SSO/SBSO faulty reasoning: ONS #1 and #2 not EAR

[johnnyhands1]

I just read this article from 1980 where Santa Barbara Sheriff's Office Sgt. William Baker and SSO Lt. Ray Root argue against EAR as the culprit in the ONS #1 and ONS #2, the Offerman Manning murders.  Though SSO's Sgt. Bevins disagrees, Root's and Baker's faulty reasoning was the genesis of squashing the investigation of EAR = ONS between the two departments.

Here's the link to a PDF of the article, "Police Debate Tie Between East Area Rapist, Killings":

    www.goldenstatekiller.com/1980-03-13.pdf

SSO Lt. Ray Root: "It just doesn't seem reasonable to me that the guy could go through 40 or so rapes and maintain absolute control and then go to Santa Barbara and suddenly lose control of three different people in two different situations back to back."   (Note: Root is forgetting the final EAR attack on the couple in Danville, July 5, 1979 - which was abandoned when the man startled EAR before he started "taking control.")

Here's what's faulty:  EAR was able to maintain control over couples because by the time he was attacking couples, he had a publicly known track record in Sacramento of not killing victims who cooperated (15 highly publicized female victims-only attacks over nine months before the first couples attack, EAR #16.)   I'm assuming the ski mask and the description of the height and build of the attacker could have alerted the couple of #16 this was probably an EAR attack.  Future couples victims of EAR had increasingly more information on attacks not being fatal, if cooperative.

Contrast that with the first two ONS attacks.  In ONS #1, there was no knowledge of an attacker in the area, so those victims were left to their own deathly frightened instincts. In ONS #2,  Offerman/Manning had only this one brief (and, I'd say, buried) "Sheriff's Blotter" article in the local newspaper with three paragraphs about the the attack and escape.  Even if Offerman was aware of attack #1, he had no idea what the attacker would do since the victims escaped:

    www.goldenstatekiller.com/1979-10-10.pdf  (from the Goleta Valley News)

(I'm assuming this is the only article because, if there were other articles on ONS #1, Winters would have included them in the Library section of her site.)

We can't know if Offerman/Manning would have survived if Offerman hadn't fought back (apparently he did), but it's really apples and oranges as far as what victims of EAR vs. ONS had to go on in deciding how best to survive. As I've asked before, what about ONS #1 doesn't look like an EAR attack up to the point the victims escaped?  (Perhaps the "I'll kill 'em" mutterings.)

Even though Root says the line of communications would remain open with Santa Barbara, if Santa Barbara's end plus Sacramento's ranking officer are not believers, that probably squashed serious cooperation.

[elir]

May 23, 2021 23:02:03 GMT johnnyhands1 said:

I just read this article from 1980 where Santa Barbara Sheriff's Office Sgt. William Baker and SSO Lt. Ray Root argue against EAR as the culprit in the ONS #1 and ONS #2, the Offerman Manning murders.  Though SSO's Sgt. Bevins disagrees, Root's and Baker's faulty reasoning was the genesis of squashing the investigation of EAR = ONS between the two departments.

Here's the link to a PDF of the article, "Police Debate Tie Between East Area Rapist, Killings":

    www.goldenstatekiller.com/1980-03-13.pdf

SSO Lt. Ray Root: "It just doesn't seem reasonable to me that the guy could go through 40 or so rapes and maintain absolute control and then go to Santa Barbara and suddenly lose control of three different people in two different situations back to back."   (Note: Root is forgetting the final EAR attack on the couple in Danville, July 5, 1979 - which was abandoned when the man startled EAR before he started "taking control.")

Here's what's faulty:  EAR was able to maintain control over couples because by the time he was attacking couples, he had a publicly known track record in Sacramento of not killing victims who cooperated (15 highly publicized female victims-only attacks over nine months before the first couples attack, EAR #16.)   I'm assuming the ski mask and the description of the height and build of the attacker could have alerted the couple of #16 this was probably an EAR attack.  Future couples victims of EAR had increasingly more information on attacks not being fatal, if cooperative.

Contrast that with the first two ONS attacks.  In ONS #1, there was no knowledge of an attacker in the area, so those victims were left to their own deathly frightened instincts. In ONS #2,  Offerman/Manning had only this one brief (and, I'd say, buried) "Sheriff's Blotter" article in the local newspaper with three paragraphs about the the attack and escape.  Even if Offerman was aware of attack #1, he had no idea what the attacker would do since the victims escaped:

    www.goldenstatekiller.com/1979-10-10.pdf  (from the Goleta Valley News)

(I'm assuming this is the only article because, if there were other articles on ONS #1, Winters would have included them in the Library section of her site.)

We can't know if Offerman/Manning would have survived if Offerman hadn't fought back (apparently he did), but it's really apples and oranges as far as what victims of EAR vs. ONS had to go on in deciding how best to survive. As I've asked before, what about ONS #1 doesn't look like an EAR attack up to the point the victims escaped?  (Perhaps the "I'll kill 'em" mutterings.)

Even though Root says the line of communications would remain open with Santa Barbara, if Santa Barbara's end plus Sacramento's ranking officer are not believers, that probably squashed serious cooperation.

This is a good analysis. In particular the similarities between the aborted Danville attack and Goleta #1.
Would add that later some of the higher up officials in the SSOs office ( might have been Root) admitted that aside from not being completely convinced that EAR and ONS were the same offender , that they didn’t want to spread panic by stating the crimes were connected. Don’t have sources at hand but recall this coming out post-arrest.
It was clear that some of the detectives in SoCal and NoCal did believe there was a link, similar to the Visalia PD that unsuccessfully made their case to Sacramento that the VR =EAR. The front line staff , that had first hand knowledge of the crimes, saw the similarities but the upper echelon didn’t / wouldn’t/couldn’t go there.