Apartment in Stockton

[northernjustice]

During the first Stockton attack, the EAR apparently mentioned needing food and money for his apartment a couple of times. One of these times, he said he lived only a few blocks away and that he'd seen the victim at the store. This was a variation from his previous MO, where he mentioned having a van, living in a van down by the river (cue Chris Farley joke), and also one attack where he told the victim not to tell anyone if she had seen a van parked down the street.

Now, it's pretty well accepted around here that his varying stories about himself were lies, just like he lied about only wanting food and money in order to gain easier control of the situation. He said a number of things that were inconsistent, strange, and seemingly intended to mislead. 

But what if he wasn't lying?

Ted Bundy for example would tell potential victims that his name was Ted, all while using fake reasons to approach them. There does seem to be some thrill for creeps like this to let little bits of truth slip in along with the lies they tell. Maybe it's because it's an offshoot of their narcissistic tendencies, maybe it's thrilling to let details slip, or maybe it's not even something they deeply considered and they didn't think it would come back to bite them.

There has been some speculation from myself and others on here that the EAR may have lived in Stockton. Even though a huge concentration of the early crimes were in the Rancho Cordova / East Sacramento area, the overall geographical radius of the attacks places Stockton closer to the center given that later attacks spread out to the southwest after the incidents in Stockton.

Just for the sake of discussion, it's worth considering that maybe he did live in Stockton, even in an apartment several blocks from the attack. It's also worth considering that maybe he did have a van where he would sleep when he was prowling around the Sacramento area. He was known to wear many different masks, carry a variety of guns/weapons, and there has been suspicion that he drove several different cars. There could be a possibility that a van was one of these. It's also possible that he stole cars, given that he had no reservations doing just about anything else. We know he took a couple of victims' cars and abandoned them a little ways away. He could easily have stolen other cars to use on his scouting missions and attacks that he later abandoned and the owners and police would never have reason to believe the vehicle was used for a crime.

Does anyone know offhand where the first Stockton attack took place? I don't need a specific address, but a neighborhood or cross street would be helpful.

[batman]

I think that Stockton is EARONS home for the reasons mentioned and that following this first "out-of-Sacramento" attack there were several other attacks in equally unexplainable areas before EARONS resumed in Sacramento. My explanation is it seems like a highly spontaneous/disorganized crime near the perps home and following this mistake, tried to operate in other odd places to make it seem like Stockton was not an important consideration for the investigators looking into where he might live. He didn't want it to stand out. I seem to recall most dispatches on the matter to claim that he had travelled away from his home turf to Stockton, not the other way around.

[northernjustice]

Thanks for the info.

I'd be curious to know what apartment complexes were in the area during that time. It's probably a dead end, but could potentially be matched up with other circumstantial information.

[lepke]

Even if someone is a compulsive liar, like certain psychopaths, they also have to tell the truth sometimes, as they realise there will be situations where if they don't, they will soon be exposed as a liar, which could be disadvantageous to them.

Just like lying is a habit for them, telling the truth sometimes has to be a habit for them also, like telling the truth is most of the time for normal people, and I think it possible, that EAR/ONS may have therefore accidentally told the truth on occasions.

[Deleted]

What I can tell you from personal experience is that if EAR had lived in Lincoln Village West after the first attack he would have had to go through a police check point on either route. There were (and are) 2 ways into the area of the first attack. And LE here had them sealed off 24/7. Two non resident good looking 40 something' women bringing furniture to a client had to show photo ID to make the delivery.

[Deleted]

And one more time , IMHO, EAR never lived anywhere near his victims, put another way, not in the same jurisdiction (except for the Sac Sheriffs and maybe not then). If he had we would know who he is/was.

[playinem]

Stockton is extremely convenient to getting all over Sac, Bay Area, Central Valleys, Mountains and the Central Coastal areas. A good cyclist could literally bike from Stockton into Rancho Cordova using Grant Line Rd. in under an hour and a half. It is a sh*$#y place to live because of the riff raff, corruption and criminal element that have taken over the town which is actually a lovely inland port with access to the San Joaquin Delta, San Francisco Bay, the ports of Oakland and SF and, of course, the Pacific Ocean. It is VERY CONVENIENTLY located.

[northernjustice]

I am in agreement that in all likelihood he didn't live quite that close to his victims, though it is possible he slipped through the net somehow.

Like Lepke and I are saying, people like this will throw in a mixture of true and false information but of course we don't know if that's what the EAR was doing, or whether he was completely lying or even telling the whole truth about himself.

