The news that John Linley Frazier died in prison last week, an apparent suicide, reminded me of that long-ago era, when contiguous to the post-Woodstock, Charles Manson we-are-fami-lee millstones, Santa Cruz turned into the murderous capital of, if not the world, at least the western United States.
(Note to readers: Links will lead to some pretty disturbing stuff. Be forewarned.)
Frazier, along with his notorious counterparts Herbert Mullin and Edmund Kemper, presided over an era of darkness that engulfed Santa Cruz as the culture shifted from one of restraint to the false sense of freedom that accompanied the use of mind altering drugs and a sense of anything goes.
The three local mass murderers all were seriously disturbed/demented, and essentially terrorized the community for a year or so. The connection to the Manson family murders was made early on, as Time magazine reported back in 1970. Frazier’s killings were particularly horrific, since he targeted a local eye surgeon, Dr. Victor Ohta, and his family — in the name of environmentalism, ostensibly because the Ohtas were living in a hilltop mansion, which violated the murderer’s sense of environmental priorities. Frazier left a note behind describing himself as an avenger of the “free universe,” come to make right the “natural environment.” He also invoked the occult, signing the note with a tarot card reference — “Knight of Wands, Knight of Cups, Knight of Pentacles, Knight of Swords.”
With the Manson murders in mind, many local residents, according to news accounts, turned on local hippies, thinking this was part of an uprising far from the world of peace, love, sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll. But it was local hippies who told cops about Frazier, who had been living in a tiny shanty near the Ohtas.
The Ohta killings happened Oct. 19, 1970. In 1972, Kemper started his killing spree (his m.o. was stabbing and dismembering female hitchikers); in the same period, more bodies also began appearing, the work of yet another serial killer. A young Santa Cruz man, Herbert Mullin, was finally apprehended and charged with 13 murders. Kemper, however, remained on the loose, making visits to psychiatrists with body parts in the trunk of his car (the shrinks subsequently reported Kemper was doing well), killing his mother and taking off for a drive across the country. He was finally apprehended after calling local police from Pueblo, Colo. Kemper, who at age 15 killed his grandparents, was was convicted of eight murders and sentenced to eight concurrent life sentences.
Mullin’s lawyer said his client was hearing his father’s voice telling him to kill to stave off a major earthquake. But a jury found him guilty of murder anyway. (Former Sentinel editor Tom Honig covered the serial murder trials for the Sentinel in the early 1970s and in 2006 wrote a piece about the insanity defense and how that plays off society’s desire to be safe from homicidal maniacs.)
Both Kemper and Mullin remain behind bars. Serial killers didn’t show up again in Santa Cruz County until a few years later, but that’s another story.
Santa Cruz County historian Sandy Lydon summed up the 1970-73 period like this:
“There is a theme of violence in Santa Cruz County from the very origins of the county. The cruelty of Father Andres Quintana and the crushing of his testicles by the mission Indians and the first execution in American-occupied California in 1846 are just further examples of a deep-running strain of violence in the place.
“Beginning with slaughter of the family of Dr. Victor Ohta in the fall of 1970 by John Linley Frazier, Santa Cruz County endured a string of 27 murders over a span of 30 months, and became known as the “Murder Capital of the World.” I believe that the murders, the capture and conviction of the three men responsible brought Santa Cruz County kicking and screaming into the late 20th century.”
Which, I suppose, is one way to look at it. But thinking back on that time (and I lived here starting in 1970), I wonder what else was on the loose, in the air, unleashed in the darkness, of our community.
