Zebra murders

The Zebra murders were a number of connected murders performed by a black supremacist serial killer ring that took place in San Francisco, California in 1973 and 1974 and left 14 people dead and 7 injured. They were dubbed the Zebra Killings because of the radio channel used by the San Francisco Police ("Z") exclusively for this case.

The Death Angels

The zebra killings were the work of an extremist sect of the black nationalist group, the Nation of Islam. According to their beliefs, the white race was created by a black mad scientist named Yakub, who, some say, wanted a race of inferiors to rule over. Furthermore, the Death Angels believed that they could earn "points" towards Paradise when they died if they killed as many whites as possible. In their racist teachings, they saw the whites not as human beings, but as "blue-eyed devils" or "grafted snakes".

Prospects were selected at self-help meetings, and to gain full admission into the sect they were expected to kill either nine white men, five white women or four white children. After attaining this goal, a pair of black wings would be attached to their photograph and pinned up in an upstairs room of the self-help building. Although killing was their main intent, the death angels would often use machetes to torture victims over long periods of time and both men and women were the victims of rape.

The First Wave of Murders

On October 19, 1973 a couple, Richard and Quita Hague, who were kidnapped by a group of men and forced into a white van as they took an after-dinner stroll near their home in Telegraph Hill. Quita was nearly decapitated with a machete after being sexually molested, and Richard was similarly hacked, but miraculously survived after being left for dead.

Ten days later, on October 29, Frances Rose was repeatedly shot by a black man who asked for a ride as she was driving up to the entrance gate of the University of California at Berkeley.

On November 9, a PG&E clerk, Robert Stoekmann, was assaulted by another black man but luckily he was able to take the gun away and fire back. The black man, identified as Leroy Doctor, was later arrested and convicted of assault with a deadly weapon.

Another victim, a Jordanian Arab, Saleem "Sammy" Erekat, was not so lucky. On November 25, a tall black man pulled out a gun, took Erekat to the back of his grocery store, and shot him behind the right ear, killing him instantly.

On December 11, Paul Dancik, a 26-year old heroin addict, was shot three times in the chest by a black man while he was calling a dealer at a phone booth.

Then two days later, on the evening of December 13, future San Francisco mayor Art Agnos, then a member of the California Commission on Aging, was attending a meeting in Potrero Hill. Agnos was in the largely black neighborhood to discuss building a government-funded health clinic in the area. After the meeting ended, Agnos was talking to two women when a black man shot him twice in the back. He barely survived the attack.

During the same evening, Marietta DiGirolamo was walking along Divisadero when she was shoved into a barbershop by a black man and shot twice in the chest, once in the back when she turned around to flee. She died on the sidewalk.

On December 20, Angela Roselli, a 20-year old college student was shot three times — one bullet hit her spine — near her apartment by one of two black men. She survived.

An 81-year-old janitor, Ilario Bertuccio, was shot that same evening on his way home from work in the Bay View district. He died almost instantly after four shots to the shoulder and chest.

On December 22, two more whites died within six minutes of each other. Neal Moynihan was killed while walking near the Civic Center after doing his Christmas shopping. A black man walked in front of him and shot him in the face, neck and heart. The killer then approached Mildred Hosler as she was walking to her bus stop, and shot her four times.

The killings stopped for a few days during the Christmas holidays, then resumed with a vengeance on January 28, 1974 with four more shootings of white victims. One of them, Vincent Wollin, had celebrated his 69th birthday that day. Only one of the victims, Roxanne Macmillan, survived, although she would be confined to a wheelchair for the rest of her life.

Reaction to the Murders

The murders brought panic to the city. People would try to find safety in numbers whenever they would go out, and as much as possible, avoid going out at night. In reaction, an increased police presence was ordered throughout the city.

The police were baffled by the lack of motive in the killings. Brutality and an apparent lack of remorse on the part of the gunmen marked the attacks. The common denominator in all the killings was that all the killers were black and the victims were white (Saleem Erkat, although an Arab, was apparently mistaken for white).

Based on what was known about the shootings, there was a common pattern. The gunman walked to his victim. The victim was shot repeatedly at close range, and the killer fled on foot, in a hit-and-run shooting. Another link to the shootings was the killer's preference for a 32-caliber pistol, based on the slugs recovered from the victims and the shell casings that littered the crime scenes.

As a result, a special task force was formed to try to solve and stop the murders. It was led by Detectives Gus Coreris and John Fotinos. Police Chief Donald Scott assigned the "Z" frequency for their exclusive use. Since the letter Z is known in common phonetic use as "Zebra" they became known as the Zebra task force, and the murders became known as the Zebra murders.