There was the woman who had briefly interacted with a creepy guy at the airforce club, and then the EAR told her he had seen her at the club which made her think he knew her from there. He easily could have found something at her house that indicated she was involved with the base, or he could have followed her there in his car at some point, or maybe he even did see her at the club. This wouldn't have to mean he was military, either -- with how confident he was in his tactics, he may have found some way in (depending on if they had to provide ID to enter).

All we do know is it's an overwhelming whirlwind of confusing information.

[4ws]

"We know he took a couple of victims' cars and abandoned them a little ways away. He could easily have stolen other cars to use on his scouting missions and attacks that he later abandoned and the owners and police would never have reason to believe the vehicle was used for a crime."

Ugh my recall from Sudden Terror is shaky, and I don't have a copy, but didn't the police find a stolen car at some point abandoned with a trunk full of rapist gear?

I'm definitely in the camp that believes he used alot of different cars. Maybe he ditched the van after he realized he had slipped in a little too much truth? We've discussed how easy it was back then to basically wheel and deal on cars without registering them quite a bit in other threads.

I actually think he probably did say Bonnie. And I actually think he probably wasn't fake crying. This is a disturbed individual most likely at a younger age. He probably couldn't control himself ALL the time, so maybe some truth and emotion leaked out. Granted, that probably was all gone by the time he was bashing people to death. By that time all he probably had left emotionally was rage.

[northernjustice]

I am replying to this topic again because someone claiming to be the EAR mentioned to a counseling hotline that he had been in counseling most of his life and had stayed at the Stockton State Hospital for a period. That's another Stockton connection and it's of particular interest because:

1) it wasn't stated during a criminal act, so he may have had less reason to lie about himself
2) it shows that he possibly had a history of known psychological problems going back to childhood
3) there has been a lot of speculation about what he did for a living that would have allowed him to prowl all hours of the night, and if his psychiatric needs were severe enough to warrant hospitalization, it's very possible that he received money from the government to live on.

Note that the paper they found where he writes about his early feelings of hate in 6th grade comes across VERY MUCH like the type of assignment someone in counseling would be asked to write. Rage, among other things, is a sure issue that this individual dealt with and would have been addressed in counseling. This particular assignment might have been designed to help find the source of his rage.

I know a lot of people on here have found it strange that he pinpoints some 6th grade teacher as a source for his rage, but in my experience it is very common for people with mental issues to irrationally point to a certain person or event as the source for all their problems. A very dear friend of mine has some mental issues (geez, I can't believe I'm comparing him to the EAR right now...) and he will deeply internalize seemingly insignificant interactions with people and the next thing you know he's blaming a coworker or neighbor for ruining his life for little to no reason and can't let it go. It doesn't mean that people like his have led pampered lives, either, as you'll find that it happens with people from every kind of background.

Also, to go back to his reasons for contacting the counseling hotline, he said it was because he wanted to quit attacking people, then he flew into a rage wondering if they were tracing his call. As much as we loathe this human being and believe he did all of this purely out of free will, I don't think it's out of the question that he legitimately wanted to stop, as he told both victims and this hotline, and was simply overwhelmed by his compulsions.

The possibility that he had received treatment in the past lends weight to the theory that after 1981 he sought some form of treatment that helped his problems. It may have come in the form of medication or other effective treatment. The 1986 attack may have happened because he went off of his medication or regressed for other reasons.

Like I've said before, I want to know who this guy is not for justice alone, though that's important, but because I believe we can learn immensely from this individual's strange and scary existence.

[jigisup]

Northern: My sense is that though he was an inveterate liar, EAR-ONS was not necessarily always a good liar, especially when he was under stress. We have discussed on the board that he often lied from some prepared script that he created during his crime planning. I don't think he necessarily thought through the ramifications of his lies. By analyzing what he said, today we can extract hints of truth from his falsehoods.

For example, it is thought that EAR-ONS was the man who said he had killed some people in Bakersfield and had spent time in Stockton State Hospital. If it was indeed EAR-ONS making those statements, that leads me to believe that the Central Valley contains points of reference for him. He could just as easily have said that he had killed some people in LA and had spent time in Atascadero or Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino, but he didn't. As clever as he seems to have been, he was not omniscient. In fact, I think he was only above-average in intelligence, very athletic, very disturbed and an extremely lucky young man -- who spent a lot of his early life in the Central Valley.*

Jigs

*For those who are not from California, the Central Valley is a state within a state, so to speak. It encompasses 23,000 square miles, from Redding down to Bakersfield. It includes Visalia, Fresno, Sacramento, Stockton and other communities. It has been and continues to be very agricultural and more conservative socially and politically than the rest of the state.

