Were there citizen sleuths working on EAR in the 80s/90s?

[rkz]

Just a random question that popped into my head. We all know that the internet has given rise to a generation of citizen sleuths who do their own research, read obsessively about their cases, trade notes with other sleuths, etc. I'm just wondering if there was any kind of similar phenomenon happening in the pre-internet days.

For instance, Robert Graysmith obsessively investigated Zodiac before his book came out in 1986. Was there an equivalent to Graysmith re: EAR? Were there people who obsessively researched any and all info about the EAR crimes back in the 80s or early 90s, before the internet, and before DNA connected the EAR crimes to the ONS crimes? If so, who were they? Did they leave any of their literature or correspondence behind for future researchers? I would assume that they'd have to be residents of Northern California and specifically the Sac area as I doubt EAR made too big of a splash in the national or international news back then. (Did EAR make national/international news before 2001?)

One of the reasons I ask is because I'm 43 y.o. and I'd never heard of EAR or ONS before 2008. I found the A&E board shortly thereafter. The DNA evidence tying all the crimes together was discovered in 2001. I know from reading a bunch of the older articles on the old Casebook of the Bedroom Killer site that detectives in S. CA and in N. CA were still investigating things, and once in a while there'd be some small news items about the EAR series (like a "whatever happened to....?" kind of thing) between 1979 and 2001. Was the EAR series of crimes a topic of conversation in the nascent "true crime" community then (such as it was...was there even a true crime community back then?)

Back in the 80s/90s/00s I used to read every book I could find on real-life mysteries, conspiracy theories, serial killers, etc. I would have remembered if I'd seen any articles or books or news stories about the EAR series back then; I never did. It just seems like, with the benefit of hindsight, that the EAR series generated a lot of fear and panic in the Sac area in the late 70s, then people sort of forgot about it all until the DNA evidence generated a lot more curiosity about that series, helped along by the internet. And so NOW there's a community of citizen sleuths dedicated to researching EAR/ONS. But there's this enormous gulf of time separating the crimes as they happened and the rise of an obsessive community of EAR researchers.

So...was there a community of citizen researchers dedicated to collecting info on EAR in the 80s or the 90s? Was it JUST LE who were still interested in this case during that time period? Was anyone on this board researching the EAR series back then? (I'd love to be able to see what kinds of info they'd gathered if the answer is yes!)

(Note: I am not including any of the ONS series of crimes in this question because the DNA didn't tie all of this stuff together until 2001 - however, the EAR series WAS widely known in at least the area EAR attacked, thus, there is a possibility that there might have been some citizen interest in these crimes during the 1979-2001 period)

Related question: many (all?) of the archived/scanned  newspaper articles on the Casebook of the Bedroom Killer site are dead links. Does anyone have a current archive of those articles? I want to go back and read a bunch of them but I'm not sure where I can find them.

[almagata]

Hi rkz,

JJ, who created the Casebook site, Archangel, AKwilks, Sandia, Portoflieth and Guessting are the old researchers that I first read about years ago when I first started following this case. I saved some of the stuff off of JJs site but it is not the complete information. I checked Wayback Machine to see if it was archived there and they have stats but the page view is not displaying.

There was a man named Don Richard who is mentioned in a 1983 newspaper article.  He was an instructor at Sac City College - Criminal Justice - and he was working on an EAR  book. He submitted a 65 page document to the SSD and Sac DA on the case.  It would be interesting to know if that document is still around.  I tried to track Don Richard down a couple of years ago and with such a common name, I was never sure if I found the right one.  

Attachments:

[MJP]

Mar 30, 2018 3:55:03 GMT almagata said:

Hi rkz,

JJ, who created the Casebook site, Archangel, AKwilks, Sandia, Portoflieth and Guessting are the old researchers that I first read about years ago when I first started following this case. I saved some of the stuff off of JJs site but it is not the complete information. I checked Wayback Machine to see if it was archived there and they have stats but the page view is not displaying.

There was a man named Don Richard who is mentioned in a 1983 newspaper article.  He was an instructor at Sac City College - Criminal Justice - and he was working on an EAR  book. He submitted a 65 page document to the SSD and Sac DA on the case.  It would be interesting to know if that document is still around.  I tried to track Don Richard down a couple of years ago and with such a common name, I was never sure if I found the right one.  

If my memory is correct, Don - who went on to work for the DOJ - died late 90s/early 00s (?)

