Between 1931 & 1938 there were at least 6 murders all unsolved.
They started with 10 year old Virginia Brooks who was kidnaped while she was on her way to school11 Feb 1931. Her dismembered body was found about a month later at Camp Kearny military reservation 15 miles north of San Diego by a shepherd and his border collie.
She had been strangled.
Clues:
A burlap sack containing the girl’s remains had not been at the site the day before — meaning that the killer had not only strangled the girl, he kept her body with him until dismembering it with an ax and disposing of it — along with blood-soaked four-year-old newspapers — on March 9.
The only other clues present at the crime scene were automobile tire tracks that formed a circle around Virginia’s body, and her school books, which were contained in another sack next to her body. The tread marks were never linked to any vehicle, and the books yielded no unusual fingerprints.
Here are the newspaper articles on her murder:
On the 19 Apr 1931 a partly nude body of Louise Teuber was discovered hanging from a tree. Brace your self the photo's are graphic.
She was 17 years old.
Louise had been strangled before the killer stripped her of everything except her hose and black pumps, tied a double half-hitch knot around her neck and hoisted her up in a semi-seated position so that her legs were stretched out in front of her and her buttocks were only a few inches off an army surplus blanket (could it of been from Camp Kearny?) that covered the ground. The Louise's clothes were piled neatly beside her body, leading police to wonder if the scene had not begun as a consensual encounter.
The rope around her neck had been thrown over an oak tree limb 15 feet in the air and then tied to a nearby bush.
As with Virginia’s murder, there were few useful clues. Medical examiners did find skin scrapings under her fingernails.
The next victim was found on April 23, Dolly Bibbens’s body was discovered in her flat clad in blue pajamas, a towel tied around her neck. There was evidence of a death struggle that was so violent police at first did not know if Dolly had been strangled or had her throat cut. It turned out that the killer had slashed her throat.
Huge bruises remained on Dolly’s body testifying to the severity of the fight. Injuries on one hand showed that a ring had been viciously torn from one finger, but robbery was not the motive for her murder. Other jewelry was left untouched although it was in plain sight and not taken.
Ten days after Dolly’s slaying, 22-year-old Hazel Bradshaw, a telephone operator who was the sole means of support for her parents and seven siblings, was found dead in Balboa Park. She had been stabbed nine times.
Police were able to link one of Hazel’s coworkers to the crime. Moss E. Garrison told investigators that he had been out with Hazel before she was killed. In his apartment police found a necktie with blood on it. Another friend of Hazel’s told authorities that Garrison had threatened Hazel, and Garrison could not provide an alibi for the time that police believed Hazel was slain.
Here are some crime scene photos
Garrison stood trial for Hazel’s murder, but with such flimsy evidence, he was acquitted.
Here are some newspaper articles
The murders went cold for a couple years until, 18 Aug 1934 when 16-year-old Celia Cota was found dead in her backyard. Shortly before dinner Celia had asked her mother if she could go for a walk and invited her younger sister to accompany her. The little girl declined and the Cota family never saw Celia alive again. When she was found near her home, the Mexican-American teen had been raped, mutilated, and strangled. Strange thing she had tuft of gray rabbit fur clutched in her hand.
Newspaper articles on her murder:
The newspapers changed the murderers name from the San Diego Murders to "The Coast Fiend"
The rape-murder of Ruth Muir, 48, a social worker in La Jolla. She was assaulted and murdered as she sat beneath a full moon on the beach, police said.
“The slayer crept up on the soft sod, struck her, and dragged her from the bench into a ravine,” said La Jolla Police Captain Harry Kelly.
Ruth was bludgeoned with a slab of concrete. In her hand were several gray hairs.
I found these newspaper articles on her death and it seems a man confessed years later.
In March 1938, San Diego police were confronted with yet another apparently motiveless slaying of a woman. Florilla Crolic, 67, was found beaten to death with a piano stool in her home at Sunset Beach. She was clad only in her underwear and stockings, and the house was in disarray. However, Florilla had not been sexually assaulted, nor had anything of value been stolen from her home.
Here are some newspaper articles on her murder
With the death of Florilla Crolic, the Coast Fiend slayings apparently ended although no one knows why, did the killer die, or was he locked for another crime? We may never know.
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