I'll Be Gone in the Dark(74)

PAUL HOLES: The Stockton victim I’ve been talking to, she worked for a major developer in the Central Valley. The victim did a lot of work for him. She ended up leaving his company when she got pregnant. I was showing this diagram [the “homework” evidence map] to a friend of mine who works in development. He told me, “This was done by a professional. . . . He’s drafting these symbols.” Now, this is an opinion that’s coming from a forensic expert in the construction business. So I put a lot of credence in that opinion.

MICHELLE: I think you’re right. I don’t believe this is a fantasy.

PAUL HOLES: I don’t think so. You know, you have a landscape architect from UC-Davis going, “There’s unique features in here that are only seen in Village Homes.”

MICHELLE: Oh really?

PAUL HOLES: Yes. And you’ll see this when we go out there. Village Homes is a very unusual development. So, you have the EAR going and attacking there. Could it be possible that the EAR is going to Village Homes and when he sees some of those features, he incorporates those in this diagram, for whatever he’s working on?

MICHELLE: Right. As something he would submit, along the lines of “Hey, we should do this,” or something like that?

PAUL HOLES: Yeah.





Holes arrives at the apartment complex where the first Davis attack took place.


This attack, number thirty-four, occurred at approximately three fifty a.m. on June 7, 1978—two days after the EAR’s first attack in Modesto. The victim was a twenty-one-year-old UC-Davis student who lived in a multistory apartment building, which Larry Pool would later deem a “structural anomaly”—as this was the only time the EAR was known to have targeted such a dwelling.

He entered the second-story apartment through the patio sliding glass door. He was particularly violent with this victim, punching her several times in the face after she initially resisted. While raping her, he forcefully shoved her face into the floor, leaving her with a broken nose and a concussion.

Certain factors suggest that this attack may have been more impulsive than most of the others: he was wearing a nylon stocking instead of a ski mask; the only known weapons were a nail file and a screwdriver; and the assailant appeared to be wearing his T-shirt inside out. The crime was undoubtedly an EAR attack, however, based on verbiage and the signature element of the rapist placing his penis in the victim’s bound hands and forcing her to masturbate him.

PAUL HOLES: Alright, so the first Davis one was the college girl that was attending UC-Davis. A textile major.

MICHELLE: This is the one where they thought they saw him peeling out of the parking lot?

PAUL HOLES: Yep. It was a black Camaro, or something like that. But I’m not sure that was him.

PAUL HOLES: So, this has changed. I actually lived here once myself.

MICHELLE: Oh, wow. Is this technically campus housing?

PAUL HOLES: These are off-campus dorms. I think they were different back in the seventies. This has even changed since I was here.





Holes stops and lets the car idle.

PAUL HOLES: This is all college kids. Russell Boulevard, you see all the college kids biking. So, if he’s up in Davis for any reason, I think this would be a case where he’s seeing somebody that he follows back.

MICHELLE: Oh, okay.

PAUL HOLES: He sees a girl that, for whatever reason, catches his eye, and then he figures out where she lives. I don’t think he’s prowling or burglarizing. This is atypical from his . . .

MICHELLE: Usual thing.

PAUL HOLES: Yeah.

They move on to the second location, which was the scene of attack number thirty-six. The second of three Davis strikes, it occurred around three a.m. on June 24, 1978—one day after EAR rape number thirty-five, in Modesto.

The victim was a thirty-two-year-old housewife whose husband was in bed with her. Both were bound. Also present was the couple’s ten-year-old son, whom the attacker locked in the bathroom. He rummaged through the house before returning to the female, moving her to the living room, and raping her. Prior to leaving the house, he stole seventeen rolls of pennies.

PAUL HOLES: We’re now entering Village Homes.

MICHELLE: Okay.

PAUL HOLES: All the streets are named after Lord of the Rings.

MICHELLE: Oh. Really?

PAUL HOLES: Yep. The developer, Michael Corbett, was heavily involved in Lord of the Rings.





MICHELLE: Heavily involved meaning . . .


PAUL HOLES: Well, big fan.

MICHELLE: Oh, okay. He was a nerd.

PAUL HOLES: He and his wife, Judy Corbett, are the ones that pushed this development. All these houses . . . we’re on the street, these are the backs of these houses. The fronts of the houses face a green common area. And that was to help facilitate more of the community feel. So, neighbors are coming out. They have gardens—community gardens; green spaces that are shared.

MICHELLE: So, if you were a student, you wouldn’t live here?

PAUL HOLES: Unlikely. I mean, you could, but at that time, these were new houses. Students couldn’t afford these.

Holes drives through the community looking for the home where the attack took place.

PAUL HOLES: So, our victim . . . lived in this one. Right here on the right-hand side.

MICHELLE: Hmm.

PAUL HOLES: And all of that on this side was actively being constructed at the time. So, you see the long, narrow cul-de-sacs, to which the city said, “Absolutely not.” And then the Corbetts had the fire departments bring the fire trucks out here, to show them, yes, you can turn around back here. I’ll drive around so you can kind of see some of the features of this place. Solar. All the houses were passive solar. That was big, back in the day.