The Killings Resume

On April 1, 1974, two Salvation Army cadets were walking toward Mayfair market just two blocks away from the Salvation Army School for Officers' Training Center when a black man who was following them overtook them, wheeled around, fired four shots at them, and fled. One of them, Thomas Rainwater, died; the other cadet survived. Two cops arrived at the scene within 15 seconds and although a manhunt was initiated in an effort to find the killer, it proved to be futile. They suspected that the Zebra killers had struck again because of the 32-caliber casings found on the sidewalk.

Easter Sunday, two other people were wounded while waiting for a bus.

April 16, 23-year old Nelson T. Shields IV, heir to a wealthy Du Pont executive, accompanied a friend who lived in the Ingleside district to buy a rug. They went back to the friend's house on Vernon St., and while Shields was working at the back of the station wagon they borrowed to transport the rug, he was shot repeatedly. A witness later testified that she saw a black man rushing up Vernon St. at the time of the shooting. The police again suspected that it was a Zebra murder because of the .32-caliber shell casings found at the scene.

Reaction to the Second Wave

Once again the new wave of killings brought the city to a state of shock as people took the same precautions as they had when the first wave took place.

The city also took a beating economically as tourists stayed away. Streets were deserted at night even at North Beach, a neighborhood known to have a seven-nights-a-week nightlife.

Police decided to take drastic measures. Having been given complete descriptions of the killer or killers they decided to fan out, stop and search young men who resembled the description of the killer: a black man with a short Afro and a narrow chin.

This action by the police provoked criticism from the African-American community. As a result, the operation was suspended, but not before 500 men were stopped. This suspension became permanent when U.S. District Judge Alfonso J. Zirpoli, acting on a suit sponsored by the NAACP and the ACLU, ruled the widespread profiling of African-Americans as unconstitutional.

The ruling was a blow to the SFPD, which felt crippled in their efforts to stop the Zebra killers.

As a result, they resorted to offering a $30,000 reward for information towards the arrest of the killers.

Arrest and Conviction

After seeing his face on a wanted poster for the crimes, a man named Anthony Harris, an employee at the Black Self-Help Moving and Storage in Market Street, came forward. Seeing the reward as a way of helping his family, he called the police and told them about the "Death Angels" a group of black men within the Nation of Islam, of which Harris was a member.

Harris revealed the existence of the group to the police, and told them of a homicide which did not make the papers; it was that of a homeless man who they kidnapped from Ghirardelli Square. They brought the man to Black Self Help and took turns removing his limbs and hacking him to pieces. Harris told the detectives that they dumped the body into San Francisco Bay. He told his story in such detail that the police were convinced of its veracity.

Harris provided the police with names, dates, addresses and details — enough information to issue warrants against the killers.

On May 1, simultaneous raids during the pre-dawn hours were made, resulting in the arrest of Larry Craig Green and J.C.X. Simon in an apartment building at 844 Grove Street. More were arrested at Black Self Help. None of them offered resistance when arrested.

Of the seven arrested that day, three were released for lack of evidence.

Mayor Alioto announced the news of the raids and announced that the killings were perpetrated by the Death Angels. Almost at once local black leaders denounced the arrests because of its apparent racist undertones. Black Muslim leader John Muhammad denied the allegations of a Black Muslim conspiracy to kill Caucasians.

However, there was enough evidence to prove the case against the "Death Angels". The trial started on March 3, 1975. Despite the efforts of the defense to discredit Harris, it was to no avail as Harris spilled all the grisly details over 12 days of testimony. In addition, the Zebra team presented evidence of a .32 caliber Beretta automatic pistol that was recovered from the backyard of a home near the scene of the last murder. They were able to demonstrate the chain of ownership of the gun to one of the workers of the Black Self Help. They also showed that it was used in many of the murders.

Based on the testimony of 108 witnesses (including Harris), 8000 pages totaling 3.5 million words worth of transcripts, and culminating in what was then the longest criminal trial in California history, Larry Green and J.C.X. Simon — as well as two others, Manuel Moore and Jessie Lee Cooke — were convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder after an 18-hour deliberation by the jury in 1976. Each was sentenced to life imprisonment.

While the Zebra killings were officially solved, some members of the Zebra task force suspected that up to 71 murders in California could have been the work of the same group since only four Death Angels were convicted out of a believed fifteen. Since many victims were drawn from homeless or hitchhikers there is no certainty about the actual numbers. Today the murders have been largely forgotten — even within San Francisco — despite the enormity of the crimes when they happened and the great effect they had on the city. Only one book on the subject, Zebra (1979), by Clark Howard was published, and that book is currently out of print.