Post by justguessing on Sept 10, 2014 11:38:41 GMT
Does anyone else see common threads of locations?
Ever since I found out about this criminal, I keep thinking about what the locations of the crimes were like back in those days.
Most of the cities where the crimes took place are well-developed suburbs and small cities now. However, in the 70's and 80's, places like San Ramon and the suburbs of Sacramento were still exurban or semi-rural. Not so familiar with Goleta or Irvine, but those cities were much smaller than they were today as well with green belts and orchards near housing developments. The population growth rates were over 100% or more in a lot of these places during that time.
I grew up in a Valley city where a couple of attacks took place, though in the 80's after he had moved to Southern CA. What I remember from the 80's is that most of the people to the Valley areas were newcomers. People really didn't know their neighbors at first because we were all from elsewhere, but eventually people got to know each other because the communities were so small. We used to play in orchards and fields, crossing empty lots to traverse the neighborhoods since few fences existed yet. New neighborhoods and developments were going up all the time just on the edge of the city. New people moving in all the time - mostly families. Workers building houses and shopping centers. People didn't lock their doors. I remember a lot of break-ins and prowlers being reported. Author Ginger Strand discusses some details about this time in her book "Killer on the Road" mostly in chapter 4 www.amazon.com/Killer-Road-Violence-Interstate-Discovering/dp/0292726376.
This was the perfect environment for EAR/ONS to prey. You had a lot of activity in these cities that was very normal for the time - construction, new people moving in, workers coming in to build. A guy prowling around could have been a construction worker or gas linesman, or just someone lost trying to find his relatives' new house (pre-GPS world). No one would have noticed a stranger since in the beginning, everyone was a stranger in these new cities, a stranger would fit right in. He very astutely picked up on this, choosing the perfect time in the evolution of these places to strike. Real communities hadn't been established in a lot of these areas yet. No attacks (that we know of) in major urban areas or rural areas where communities tend to be closer knit.
I think that they key to unlocking this puzzle is understanding the history of CA suburban and exurban population growth of the 70's and 80's. How did the dynamics of this time create the environment for these crimes to happen? What attracted him to these areas other than easy prey?
Ever since I found out about this criminal, I keep thinking about what the locations of the crimes were like back in those days.
Most of the cities where the crimes took place are well-developed suburbs and small cities now. However, in the 70's and 80's, places like San Ramon and the suburbs of Sacramento were still exurban or semi-rural. Not so familiar with Goleta or Irvine, but those cities were much smaller than they were today as well with green belts and orchards near housing developments. The population growth rates were over 100% or more in a lot of these places during that time.
I grew up in a Valley city where a couple of attacks took place, though in the 80's after he had moved to Southern CA. What I remember from the 80's is that most of the people to the Valley areas were newcomers. People really didn't know their neighbors at first because we were all from elsewhere, but eventually people got to know each other because the communities were so small. We used to play in orchards and fields, crossing empty lots to traverse the neighborhoods since few fences existed yet. New neighborhoods and developments were going up all the time just on the edge of the city. New people moving in all the time - mostly families. Workers building houses and shopping centers. People didn't lock their doors. I remember a lot of break-ins and prowlers being reported. Author Ginger Strand discusses some details about this time in her book "Killer on the Road" mostly in chapter 4 www.amazon.com/Killer-Road-Violence-Interstate-Discovering/dp/0292726376.
This was the perfect environment for EAR/ONS to prey. You had a lot of activity in these cities that was very normal for the time - construction, new people moving in, workers coming in to build. A guy prowling around could have been a construction worker or gas linesman, or just someone lost trying to find his relatives' new house (pre-GPS world). No one would have noticed a stranger since in the beginning, everyone was a stranger in these new cities, a stranger would fit right in. He very astutely picked up on this, choosing the perfect time in the evolution of these places to strike. Real communities hadn't been established in a lot of these areas yet. No attacks (that we know of) in major urban areas or rural areas where communities tend to be closer knit.
I think that they key to unlocking this puzzle is understanding the history of CA suburban and exurban population growth of the 70's and 80's. How did the dynamics of this time create the environment for these crimes to happen? What attracted him to these areas other than easy prey?
