or even 6-1. I definitely wouldn’t eliminate someone simply because he fell a little outside the common EAR height/weight profile. Please don’t take this as a criticism of the original investigators. Back in those days before the advent of many of our modern tools, cops had little else to rely on than their gut. Tragic.
8. To me the most compelling thing that makes me think that EAR was the VR is the fact that I mentioned above—EAR had to have a LOT of time to practice his burglary skills. The shear volume of burglaries in the VR case lends itself to this pattern. The most troublesome thing about the VR case is the round face composite. This sketch, to me, looks nothing like the later EAR/Maggiore sketches. If it is the same guy, one possible explanation: shortly after the Mcgowan incident he enters the military and goes to boot camp, a place that can lend itself to rapid weight loss. If he made it through, he didn’t make it very far past boot camp and by June 1976 he was out of the military.
9. One possible avenue of investigation is EAR’s access to a seeming large variety of cars. He may have been associated with a used car lot in some way. He also may have frequently traded in.
10. So what happened to EAR? I think the most likely possibility is that he killed invading someone’s home. He may have moved on to new turf, even a new state, when this happened and therefore it was never connected to EAR. The shear volume of burglaries this guy made means that sooner or later his luck was bound to run out. Unfortunately for many victims, it was later. But one night this guy chose the wrong house and ran into a homeowner who was armed, awake, and prepared. Good night. The case was open and shut for the cops and therefore was soon forgotten. A second possibility is that he was caught while attempting one of his crimes in another jurisdiction/state and went to prison for a number of years. By the time he emerged he changed his MO (everyone seems to agree on his intelligence) and continued his killing. Another possibility is that his family circumstance changed and this caused his level of activity to drop off. A married man couldn’t spend as much time out at night. Or at least be married for very long. I don’t think this scenario is likely however. If he did get married, he continued his career but maybe changed his MO and none of his later crimes have been connected. (he no longer left DNA behind in obvious manners). A good example of this is Denis Rader, who deliberately changed his MO later in life. EAR also probably stopped hitting couples as he aged. Denis Rader talked about having to be more careful when he got older because he wouldn’t be able to handle a male victim who fought. Of EAR’s last 9 attacks he appears to have lost control of the male in 4 of them. Danville/Goleta 1/Offerman/Sanchez. 2 of the others were female only attacks. Perhaps he was older than most thought and was already losing his game. Another factor is that the astonishing skill at burglarizing I discussed in paragraph 1 above is a perishable skill. Meaning that if he’s not out regularly practicing it, his skill level will decline. That may be why was caught or killed sometime after 1986.
11. So to sum up my confused rambling in the above paragraph what I think happened to EAR in descending order of probability:
a. He was killed attempting a break in. This was probably in a different state (I would look to the NW first, as EAR definitely likes foliage, at least judging by the pictures of the neighborhoods he frequented). He was probably killed because he got unlucky and his burglary skills were degraded.
b. Same as above, except he was caught and imprisoned.
c. His life circumstances changed and his crimes diminished after first changing his MO. He is probably still offending somewhere, but under a different MO and on a much reduced basis. (years between attacks)
Well that’s it. Thank you for allowing me to post this.