[northernjustice]

May 4, 2014 0:34:19 GMT jigisup said:

Northern: My sense is that though he was an inveterate liar, EAR-ONS was not necessarily always a good liar, especially when he was under stress. We have discussed on the board that he often lied from some prepared script that he created during his crime planning. I don't think he necessarily thought through the ramifications of his lies. By analyzing what he said, today we can extract hints of truth from his falsehoods.

For example, it is thought that EAR-ONS was the man who said he had killed some people in Bakersfield and had spent time in Stockton State Hospital. If it was indeed EAR-ONS making those statements, that leads me to believe that the Central Valley contains points of reference for him. He could just as easily have said that he had killed some people in LA and had spent time in Atascadero or Patton State Hospital in San Bernardino, but he didn't. As clever as he seems to have been, he was not omniscient. In fact, I think he was only above-average in intelligence, very athletic, very disturbed and an extremely lucky young man -- who spent a lot of his early life in the Central Valley.*

Jigs

*For those who are not from California, the Central Valley is a state within a state, so to speak. It encompasses 23,000 square miles, from Redding down to Bakersfield. It includes Visalia, Fresno, Sacramento, Stockton and other communities. It has been and continues to be very agricultural and more conservative socially and politically than the rest of the state.

Good post. Thanks, Jigs.

I meant to make a similar point to what you were saying about him choosing certain points of reference. While he clearly made his rounds and knew the entire region very well, it is interesting that he would mention Stockton State Hospital by name. He could just as easily have told the person on the phone that he had spent time at a psych hospital or something non-specific, but he didn't. Even his lies can shed light on his perspective.

It doesn't necessarily mean he was telling the truth about his history, but it tells us he is familiar enough with the Stockton area to mention that specific facility. I know that the old Stockton State building is now used by CSU. Apparently the EAR or someone claiming to be him wrote on a bathroom stall at CSU something about being the East Area Rapist and how he was going to rape his first black girl (which I don't think he did). I don't know which CSU campus that was, though, and I believe the Stockton State building was still used for the hospital at that time.

His aversion to the coast is also of interest. Didn't go there, didn't reference it. He hit that strip around Walnut Creek/Danville, so it wouldn't have been a huge stretch for him to hit Berkeley or even south of Oakland. Seems very clear the Central Valley was where he felt comfortable, with Stockton right in the middle of his attack radius.

[pooryorick]

Attack #38, 10/7/78, Concord:

"Approximately $4000.00 in jewelry, dishes, utensils, appliances, camera equipment, and miscellaneous items was missing. Apparently the rapist was setting up housekeeping. He was here to stay."
- Larry Crompton, Sudden Terror, p.18.

So whatever the truth of his statements during the first Stockton attack, he eventually gave proof by action. I also think he lived in a Stockton apartment, but my timings differ. It's unduly strange to me that he would be living in Stockton during the first area attack, 9/6/77, but then spend the following seven months sticking almost exclusively to Sacramento.

But what if he's a CSUS student from 1976 to Spring 1978 living back at home with parent(s) over the summers, then he leaves Sacramento permanently after Spring 1978 and gets his own apartment back in Stockton? Stealing in large volumes during the school year would have meant carting all this stuff he couldn't afford back to dad's between school years, prompting difficult-to-answer questions. But once he's truly independent it makes sense. And once he's both out of school and living independently, he can attack wherever, spreading out in a radius from Stockton to the surrounding communities and avoiding attacks in his own backyard.

[4ws]

northerjustice said:

"Note that the paper they found where he writes about his early feelings of hate in 6th grade comes across VERY MUCH like the type of assignment someone in counseling would be asked to write."

I had always been thinking this as well, but somehow never included it in a post. I am almost certain this (6th grade piece) is therapy writing.
It makes me more inclined to think his crying and the Bonnie/Mommy episode are authentic.

Throw these mental issues in with a possible genetic disorder and a possible learning disability as have been postulated here on the board, and you definitely have good ingredients for creating a monster.

[Deleted]

Apr 30, 2014 3:36:36 GMT playinem said:

Stockton is extremely convenient to getting all over Sac, Bay Area, Central Valleys, Mountains and the Central Coastal areas. A good cyclist could literally bike from Stockton into Rancho Cordova using Grant Line Rd. in under an hour and a half. It is a sh*$#y place to live because of the riff raff, corruption and criminal element that have taken over the town which is actually a lovely inland port with access to the San Joaquin Delta, San Francisco Bay, the ports of Oakland and SF and, of course, the Pacific Ocean. It is VERY CONVENIENTLY located.

The convenient location is why I stayed here. But I still think Lodi is a better bet as an EAR residence. Or any of the other communities nearby.