Post by trabuco on May 3, 2017 6:23:44 GMT
Hi all; I'm new here, age 59. This may have been clarified elsewhere, but I'll add it here. In case anyone is looking at maps, Paseo Drive, Dolecetto Way, and Dawes are all in Rancho Cordova. R.C. is now its own city, but we were "out in the 'burbs" of Sacramento County back then. Ambassador Drive is also in R.C. but further down Coloma Rd. than Dawes and had what was considered higher-end homes than those around Paseo.
My parents, three siblings, and I lived at the corner of Paseo and a side street from 1970 onward. I moved out in '78; my parents kept the house into the 2000s.
The houses are all post-war "ranch houses" with garages that face the street. We had three bedrooms and 1 1/2 baths; that is typical of those houses. The backyards are usually fenced, and every house I visited or babysat at in the 70s had a sliding door, usually going out to a patio and backyard or an added room that took over some backyard space. A lot of homes had and have plain but amazingly lush foliage, notably shrubs and bushes up against the houses and fences. Typical: oleander, yew, philodendron, pampas grass, rose bushes. As you can see from a map, the streets curve around, and the houses' front doors don't all face each other. Paseo is a straight street coming off of Folsom Blvd. but the side streets curve. It would not be easy to see someone sneaking in or out of a backyard or even a front door if there were a wind-break barrier or shrubs blocking it. Down Malaga Way, Dolcetto and adjacent streets curve slightly, and Dawes is fairly straight with homes facing forward on one side. Mills Jr. High, Cordova High and the Cordova Rec Center are on the other side. Dawes dips down past the high school, down to "The Rec Center."
-- My younger sisters heard a rumor at their schools that during one R.C. break-in, one girl, 11 or 12 (??) jumped on the intruder's back and said something about not letting him hurt her mother. Nothing like that made The Sacramento Bee or The Sacramento Union.
-- Also, a young woman, 20s, mild-mannered and sad, spoke to a church group of women about her rape and terror. I attended that group; it was the summer or fall, 1976. She said she was sleeping on her couch in the living room, and the intruder came in through the sliding glass door. She said that all she could think of at first was that someone was playing a trick on her. She was not able to get up and run. She gave no other details.
-- Residents in the area speculated about a lot of scenarios, and some of these are detailed on sites, no doubt this one. Rancho Cordova had Mather AFB and Aerojet, just down a bit farther on Folsom Blvd. There is some speculation that the EAR was in the service or connected to Aerojet. R.C. also housed and houses a lot of county, city, state, and even federal workers. Those were other connections considered. Also, real estate came into the conjectures; there were some houses for sale near or next to the homes struck. I don't recall how many.
--Over the years, I have read sites about the EAR and the ideas that he moved, was possibly jailed, died, and so on. I also follow a lot of missing children cases. With all the touch-DNA now found on clothing, etc. in old evidence boxes, it seems that more of these horrible cases would be solved. Back in the 70s, what was tested, and what was kept?
Will close for now. All the best to everyone. A.D. at "RCFamily"