I think Arch and Port have copies of Don's synopsis.

[almagata]

I thought it likely that he had passed away but I did not find anything to prove it.

If Port has a copy, it would be interesting to see it. His summary would at least be with the clarity of current events and not looking back through the murk of 40 years.

[Deleted]

I would love to read the synopsis by Don Richard. I bet there is a ton of info in there . Very interesting.

[Deleted]

Mar 30, 2018 3:55:03 GMT almagata said:

Hi rkz,

JJ, who created the Casebook site, Archangel, AKwilks, Sandia, Portoflieth and Guessting are the old researchers that I first read about years ago when I first started following this case. I saved some of the stuff off of JJs site but it is not the complete information. I checked Wayback Machine to see if it was archived there and they have stats but the page view is not displaying.

There was a man named Don Richard who is mentioned in a 1983 newspaper article.  He was an instructor at Sac City College - Criminal Justice - and he was working on an EAR  book. He submitted a 65 page document to the SSD and Sac DA on the case.  It would be interesting to know if that document is still around.  I tried to track Don Richard down a couple of years ago and with such a common name, I was never sure if I found the right one.  

He must’ve abandoned that book idea bc there’s nothing on the subject by an author of that name, nor written in the 80s. 

[rkz]

Thanks for the answers, everyone....I would still love to get my hands on some of the original research done on this case before 2001. For whatever reason, I feel like if investigators and citizens can re-evaluate some of the original findings and original literature written closer to the actual crimes, there might be some kind of Eureka information in there.

[cherylh]

I remember hearing about EAR in the early 80s from coworkers who were from the area.

I learned about ONS in the 90s.

Both came up in discussions of serial criminals.

I remember reading an article in the 90s that was looking back at the EAR crimes and discussed the current state of the investigation.

I think there have always been a few scattered people looking at both series, but it got kicked into a higher gear after 2001. Even then, however, lots of people who were interested in crime didn't know about the cases until much later. I remember in 2008 talking to a person who followed serial crimes cases, and he'd never heard of EAR/ONS.

Some of the earliest research on the cases might contain evidence that has been since overlooked. Didn't Michelle MacNamara get a lot of material from the Orange County cases? I assume her researchers have been through most of it by now.

[rkz]

All of these answers were fascinating! I sure would love to get my hands on any EAR literature from the 80s or 90s. I'm wondering if JJD's name ever came up EVER. PRobably not, but it would be interesting to see what conclusions researchers back in the 80s reached about his identity.

[rkz]

Mar 30, 2018 10:25:30 GMT MJP said:

Mar 30, 2018 3:55:03 GMT almagata said:

Hi rkz,

JJ, who created the Casebook site, Archangel, AKwilks, Sandia, Portoflieth and Guessting are the old researchers that I first read about years ago when I first started following this case. I saved some of the stuff off of JJs site but it is not the complete information. I checked Wayback Machine to see if it was archived there and they have stats but the page view is not displaying.

There was a man named Don Richard who is mentioned in a 1983 newspaper article.  He was an instructor at Sac City College - Criminal Justice - and he was working on an EAR  book. He submitted a 65 page document to the SSD and Sac DA on the case.  It would be interesting to know if that document is still around.  I tried to track Don Richard down a couple of years ago and with such a common name, I was never sure if I found the right one.  

If my memory is correct, Don - who went on to work for the DOJ - died late 90s/early 00s (?)

I think Arch and Port have copies of Don's synopsis.

Is there any chance that either of them could post or PM me Don Richard's synopsis? I would really love to see what's in there.

[goldcountry]

What do we know about the EAR "vigilante" patrols armed with CBs?

[rkz]

Jun 10, 2018 23:25:24 GMT goldcountry said:

What do we know about the EAR "vigilante" patrols armed with CBs?

Only what I've read in one or two of the books written about EAR. I wish we knew more about everything that happened during this whole time.

[fasterpussycat]

Jun 25, 2018 19:37:59 GMT rkz said:

Jun 10, 2018 23:25:24 GMT goldcountry said:

What do we know about the EAR "vigilante" patrols armed with CBs?

Only what I've read in one or two of the books written about EAR. I wish we knew more about everything that happened during this whole time.

Something tells me it was reminiscent of that scene in “Jaws” were everyone with a boat and a shotgun was going out on the water to get that shark, and likely a greater danger to themselves and others than they ever were to EARs.